Struck by this quote about Waziristan (Pakistan, north of Balochistan), the piece includes some scarier Taleban material too.
“In North Waziristan, it is religion that overrides all tribal bondages and customs, making it the most conservative region.”
The story in neighbouring Balochistan is mainly tribal / local disputes over natural (gas) resources. I recall all the tribal militia check-points on the roads around Dera Bugti, not far from Quetta, when working at a gas plant 15 or so years ago – that was after the Russian Afghan campaign, and just about everyone seemed to own a Kalashikov. (And just about every mud-brick hut had a vcr and a satellite dish too).
In your adsence I have been reading some of Dennett. I did a search amd found this review of his work.
http://www.bostonreview.net/br21.5/orr.html
Now I’ll have to see who Orr is.
One nice thing is that this writer finds Dennett as inscrutable as I do, but for much different reasons.
Hi Alice,
Just been too busy with moving / emigrating to US to find new things to blog.
H Allen Orr has been answered by Dennett … and covered in his later books too (this is from 1996)
http://www.bostonreview.net/br21.5/dennett.html
Don’t see anything here except disagreement (for some reason) to change my view of Dennett. (As you say, must find out where Orr is really coming from.)
People who don’t like memes or pan-Darwinism usually have some misguided reason or misunderstanding (or some other agenda) IMHO
Ian
Oh yeah, I get the emigrating thing!!!
But that won’t stop me from bothering you. I did look into Orr. He’s definitely not as widely published as Dennett. Jealousy maybe? but maybe just purely intellectual disagreement. Orr stands firmly against ID, so he can’t have that agenda. I wish I could make a real judgement.
Anyway, my daughter had a book by this guy which was assigned in her philosophy class. He makes lots of references to Dennett. Strangely, despite his Harvard credentials, I don’t see him referenced in any of my books.
http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~wegner/ – 14k –
And BTW I visited “the Edge” How come you are not writing for them????
I actualy have the Daniel Wegner book (Illusion of Conscious Mind) but not had time to read yet.
The Edge ? You need to already be “famous” and have John Brockman as you publicist to get space on there believe 🙂