Many of the town-hall protesters are actually manifesting the affects of a trauma that has nothing at all to do with health care. It has to do with race, with parisan politics, with the lingering effects of Executive-branch fearmongering over the last 8 years that sedimented into an almost intransigent civic posture for some. But, of course, the town hall meeting are about health care, and not all of those other traumas. So, my question to Shannon would be: how do we moderate these truly multivalent public conversations?

I liked Shannon's "marraige" analogy. As we all know, one of the ways to quickly sink a conversation between partners is to believe you're both talking about the same thing when, in reality, you're not. That's what seems to be going on in the town hall meetings, in my opinion.

Here's the problem, though: many people would argue (myself included) that the disrupters' description of their own experience and their role in public deliberation processes is... well... just not true. If I had a student in one of my classes who completely denied the reality of global warming, or evolution, or the non-connection between 9/11 and Iraq-- and if that student composed all of his or her in-class arguments on the basis of that erroneous belief -- there would come a point where, I imagine, that student would feel alienated and ostracized in my class discussions. I could certainly understand, and even be sympathetic to, the frustration that he or she feels as a result... BUT there's only so much that can be done about that. I am generally loathe to employ the language of "the market," but one of the benefits of public deliberation (or even one-on-one conversation) is that the "marketplace of ideas" is activated and, hopefully, bad ideas cannot survive.

[Chris, I'm still having this problem of not being able to comment longer than a few sentences. So, I'm breaking this up into a series again.]

Excellent episode! I also appreciate the sensitivity with which you discussed the town-hall meetings. As Shannon pointed out, clearly the disrupters of those meetings feel as if they aren't being heard, they aren't being represented, and their interests have somehow fallen outside of the attention of the collective. I agree that it's important to be very attentive to those feeling and the way they traumatize.

Chris, I want to post a response to your comment here, but every time I write something more than a paragraph long, I get an error message that says that my comment is too long and I need to break it up into separate comments. I see that others are able to post long comments here. Can you help me?

(Real answer to come...)

Brunson, I only just say your comment. I'm inclined to say that the contrast of utilitarianism and deontology (of the Kantian sort) is a fasle distinction. That is, they are both using the same basic concept of the human. The difference between them, of course, is how one goes about judging ethical/political questions.

So, I guess I would agree that IF a utilitarian adopted my version of humanism, s/he would arrive at ethical/political judgments closer to mine (on the basis of his or her utilitarian calculus). But I don't think a standard utilitarian would be operating with my conception of the human.

Okay, here's the beginning of a response to some of these concerns over on my own blog:

"On Puppies, Trees, and Fetuses... or What I DON'T Mean by "Weak Humanism""
http://readmorewritemorethinkmorebemore.blogspot....

Joshua, before I try to proceed with a response, I want to get clear on what you're asking in your last paragraph. Are you effectively asking me whether or not I think that the right to abortion is a "human" right? Or are you just asking me whether I think "weak" humanism presents more problems for deciding *who* counts as "human" in the case of end-of-life and before-life issues?