I agree with the Weekly Standard's Stanley Goldfarb that this Nalgene-bottle, continuous-water-consumption fad is silly. What I don't see, though, is why people doing something silly but utterly harmless is a problem for Goldfarb, let alone a problem that makes sense for a conservative magazine. Traditionally, conservatives defend legal-but-silly behavior on the part of adults--smoking, drinking (alcohol), and so on--even when that behavior is harmful to the individual. So why the anti-water preaching? If it brings joy to people to carry around big plastic jugs of water, then what does it matter whether this water is beneficial in any other way?
Monday, July 04, 2005
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6 comments:
Forgive me for any abrasiveness and/or offensiveness (or don't)...but: intellectual hokiness aside, why just state your position on bottled-water fads when you can state it or aspire to state it on Aristotle, Hume, Locke, Hobbes, Voegelin, Durkheim, Weber, Maimonides and etc?
Not that I don't particularly blame you.
Jesus, this commenting is way too involved. Double negatives aside... "Not that I particularly blame you..."
Durkheim and Maimonides or Holy Water.
Sometimes, you just want to read/write about bottled water fads. Who wants to be just another pontificator about Aristotle, Hume, Locke zzzzzZZZZzzz.
Not that I don't particularly dislike the not really unintelligent philosophers of the pre-20th century discourse.
Too many double-negatives in all these comments, and far too many people mentioned whose books I've read and forgotten, for me to respond to the comments in any meaningful way.
My point isn't that the WS shouldn't discuss water, but that they should be cheefully amused, ala David Brooks, and not rendered argumentative, by bobo silliness.
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