No, I'm not being unduly harsh with her. (Oh, and by the way, speaking as somebody who has taught at the college level, I find that I have great difficulty believing that she ever has, herself, her claims to be a college instructor notwithstanding. I think that she is bluffing). The use of rhetorical evasiveness that we are seeing out of Leah, this refusal to ever let herself "be pinned down as to what she is saying", is one that is not greeted gently in the academic world that she pretends to be part of, and with good reason.

To allow it is, in effect, to reward the person for using such tactics, by granting her the effective right to choose who may or may not provide her with a counterargument, retroactively. One may well ask why the rest of us should be so cooperative as to agree to this. The only remedy, were we to do so, would be for those arguing with her points to be as vague as she is, when making their rebuttals. Such a remedy does not serve the cause of clear communication or, when others are listening, clear thought.

The rules that define what is normally to be considered proper conduct in a discussion must always serve one cause above all others. When, as a general rule, they are followed, they must create an environment in which the course of discussion tends to lead in the direction of the truth, even when those taking part in it don't initially know what the truth is, or hold erroneous views regarding it. When rules are adopted which favor those willing to resort to deliberate vagueness as a tactic, the reverse will occur, and learning will be the last thing that happens. Therefore, the traditional understanding (on these matters) of the educated classes of this civilization, as opposed to the set of petty concerns of "ettiquette" with which the infamous "common man" has historically been obsessed, is the only valid one.

To make her meaning clear is the responsibility of the writer and nobody else. If she should be vague, it is the right of those responding to her to "read between the lines" (as those who might respond favorably to her arguments almost certainly will) and credit her with that interpretation of her remarks which a good understanding of plain English (as opposed to the trendy Newspeak of Political Correctness and other recent fads) would suggest. What is relevant is not what is in her thoughts, because claims regarding that can't be disproved and the dishonest will seldom be forthcoming about that. (Renee will suggest, later on, that there is nothing wrong with manipulating others). What is relevant is the sum total of the words that are out there. The writer may post a clarification if she wishes, but what she said is what she said, and if she elects not to take responsibility for that, the rest of us should hold her responsible for it, as we evaluate our reactions to her position.

Some may speak of "gentleness", out of concern for the "feelings" of another. This may be appropriate, but only up to a point. A student, struggling to achieve in an area in which she is uncertain of herself, having not yet proved her abilities, even to herself, deserves our help and support. But real life is not, and can not be anything like school, even if one's real life career should be in academia. School is a structured environment in which skills already in the possession of the faculty are passed down by means of the guidance provided to the students. But for this to be possible, those skills and that knowledge imparted must arise and be maintained. To imagine that these things may be accomplished in the nurturing environment of the classroom is to be as the blurry-eyed newborn infant who imagines, as his mother holds him up, that somebody must be holding her up as well.

The problem with the classroom is that students sometimes lose sight of the fact that much of their work is being done for them, by the mere fact of the maintenance of that structured environment. But, somebody must do that work, and as he does so, he must do so outside of the embrace of the system he and his colleagues must continuously build (if it is not to crumble), much as the young mother holding her child must bear the weight of both, if both are not to fall. Given this, the same expectations can't apply. As we seek the greater authority of the full adult, we must accept the greater responsibilities for otherwise, the work needed to create such environments as the one we would be implicitly counting on the presence of, won't get done. The disgrace of postmodernism is that it allows the citizenry to forget this, leaving it to wander off into a fantasy world in which nonsense works as well as truth, and the freshmen stand on an equal footing with the professors.

(Such, also, points to an excellent reason to scorn the values of the "common man" of American populist politics, ie. a member of "the great unwashed". He is still a child and hasn't bothered to notice this fact. His opinions are manufactured for him by the most questionable of 'authorities'. His life choices are made for the sake of conformity, in a socially engineered environment crafted in order to channel the choices of the majority in a direction that a manipulative few care for. The "ettiquette" which he accepts as his own, in place of common sense notions of civility, is nothing more than an arbitrary set of rules, created with no overt justification, which, when obeyed, are marvelously effective in stifling any real questioning of the status quo. Yet, our "common man" chooses to accept the very rules that make him so easy to manipulate, loudly demanding that others do likewise, disrupting any sensible discussion taking place in his vicinity in the process.

In a genuinely free society, those very discussions are the means through which the popular consenses arise, which mold public policy and learning on the various levels of society. All recite some variation on this truth in middle school civics, and yet our "common man" willfully forgets it by the time high school comes along, becoming a powerful force working to the detriment of his own society, forcing a lethally overworked few to perpetually scramble to guide him and his herd into a willingness to listen, however briefly, before they do some real damage. Again. And again. And again.

Yet, having refused to grow up and shoulder the rightful burdens of a citizen of a republic, he demands to be shown the respect due to an adult, even as he expects to enjoy such nurturing as is only appropriate for a child. He expects to have his thoughts taken seriously, without any need on his part to do the hard work of actually thinking. The end result is that having a serious discussion of issues with members of this electorate is often like attempting a rational discussion with a herd of cattle which another has maliciously induced to stampede, with one important difference. The cattle have no choice but to be cattle. The group-thinking "common man" has chosen his own contemptible destiny).

"Leah" claims to be a college instructor, one of the people creating the structured environment of academia. A fully nurturing response, given as if she were a freshman, would not be appropriate under the circumstances. If she is what she claims to be, then she will have written more than a few papers in her day. She would know how to expand upon a point in order to make it clearly detailed and explicit. This, she will not do,in the course of that earlier discussion, never quite explaining what it is that she means by the words "forces" or "energies". What we should see, here, is not the faltering of a child who should be gently helped back to her feet, but the shoving of an ill-behaved adult who should be dealt with more directly, and must be, if civility is to be maintained at all.

(Some may argue that I go overboard in comparing a philosophical dispute to a matter of public policy. Quite the contrary. Leah will argue on behalf of a 'spirituality' that, rather than helping man to rise above his basest instincts through a connection with something greater than himself, will instead place his own ego on a pedestal where God Himself might bow down in homage. Such an impious ambition, in addition to doing an injustice to God, will bring out the very worst in us, with results all too familiar to anybody who has ever encountered the Pagan community or a tyrant. Such a change in viewpoint will transform everything the self-worshipper touches, almost invariably for the worse. Fully embraced by the masses, it would become a triumph of Evil, itself.

Compared to this, public policy is a minor concern.

Beyond this, though, one has the issue of "reinforcement". To repeatedly engage in a practice is to make it into a habit. When the issue of a particular bit of behavior is discussed, to merely discuss that behavior in the context of the immediate present is to ignore the larger implications of the norms of behavior which are being reinforced at that moment. The habits we encourage while discussing one topic won't magically go away when another comes under discussion. That fact will have consequences).

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