I know. That’s why I ask them.
“. . . the reasoning goes, they really aren't valid questions at all, because the scientific method cannot engage them.”
Isn’t that called self-referential exclusivity? Or have I just invented a term? (grin)
In any event, it’s a commonly observed phenomena. For instance, in Politics. A Black pontificates; no White may disagree; the White isn’t Black, therefore he has no knowledge of the Black Experience, and is disqualified from comment; any Black who disagrees is an Oreo, black only on the outside but white on the inside; a true Black, contrarily, possesses an all-encompassing experience that allows him to pontificate on all matters (so long as he remains true, a Progressive, in other words).
Thank you, betty, illuminating, as always.
Yeah, this is the identical "logical argument" lodged against Mrs. Romney: She has no right to mention a word to her husband about matters financial, fiscal, or economic — because, in the words of Bill Maher (and Hillary What's-Her-Name's), she "never got her *ss out of the house to do an honest day's work in her life." So, what could she possibly know about "money?"
Same "logic" involved in both cases.
So twisted, so very TWISTED. Indicating to me a total inversion of Reality....
When are We the People going to start complaining about this state of affairs? In a (hopefully) effective manner?
Whatever. It seems to me that Obama plans to be reelected on the basis of successful (rhetorical) promulgation of the mantras of class and racial division — as his Chicago-based (???) campaign defines such "divisions."
And so I very much like your neologism, "self-referential exclusivity." It seems to describe the situation which Obama must try to provoke in order to be successful in recruiting new people (against all logic and experience) to His (electoral, political) Cause.
First, he makes his "target" think of his own grievances; then he tries to make that person think/feel/believe that the source of his grievance, of his own personal suffering, is someone else. The "magical doctrine" reads: The source of your suffering is some rich white guy. [Who is probably also a Jew, in the turbid imaginations of the deranged persons responsible for such an interpretation of so-called "objective," historical "Reality"....]
If Obama succeeds in signing up a majority of such "cultivated" morons next November, then We the People of the Preamble are utterly doomed.
JMHO FWIW.
Meanwhile, it seems We the People of the United States are "fiddling" while our Constitution — the order of our free, just, and equal society — burns....
Thank you so much for your beautiful essay-post, dear brother in Christ!