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June 28, 2005
A last word on Muslim Brothers, Ignorant Cretins and Commentary
I remain blissfully unaware "pundita"'s response if any to my somewhat miscreantish battering of her illiterate, blundering, fact free drooling posturing in regards to the Muslim Brotherhood, etc. I intend to remain so. She is unworthy of even my contempt. One can go here, if one wishes, http://antipundita.blogspot.com/ to note any further idiocies on her part (contra Zen it's just a simple blogger site, no email stealing), I wash my hands.
However, some points of reflection.
First, her silly chicken littlish panicked posturing in regards to the Ikhouane and the like, and the rather sketchy, barely understood "facts" behind it rather demonstrate the dangers of getting informed about something one knows little about via the internet. It's fairly clear she's largely informed herself about the MENA region via websites, often of a hysterical and conspiratorial nature of the lowest quality (despite her lame excuses for the utterly vile nature of her citations, her inability to properly select something not wing-nuttish as a source merely speaks to either her lack of ability to think critically or an absence of judgment. Or both, not to pose a false binary of course).
One need not be an expert to comment intelligently on something, I rather like the clear headed, non-hysterical non-Know Nothing Bolshy Right commentaries that crop up on MENA on the Belgravia Dispatch. Clear headed critical thinking from a Right perspective, without slavish devotion to the ideo-glurge of the moment is a treasure. I hardly agree with all written, but it's an example of clear headedness and a real ability to sift through facts, data, and opinion and properly evaluate (in the sense of distinguishing dross and crap from things worthy of consideration).
The incoherent yet at the same time rather pedestrain, bourgeouis suburban frightened bunny blithering of pundita only highlights the danger of the inability to sift through information, evaluate and put in context. Certainly having experience and proper education on a subject is of great value, but the non-specialist that is attentive to his or her own ... well, lack of training and grounding, can indeed get up to speed and at least have somewhat interesting things to say.
Let me take myself, for example. I should flatter myself in opining that while I know next to nothing about Indian and East Asian politics, my awareness of that, and awareness of the traps one can fall into as a non-specialist blundering in should, were I to be so mad as to do so, I decide to start commenting on the subjects. I might even manage to be reasonably interesting, at the least I should be aware enough to sift through the axe grinding of partisans on various issues (let's say Bangledeshi - Indian politics, something I had some small intimate exposure to by accident of the wrong woman slept with).
The importance here is not pundita's politics (Zen incorrectly stated on his blog I treated her as I do Right non-specialists; I treated her as a blundering self deceiving moron who couldn't even muster the judgment to realise her assertions were absurd, distorted and derived from highly prejudiced sources - I am equally as harsh with Lefties who say idiotic things, as some commentator on eerie's journal learned when she said something moronic in re WTO rules.) but rather proper thinking, critical attention to one's sources, a view to understanding subtexts, and a judicious analysis of not only the facts but one's own actual understanding.
There we are. The contemptibly unfactual assertions and smears regarding Muslim Brotherhood Nazi connexions (silly, ahistorical, and clearly axe grinding by ultra-Zionist ideologlues), female circumcision (incoherent, irrelevant and unfactual blithering), and Islam (simply bloody confused) are not really worthy of further attention.
Posted by The Lounsbury at June 28, 2005 11:58 AM
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Jan-July 2005
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