[jallanite]

Originally Posted by Galin

Well, when you encounter an argument that you feel makes no sense to you for some reason, I doubt you automatically conclude that your interpretation must be wrong. You might second guess your own interpretation, but when you consider the evidence and you still end up with the same interpretation…

Sometimes I do not automatically conclude that my interpretation must be wrong. But when I see an argument put forward that seems to me to be absurd, then I ought to reconsider whether I am reading my source correctly. Very, very often I find in such cases that I have misconstrued the argument, or at least probably misconstrued the argument.

What I try to attempt to do, and do not always do it, is to try to consider the argument as a whole. Which you also recommend. Yet you ignore entirely that Hostetter’s arguments rely almost entirely on his own inferences and that he largely backs down in the argument over the charges he originally made and then, bluntly, runs away.

I have suggested that you try to write down succinctly what you find so offensive about Kane’s book. You then suggested that you were merely following Hostetter’s arguments. So I indicated why I found them unconvincing. I still suggest you try to write down in the shortest form you can what you find so offensive about Kane’s book. Try to make it clear.

… well let's put it this way: you don't want anyone to lie, right

Who is supposedly lying? Kane, Hostetter, you, me? What you put forth as a clarification makes no sense of me at all.

Carl wrote books plural -- while you write 'book' singular.

Hofstetter presumably meant books, Ĭ presume referring to all the Middle-earth books by J. R. R. Tolkien and Christopher Tolkien’s comments on them while I meant book, Kane’s book.

This is a perfect example of someone, you, misreading a statement and automatically taking a completely unintended meaning. People do this all the time, although they shouldn’t. Then you laboriously attempt to prove that Hostetter meant by books is probably intended to mean what I had understood him to mean, although your statement is not exactly what I had understood him to mean.

I would say the 'sources' or the 'books' are The History of Middle-Earth volumes.

I do say that Hofstetter means those and other books by Tolkien, mainly Unfinished Tales, The Children of Húrin, The Silmarillion, and The Lord of the Rings and others.

You misunderstand me and then give an inadequate list of the books that Hostetter seems to me to be talking about. I would not pick up on this at all in an informal forum, save that you here show yourself to be sloppy in reading what I have written and sloppy in writing what you mean, all the time blaming me for being sloppy in referring to book when Hostetter wrote books when I did not intend them to have the same reference.

Your rule would seem to be take what one originally understands from a source, even if seems absurd, and insist that the writer meant exactly what one wrongly understands from it and stick with it. I don’t accept that rule. And I know you don’t either. But going one about it in this way suggests that at some level you realize that you are pushing an absurd reading, as though I were to insist that because you gave only the HoME series as what Hostetter means by books that you were insisting that Hostetter intended only this very limited canon.

This is rather generalized and exaggerated in my opinion.

That is the appearance that your mode of argument mostly gives to me.

So far I don't see we have many readers commenting in the first place. Not in this thread yet, and besides Doug, in the linked thread, only 5 actually stated an opinion one way or the other -- specifically concerning deliberateness or misogyny I mean.

And of the 5 who actually gave an opinion, 4 agreed with an implication of deliberateness at least, while River thought an unconscious bias was what Doug was getting at. Soli specifically states that he does not make the jump to misogyny and does not think Doug implied this -- despite that he agrees with an implied deliberateness however.

And on, and on, and on. To me, the remarks near the end of the debate and after Doug left the debate are the most important as they indicate what people concluded after listening to both parties. I don’t see the commentators jumping all over Kane, except for yourself. I do see a discussion over whether Doug was being needlessly belligerent in which only you think that he wasn’t.

Why do only you feel differently?

I admit that an argument based only on what some other people think has no strong validity. For me the crux is seeing Hostetter back down and then run away while Kane simply answered calmly. The other crux is that Hostetter argues largely from his own inferences while Kane does not.

Turn the argument on its head. Should Hostetter or you be blamed for saying that Christopher Tolkien is not a misogynist and have to defend your position. Should either of you be attempting to claim that you have not actually said that Christopher Tolkien is not a misogynist. If it is wrong to blame or appear to blame someone who is not a misogynist for being a misogynist, why is it not equally wrong to claim or appear to claim that someone who is a misogynist is not a misogynist?

Indeed, logically, it is equally wrong to claim that someone who is not a misogynist is not a misogynist if one cannot prove it and to claim that someone who is a misogynist is a misogynist if one cannot prove it.

Yet you appear nonplussed every time Kane pleads ignorance about things he does not know about and which he should not be expected to know about. It is as though you really believe that Kane ought to know that there are rules that one must assume that Christopher Tolkien is not in any way a misogynist (and, if need be, falsely claim it). Anything which Kane has written which leads to any doubt on the matter is unacceptable, regardless of his ignorance of what Christopher Tolkien’s opinions may be and regardless of truth.

I entirely reject this argument. Kane should not speak at all of things he does not know, and Kane indeed only unambiguously speaks of the possibility that Christopher Tolkien’s editing of his father’s work might look like misogyny. No more. That to me appears fully reasonable.

You are now attempting to prove that Kane’s treatment of Christopher Tolkien’s remarks on Ossë and Uinen are incorrect, but the sources are so complex that I doubt you can show anything unambiguously. And, if you could, you would only show that, in this one place, Kane is unambiguously in error. You might end only by showing that Kane is arguably in error, and arguably not in error. Or you might fail entirely. I admit that this is probably one of the most dubious parts of Kane’s work, and by choosing it you by default admit that at least most of Kane’s work stands up.

So keep at it.

And by not considering at all most of my feelings when I read Hostetter’s remarks you help to confirm that those feelings were correct.