Who questions the proposal and on what grounds?

[The real question here...is what is being protected and who is doing the protecting? Is it a simply established thing? Is it changeless? What to accept as needing to be protected? Who decides that? As soon as we speak of protection, this question arises - who is making the proposal and on what grounds? Outside of the founder of an ashram, these are contested realities, because we have entered the realm of interpretation. Re: Fascism and False Guru Sects (Kheper.net) Debashish Sun 12 Jul 2009 11:56 PM PDT Science, Culture and Integral Yoga]

[Re: Critical Thinking?
by Tony Clifton on Fri 10 Jul 2009 07:56 PM PDT Profile Permanent Link
But that just a clever way to flatten all knowledge claims so to suggest that all statements have equal value, and moreover doing it in a conversation using critical methods of inquiry. (and you claim not to be a post-modernist?) Science, Culture and Integral Yoga]

[Tuesday, April 07, 2009 POSTMODERNISM, THE CORRUPTION OF TRUTH, AND THE COMING GLOBAL TRAGEDY
Stephen Hicks in his book quotes Frank Lentricchia, a noted Duke University literary critic. Postmodernism, says Lentricchia, "seeks not to find the foundation or conditions of truth but to exercise power for the purpose of social change." As I have noted in earlier posts, postmodern rhetoric explicitly rejects truth, and because of this it is indifferent to consistency and dismissive of reason. It is because of the pervasive influence of postmodern philosophy and the ubiquitous use of postmodern rhetoric by the political left that Randall Hoven has had an epiphany... Rather than setting you free, in the postmodern world, the truth just keeps you from believing what you--or someone else--wants to believe; and therefore it must be banned from polite conversation... In order to survive their crushing defeat in the Cold War, the remnants of Soviet communism, along with failed Marxist, socialists and communists around the globe had to evolve and mutate into a form that would not be easily recognized; but the fundamental toxicity of their ideology remained as potent as ever. And it is these various mutations that are truly the most dangerous legacy of the Cold War. In postmodern philosophy and rhetoric, they found the perfect epistemological, ethical and political vessel to reassert their poison. And that is why, despite the untold misery and the millions of dead that were the result of the implementation of their political policies, their ideology never quite made it to the garbage dump of history... Additionally, it is postmodern philosophy which is at the heart of such irrational concepts as political correctness, multiculturalism and radical environmentalism, three of the four pillars of the socialist/communist--or, more accurately, the neo-Marxist--revival that has been staged in this first decade of the 21st century. Remember that postmodernism eschews truth and those who adhere to its ideas prefer to exercise power to force social change. They live in a world of contradiction and emotion. Their strategy is not to persuade people to accept their ideas, but to confuse them; to distort the truth, propagate lies and smears; and to use whatever rhetoric is necessary to accomplish their purposes. Since rhetorical skill is essential to accomplish their purposes, it is little wonder that a trancendently inexperienced but rhetorically gifted nobody like Barack Obama would rise to the top of the [garbage] heap. Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity @ 12:44 PM Comments (35)]

The Mother & Sri Aurobindo can easily be accused of/credited with deploying postmodern rhetoric in their discourse much before the trend was typified. Their intention, however, was to stir the status quo and provoke the conventional but not encouraging sheer skepticism or nihilism.

The Leftist, on the contrary, uses his rhetorical skill “to confuse; to distort the truth, propagate lies and smears.” Beware of dexterous rhetoricians! [TNM]