[Parts 1 and 2 to which this is 3 are here and here]
I offer some concluding theoretical observations.
I could, of course, have chosen to be impolite and/or unsophisticated in response to Martin Wisse and Tim Fisken. But I decline to be. I'm not even going to say they're both stupid. I do think that what Martin says now is as stupid as what he said before. Just as there plainly are some good things that came from the war in Iraq, so equally, if there is in the end a reasonably benign outcome there, the action of the coalition in removing the roadblock to political progress that was the Saddam Hussein regime will have played a part in that outcome. But this doesn't mean that, because Martin says it will have been in spite of the American-led coalition, he's a stupid person. I don't know him, and I don't know if he is or not. It's a familiar insight that intelligent people can say and write stupid things - as haven't we all done at one time or another.
In turn, Tim Fisken may just not be familiar with the distinction between endorsing what someone else thinks and publishing something of theirs - though this ignorance would slightly surprise me in a graduate in philosophy, as in fact in many other kinds of literate people. And though it's best not to become enraged without good reason, others have been known to do so. It's not a capital offence. So I don't impugn the quality of Tim's intelligence, as I don't impugn the quality of Martin's intelligence, although I have commented - critically, as you will have noted - on the quality of the intelligence of their two posts. Good, though, that I've resolved not to be impolite to either Tim or Martin.
Hey guys, I'll buy you a beer some time. We can swap anecdotes about this and that. We can discuss our respective responses to a certain famous Marxist's view concerning abusive language. Was it excessively rigid? Might he have had a point?
We can discuss the advice I once read from a certain blogger - sorry, whoever you are, I don't remember which blogger - that you shouldn't pretend to yourself that what you do on your blog is just... pretend. Sound advice? Or a bit too earnest?
And we can consider the modalities of death by irony? In wishing to dispose of people - ironically - may the various dark points of the twentieth century be used interchangeably and do they all work equally well? I mean, work equally well as apt and effective uses of irony? Or is there a ranking? Would 'Let's hack them to death with machetes' be as good as the Vyshinsky call (or better, or worse) in the way of irony? How about 'Strap them down to something metallic and pass electricity through their bodies, then throw them from helicopters into the sea'? Or what about...? No, perhaps I'll give that one a miss; it does rather agitate people.
Looking forward to our get-together, in any case. It'll be a blast. And, remember, I'm buying.