Dear Ken

There seem to be two kinds of cautionary tale being told in this debate.

The first is the very attractive hoax story which warns all of us about
being taken in my our own serious engagements. Sartre's take on this is
simple - to treat anything seriously you must collapse the
subject-object distinction or else irony will be your undoing. And, if
you do collapse the subject/object distinction, then you are a serious
and silly soul. Both Mead and Derek Freeman are open to self-hoaxing
whether any third parties assisted by taking the position of objects of
study and/or subjects of study. All reports of reality are transcendent
in that they exceed that which they report and at the same time they are
reductionist in that they fail to match that which they report.

The second cautionary tale is the general academic one that keeps us
aware that facts do not equate directly with integrity, honesty or
sincerity. Like a stopped clock is dead accurate twice a day, so amongst
the fabrications, falsification and straight out lies of a fool, there
might be elements of truth that are superior in their clarity to the
efforts of a seemingly wise truth telling authority. Mead might indeed
be right about more than she is wrong about and she may be right about
most of what Freeman claims she is wrong about. We all have to approach
the literature with open minds if we are to take any benefit from what
has been placed before us by history.

Sure, the academic approaches that aim to address these issues are there
for anyone who wishes to become an expert in any particular field. And,
sure, we all need to apply due diligence when approaching these matters.
But, until we have found ourselves making these errors, we really take
small benefit from the second cautionary tale. As professionals and
masters of our trade we may even become expert in such errors. But, the
rest of the world doesn't really care.

The hoax tale is altogether different. We all can take a primary and
immediate benefit from this tale because it goes to the heart of our
everyday epistemological uncertainty. We are hesitant, by second nature,
because we did, at some time, believe in, the reality of some such
fictional character as Santa Claus.

cheers

keith russell
OZ newcastle