| MANIPULATIVE ARGUMENTATION BY PETER STAUDENMAIER
As answer to a mail a Sharon Lombard has sent to the WC-list, quoting a mail I had sent her, Peter Staudenmaier has sent a posting to the list, found here. The postings concern a number of examples from the works of Rudolf Steiner, exemplifying his view of how people actually move between successive lives in different races and cultures, american, south and north european, and asian, not having very much to do with whether the different races and cultures in question are "higher" or "lower", but with quite other regularities. It demonstrates the demagogical and deceptive nature of argumentation, especially developed by Peter Staudenmaier in different contexts, that anthroposophy should be racist because it should be the view of Rudolf Steiner, that human evolution should consist in incarnation in ever "higher" races, with the "white" race allegedly being the "highest" race. The posting by Staudenmaier mixes up two points in my mail to Sharon. One is the question I put to her, asking if she could ask Staudenmaier to confirm the existence and correct translation of the quotes in question. The other point concerns the possibility to discuss the text and its content, found on the net, without more or less extensively quoting it. In his posting, Peter Staudenmaier mixes up the two problems, and averts the discussion from the actual content of the viewpoints by Steiner reflected in the texts, being parts of transcripts of lectures by him, by arguing that he can't comment on the translation as such without quoting it. At first I did not notice Staudenmaier's way of in his answer mixing up my different comments on the translation as such , and on the discussion of the content of the text in his answer, with Staudenmaier averting a discussion of the content by commenting on the difficulty of commenting on the translation as such without actually quoting the translation. In the answer below to the WC-list, to which I do not subscribe, leaving it to the owners of the list to forward the answer to the list or not, my comment applies to both points.
Subject: Quotation or description as basis for comment
Peter Staudenmaier has stated on the WC-list, that he can't make any meaningful comments on a text, available online for everyone in the discussion, without quoting it. It is an interestingly evasive comment coming from someone so talented in the use of language as Peter, and as often challenging in terms of the actual logic of his argumentation, when analyzing this logic. Of course it is possible to make meaningful comments on a text, available for everyone to read for themselves without necessarily at every point quoting it. Try describing the part of the text you comment on, using: *According to the text* this or that is the case. Describing and commenting on texts, available at a glance or click to every participant in the discussion without at all times needing to explicitly quote it constitutes the main part of all oral teaching and discussion with regard to texts. That someone with such intelligence and language skills as Peter invents an imaginary impossibility to make meaningful comments on a text everyone in the discussion can look at in an instant, or continuously have as text in one window on the screen, and the comment in another window on the screen, and describing this as a *setup*, arguing that it should make it impossible to give specific or meaningful comments on the text, and then - after constructing this imaginary problem - continue by diverting the discussion away from the actual text he does not like to comment on - for some reason - to other argumentation, maybe tells more about his wish to avoid to him and his argumentation problematic discussion, than real problems. As repeatedly is the case with comments and argumentation by Peter, they turn out to be master examples of manipulative logic and argumentation, when analyzing them. Peter has accused me of avoiding discussion of his argumentation in the OpenWaldorf forum he has set up. I will answer that in that forum. Sune
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