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Stefnews, April 21, 1946
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STEFNEWS Weekly #43 Gratie; limited circulation Jack Speer 4518 16th NE Seattle Wn THE ISOLATED INTELLECTUAL The other evening our legal fraternity had a beer bust, with much of conversation and argumentation, at the home of one of the members. This chap is just over 21, and has a straight-A record in school without being an eager beaver. His interests and abilities cover a wide range, and his memory is remarkable. Yet he has the most curious ideas about some things, and in particular his logic is leaky as a sieve. Moreover, as is perhaps unbecoming to anyone over 20, he is thoroly positive in his opinions. He has an argument for religion, framed in peculiar terminology ("something outside of logic") and tortuous reasoning, which amounts to no more than the old First-Cause argument, but he is indignant if one is not convinced by it. His views on politics evidence a failure to examine his first principles, and similar faults appear elsewhere in his structure of though. (Nasty way to talk about a man behind his back!) The key, I think, is in the fact that his correspondence is largely limited to chess. Of course he has had opportunities to talk things over with intelligent people. His family probably rates hi, but I know of a few families which provide exercise in metaphysics. In the service and in school he has no doubt engaged in bull sessions, but you may know how unlikely they are to get anywhere or clarify thinking. What he has lacked is a forum like fandom wherein to try out his arguments. (No, i'm not planning to make a fantasite out of him!) Our interminable discussions, which eventually tired Chauvenet, provide a grinding and polishing action for which there is only one substitute: The quiet conversational group of reasonable men who are trying to get their ideas straight and compare and contrast them with other attitudes, rather than stage a verbal Indian wrestle. Opportunities for the latter are all to rare. Preserving your beliefs to the fire of the FAPA or a chain-letter gang may not change them, but it will certainly oblige you to restate them carefully, and in the reformulation you are likely to discover unsuspected implications, as well as structural similarities to supposedly contradictory systems. And our manner of discussion has the special advantages that no one can interrupt another until he has finished stating his view, and that one may if he wishes weigh carefully every word before setting it down. Even when meditating on questions that will never be put up to the Brain Trust, one persists in the habit of looking all around the words of a tentative statement for weak points that a hostile cavalier would strike for if any were present. Stephen Popper remarked that if there had never been but one man, the question of separating external reality from individual impressions would never have arisen. The isolated intellectual is in something of that position. MUNDANE MAGS This Saturday's Evening Post has a pure fantasy, Refugees from Heaven, something about an ex GI with unfinished business. FANZINES THIS WEEK BAY AREA NEWS 15 Apr 46 (Riggs). Features a Xeno letter. Under the heading Bay Area Bandit are reviews of The Weigher of Souls and The Undying Monster, and ads by Riggs and Wyers, LEMURIAN GAZETTE (#1 of a one or two shot; Perry and Yeager). A horribly mimeoed single-sheeter. Foto of Yeager and his tawkin toitle, with report of his escape from deros; quotes from Palmer; ktp. PACIFICON Mar 46 (Daugherty). Request for hotel reservations and booster ads from all well-wishers; pep talks by Forijay; and announcement of an omnibus convention publication like The Denventioneer. Mailed with this, to members, is a supply of lithoed stickers of ten types, most apparently Goldstone's work, and a sheet for file of nine of them.
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STEFNEWS Weekly #43 Gratie; limited circulation Jack Speer 4518 16th NE Seattle Wn THE ISOLATED INTELLECTUAL The other evening our legal fraternity had a beer bust, with much of conversation and argumentation, at the home of one of the members. This chap is just over 21, and has a straight-A record in school without being an eager beaver. His interests and abilities cover a wide range, and his memory is remarkable. Yet he has the most curious ideas about some things, and in particular his logic is leaky as a sieve. Moreover, as is perhaps unbecoming to anyone over 20, he is thoroly positive in his opinions. He has an argument for religion, framed in peculiar terminology ("something outside of logic") and tortuous reasoning, which amounts to no more than the old First-Cause argument, but he is indignant if one is not convinced by it. His views on politics evidence a failure to examine his first principles, and similar faults appear elsewhere in his structure of though. (Nasty way to talk about a man behind his back!) The key, I think, is in the fact that his correspondence is largely limited to chess. Of course he has had opportunities to talk things over with intelligent people. His family probably rates hi, but I know of a few families which provide exercise in metaphysics. In the service and in school he has no doubt engaged in bull sessions, but you may know how unlikely they are to get anywhere or clarify thinking. What he has lacked is a forum like fandom wherein to try out his arguments. (No, i'm not planning to make a fantasite out of him!) Our interminable discussions, which eventually tired Chauvenet, provide a grinding and polishing action for which there is only one substitute: The quiet conversational group of reasonable men who are trying to get their ideas straight and compare and contrast them with other attitudes, rather than stage a verbal Indian wrestle. Opportunities for the latter are all to rare. Preserving your beliefs to the fire of the FAPA or a chain-letter gang may not change them, but it will certainly oblige you to restate them carefully, and in the reformulation you are likely to discover unsuspected implications, as well as structural similarities to supposedly contradictory systems. And our manner of discussion has the special advantages that no one can interrupt another until he has finished stating his view, and that one may if he wishes weigh carefully every word before setting it down. Even when meditating on questions that will never be put up to the Brain Trust, one persists in the habit of looking all around the words of a tentative statement for weak points that a hostile cavalier would strike for if any were present. Stephen Popper remarked that if there had never been but one man, the question of separating external reality from individual impressions would never have arisen. The isolated intellectual is in something of that position. MUNDANE MAGS This Saturday's Evening Post has a pure fantasy, Refugees from Heaven, something about an ex GI with unfinished business. FANZINES THIS WEEK BAY AREA NEWS 15 Apr 46 (Riggs). Features a Xeno letter. Under the heading Bay Area Bandit are reviews of The Weigher of Souls and The Undying Monster, and ads by Riggs and Wyers, LEMURIAN GAZETTE (#1 of a one or two shot; Perry and Yeager). A horribly mimeoed single-sheeter. Foto of Yeager and his tawkin toitle, with report of his escape from deros; quotes from Palmer; ktp. PACIFICON Mar 46 (Daugherty). Request for hotel reservations and booster ads from all well-wishers; pep talks by Forijay; and announcement of an omnibus convention publication like The Denventioneer. Mailed with this, to members, is a supply of lithoed stickers of ten types, most apparently Goldstone's work, and a sheet for file of nine of them.
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