Quotes from class today

In case you're interested (especially for exam prep), here are the quotes from today's presentation:

In a word, the type of opposition I am questioning is what I call “agonism.” I use this term, which derives from the Greek word for “contest,” agonia, to mean an automatic warlike stance - not the literal opposition of fighting against an attacker or the unavoidable opposition that arises organically in response to conflicting ideas or actions. An agonistic response, to me, is a kind of programmed contentiousness - a prepatterned, unthinking use of fighting to accomplish goals that do not necessarily require it.

Tannen, 8

Argument as play induces a comic frame in which mistakes are inevitable, where those who disagree are not spurred by evil intentions, but by errors, and where any decision is always provisional, contingent and uncertain; we can always play again (and would want to).

Palczewski, 2

Our thoughts about ethics and justice, about our practical and social lives, must acknowledge that the facts, the imperatives, and the motives of ourselves and others are not fixed but uncertain, in a sense always made by us conversation with each other. The conditions of pure ends-means rationality never exist. The habit of mind that yearns for these methods and their certainties is bound to be delusive, and ultimately – despite its claims to superior rationality – to be irrational, because it will not be in accordance with the nature of our world and experience.The only way to function rationally in these domains is to recognize the radical uncertainty in which we live; to proceed by trial and error; to operate with a constant pressure towards openness; to acknowledge the necessity of community and cooperation both to the definition and the attainment of any of our “ends”; to realize that the one aim of life is the transformation of our own perceptions, wishes and selves.

James Boyd White - Heracles Bow, p, 25