[Vision2020] (corrected) Logos and Contradictions

[Ted Moffett]

Visionaries:

When I first posted this, I had a sinking feeling I should have proof read 
more completely.  The red ink was all over the page!  Here is a corrected 
version.  I suspect no one really gives a hoot, but still...

Ted

Dale and All:

WOW!  This Logos school board thing really took off.  I sense a bit of 
pleasure from some of the significant players who support Logos, Christ 
Church, and St. Andrews, that they are drawing such attention.

I don't think Bill London though was really being "intolerant," he just has 
strong feelings that it is wrong to ban women from participation in such an 
important role in society as serving on a school board.  At any rate, I 
think there is something wrong with it, however much it is dressed up in 
legal concerns and what I would call "theological rationalizations."

I have not talked to Bill about exactly what he thinks on this issue, so I 
speak from conjecture.

However, I do not advocate "regime change" at Logos.  I'll leave this 
extreme application of absolute right and wrong to those who hold the keys 
to eternity... like the "born again" leader of a certain nation.

A person can have strong feelings of right and wrong without being an 
"intolerant" person.  Indeed, if strong values of right and wrong was how 
intolerance was defined, all believers in the Ten Commandments would also be 
"intolerant," would they not?

Words can be twisted in various ways, and language is not the precise 
vehicle for logic that some think it is.  Thus we get caught in spirals of 
meaning, circular contradictory traps, and all ideologies are prone to some 
kind of self contradiction, whether it be agnostic progressives or theistic 
fundamentalists, or those who promote "diversity" as a valuable aspect of 
society and institutions, whatever their theology or lack of it.

This may considered way off the subject, but really it relates to the 
contradictions we all get snared in:

Consider the following logical puzzle:

Consider the class of all classes that are not members of themselves.  Then 
ask, is this class a member of itself?  If it is a member of itself, it is a 
member of the class of all classes that are not members of themselves, so it 
CANNOT be a member of itself.  If it is not a member of itself, it IS a 
member of the class of all classes that are not members of themselves.  
Either way, this simple and apparently well formed logical statement leads 
us astray.

Here we have a simple example of the logical flaws in using the tools of 
ordinary language that lead people to state absurdities.

"Logos" indeed!

Ted













>From: "Dale Courtney" <dale@courtneys.us>
>To: <vision2020@moscow.com>
>Subject: RE: [Vision2020] Logos School's all-male board
>Date: Tue, 8 Apr 2003 08:50:54 -0700
>
>Ted,
>
>Let me address a few of your questions.
>
>First, I was not arguing that there's a parallel between women and
>skin-heads. I was arguing "at the fringe" with something that (I hoped) 
>we'd
>agree was black-and-white: not *all* diversity is good.
>
>It would be wrong for the Grand Poo-Bah of the KKK to sit on the board of
>the NAACP; and it would be wrong for a neo-Nazi to be on the board of the
>local Jewish Community Center. That's important because some have made
>diversity itself the goddess of the modern age, and they have been down
>right intolerant about it!
>
>Second, as a private institution, Logos has the right to establish whatever
>limitations on its board as it sees fit.
>
>Third, the board has been de facto male for what, 15 years? Wilson 
>addressed
>why they chose to formalize it. This is not something new that is being
>imposed.
>
>Finally, my comment about diversity was an attempt to show that while some
>embrace differences, they will only embrace differences that they agree
>with. This difference has (to some) crossed the line, brining out the worse
>of intolerance -- even from the likes of Bill London and Vera White. I
>always get a kick out of seeing intolerance from those who strut around
>saying how tolerant they are.
>
>Best,
>Dale
>
>
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