Qualifications for entering into a debate

[Richard Lariviere]

Dear Prof. Dr. Frank (and I use the term advisedly) Conlon:

Just where do you get off telling me and my colleagues to have a "nice" 
day?  While I readily admit to not being privy (and I use *that* term 
advisedly) to the latest in hip west coast greetings, nevertheless I 
deconstruct more than a little sarcasm in that remark, and I find it 
profligate, even wasteful, since just a little sarcasm would have done 
very nicely.

I am not familiar with the scholars you refer to in your typical 
insider's manner, "the Simpsons", and I don't even want to know what 
perverse politics may have given rise to the wildly inappropriate reference 
to "having" cows.  I willsimply close by confessing, reluctantly, that the 
tone of your letter has moved me to this--

YOU have a nice day.

Richard



PS.  Best to Joan.

On Wed, 21 Sep 1994, Frank Conlon wrote:

> With full respect to the likelihood that Mr. Karanth, in his own innocent 
> virtue, really believes that an offhand characterization of the arguments 
> of J. B. Sharma somehow do a great wrong to Sharmaji, let me say that 
> from my perspective, "why not give it a rest?"  I have refrained from 
> entering into the slanging around this issue, but Mr. Karanth, whom I 
> believe to be an honorable, but substantially unqualified commentator on 
> the history of India, persists.
> 
> Why not leave it alone?  Probably  because, like a whole cohort of 
> Indo-North American science types, he feels that he is perfectly 
> qualified to discuss Indian history on the basis of his Indianness, 
> whereas if I were to offer some hare-brained intervention on his 
> particular field of scientific knowledge, he would,  in the terminology 
> of the Simpsons, have a cow.   Don't misunderstand me, he's entitled to 
> his opinion, as for that matter are those scoundrels LaRiviere and 
> Rocher, but the posturings of the "interested parties", and the 
> expectation that we are all supposed to fall down and ignore one hundred 
> years of scholarship just because one or two new dudes have had an 
> inspiration strikes me as pushing the envelope just a tad beyond the  
> believable.
> 
> But, of course, I may have it all wrong.  In which case, just have a nice 
> day and stay tuned.
> 
> Frank Conlon
> 
> 
>  
>