Simi Valley Sophist: Liar
On the occasion of starting my fourth month of blogging, I thought I ought to say something about why I titled my blog “Simi Valley Sophist.”
The Simi Valley part is easy. I live there. Simi Valley is a bedroom community of 116,048 residents (according to the Chamber of Commerce web site) nestled into the eastern border of Ventura County, which is contiguous with that little known place, the City of Los Angeles. Fortunately, there is a small range of hills separating Simi Valley from the city of “lost” angels.
I deemed it important to include “Simi Valley” in the name as a way of identifying to all that I hail from a relatively conservative city, an oasis and refuge from the inefficiencies and insensitivities of mega-city politics and services of Los Angeles. I remember some 20 years ago traveling from Los Angeles County to Simi Valley while my new home was being built. Each time I drove over the pass between Simi Valley and Los Angeles, I experienced a euphoric feeling, a freedom, an escape, if you will, from the stress of the “Big City.” The feeling was compounded when I had an occasion to interact with the Simi Valley Building Department and discovered City employees who were polite, informative, helpful, and easy to understand. Living in Los Angeles County, I did not even know that the concept of city employees being there to assist the public existed anymore.
It would be untrue to say that Simi Valley is not tainted by the braying of leftists, characteristic of university towns and larger cities on the left coast. But, they are mostly inconsequential and laughable. In some ways it is good to have them around. It is a reminder that the community should not be complacent about requiring its government to reflect the majority values.
And, what exactly are the values of the City, home of the Ronald Reagan Library? Well, it is not the right-wing bastion that some like to claim. It is not the racist community the MSM branded it at the conclusion of the State trial of the four Los Angeles Police Department officers in the Rodney King incident. Rather it is a conservatively oriented and tolerant community.
I remember talking to the organizer of a gay and lesbian pride festival a few years back. He was a resident of Los Angeles and was intent on bringing a pride festival to Simi Valley. I suspect that he wanted to flaunt the gay lifestyle in the face of the City. He expressed to me his concern that the community would rise up against him in alarm and that all manner of evils might befall him and the event. I assured him that no such thing would occur. I opined that I doubted that many of the community would attend his event and that they would not stand in his way either. Such was the case, and according to the promoter most of the attendees where not residents of the city.
Now, to the sophist part. Please note the definition from Brainy Dictionary.
Dr. Kenneth Jernigan opens his piece entitled, “Blindness: The Circle of Sophistry” (Hat Tip to Hugh Hewitt) with:
The Simi Valley part is easy. I live there. Simi Valley is a bedroom community of 116,048 residents (according to the Chamber of Commerce web site) nestled into the eastern border of Ventura County, which is contiguous with that little known place, the City of Los Angeles. Fortunately, there is a small range of hills separating Simi Valley from the city of “lost” angels.
I deemed it important to include “Simi Valley” in the name as a way of identifying to all that I hail from a relatively conservative city, an oasis and refuge from the inefficiencies and insensitivities of mega-city politics and services of Los Angeles. I remember some 20 years ago traveling from Los Angeles County to Simi Valley while my new home was being built. Each time I drove over the pass between Simi Valley and Los Angeles, I experienced a euphoric feeling, a freedom, an escape, if you will, from the stress of the “Big City.” The feeling was compounded when I had an occasion to interact with the Simi Valley Building Department and discovered City employees who were polite, informative, helpful, and easy to understand. Living in Los Angeles County, I did not even know that the concept of city employees being there to assist the public existed anymore.
It would be untrue to say that Simi Valley is not tainted by the braying of leftists, characteristic of university towns and larger cities on the left coast. But, they are mostly inconsequential and laughable. In some ways it is good to have them around. It is a reminder that the community should not be complacent about requiring its government to reflect the majority values.
And, what exactly are the values of the City, home of the Ronald Reagan Library? Well, it is not the right-wing bastion that some like to claim. It is not the racist community the MSM branded it at the conclusion of the State trial of the four Los Angeles Police Department officers in the Rodney King incident. Rather it is a conservatively oriented and tolerant community.
I remember talking to the organizer of a gay and lesbian pride festival a few years back. He was a resident of Los Angeles and was intent on bringing a pride festival to Simi Valley. I suspect that he wanted to flaunt the gay lifestyle in the face of the City. He expressed to me his concern that the community would rise up against him in alarm and that all manner of evils might befall him and the event. I assured him that no such thing would occur. I opined that I doubted that many of the community would attend his event and that they would not stand in his way either. Such was the case, and according to the promoter most of the attendees where not residents of the city.
Now, to the sophist part. Please note the definition from Brainy Dictionary.
The art or process of reasoning; logic.
The practice of a sophist; fallacious reasoning; reasoning sound in appearance only.
Dr. Kenneth Jernigan opens his piece entitled, “Blindness: The Circle of Sophistry” (Hat Tip to Hugh Hewitt) with:
Sophistry, we are told, is an argument or option which is clever and plausible,but false and misleading. To illustrate let as consider color. We learn from the dictionary that color is: The property of reflecting light of a particular wavelength. In other words if an object is green, the color (or wavelength) green is reflected back, and all other colors (or wavelengths) are absorbed. White, as everyone knows, is the absence of color, and black is the opposite. Yet, what we call black reflects no light waves at all and is, thus, the absence of color white what we call white (again to quote the dictionary) is: The reflection of all the rays that produce color. Therefore, the logic is inevitable: black is white, and white is black.
I wish I could say that the linguistic sleight-of-hand which I have just performed is symbolic of nothing more vicious than verbal gymnastics or a pleasant game, but that is not the way of it. Sophistry is no toy. It is one of the most deadly weapons in the arsenal of tyranny. It has bedeviled and bedazzled humanity since the beginning of history. If (as the saying goes) hypocrisy is the tribute which vice pays to virtue, then sophistry is the tribute which lies pay to the truth.
Sophistry takes its name from the sophists of ancient Athens. It was the principal instrument which they used first to discredit, then to imprison, and finally to execute Socrates. It was big in the middle ages with the Inquisition and the burning of witches. It flourishes today in the twentieth century. All we need do to understand the power of clever and plausible but false and misleading words is to remember the twisted rhetoric of Joseph Goebels and Adolph Hitler. Except for the glitter and hypnotic lure of sophistry the Nazi tanks might never have rolled, and the death and destruction of the Second World War might never have been.
Referencing blindness, Dr. Jernigan writes:
Dr. Jernigan quotes extensively from a newspaper interview wherein the reporter allegedly made erroneous assumptions. Then she wrote an article with inaccurate descriptions of his lifestyle that supported widely held inaccurate stereotypes about the blind.
The declining respect with which the public views MSM is demonstrated by the public’s reduction in TV viewership and the declining subscription rate for newspapers. That reduction can partially be explained as a result of sophistry on the part of MSM.
The sole reason that I cancelled my many years subscription to the Los Angeles Times was because the newspaper devolved to such a state that the agenda properly found in the editorial pages is found in news articles. The news portion of the paper is in truth engaging in sophistry, i.e., “fallacious reasoning; reasoning sound in appearance only” based upon agenda driven reporting.
In truth, all writers are subject to the pit falls of sophistry. We all come to conclusions based upon our understanding of facts and influenced by our values. The problem arises when our assumptions and prejudices blind us to other potential conclusions.
The question arises as to whether or not the sophistry making its way into speech, either verbal or written, is deliberate or not. Dr. Jernigan cites examples of both: the Nazi propaganda; and the newspaper article on his blindness.
To assume that I am any different from any other writer and have never written anything based upon an incomplete understanding is absurd. Therefore, I am as liable to engage in sophistry as the next writer. Well, maybe not. I have a real desire to be totally accurate, and I’m willing to amend my opinions as I garner additional information. But, my values are my values, and they will not change. And because of values, I don’t need to lie to support my positions.
So, a bit of humor. I can laugh at and don’t take myself too seriously. Thus, I don’t have any problem titling myself the “Simi Valley Sophist.” I feel sure that the readers will bring to my attention any sophistry on my part. They will try; but, you know that they will be wrong.
The mistaken beliefs and false concepts are almost universally accepted by the general public, and when people lose their eyesight, they carry with them into blindness the erroneous ideas which they held when they were sighted. They then live the part they are expected to play and feed back to society the conceptions which it gave them in the first place. Likewise, those who are born blind are taught their roles from the beginning, and unless they are given counterbalancing information, they live as they are expected to live. They think as they are expected to think.
Dr. Jernigan quotes extensively from a newspaper interview wherein the reporter allegedly made erroneous assumptions. Then she wrote an article with inaccurate descriptions of his lifestyle that supported widely held inaccurate stereotypes about the blind.
The declining respect with which the public views MSM is demonstrated by the public’s reduction in TV viewership and the declining subscription rate for newspapers. That reduction can partially be explained as a result of sophistry on the part of MSM.
The sole reason that I cancelled my many years subscription to the Los Angeles Times was because the newspaper devolved to such a state that the agenda properly found in the editorial pages is found in news articles. The news portion of the paper is in truth engaging in sophistry, i.e., “fallacious reasoning; reasoning sound in appearance only” based upon agenda driven reporting.
In truth, all writers are subject to the pit falls of sophistry. We all come to conclusions based upon our understanding of facts and influenced by our values. The problem arises when our assumptions and prejudices blind us to other potential conclusions.
The question arises as to whether or not the sophistry making its way into speech, either verbal or written, is deliberate or not. Dr. Jernigan cites examples of both: the Nazi propaganda; and the newspaper article on his blindness.
To assume that I am any different from any other writer and have never written anything based upon an incomplete understanding is absurd. Therefore, I am as liable to engage in sophistry as the next writer. Well, maybe not. I have a real desire to be totally accurate, and I’m willing to amend my opinions as I garner additional information. But, my values are my values, and they will not change. And because of values, I don’t need to lie to support my positions.
So, a bit of humor. I can laugh at and don’t take myself too seriously. Thus, I don’t have any problem titling myself the “Simi Valley Sophist.” I feel sure that the readers will bring to my attention any sophistry on my part. They will try; but, you know that they will be wrong.
posted by Paul Coambs | 10:01 PM
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