Putting it simply

Joe Perez comments briefly on Julian Walker and Bruce Alderman exchanging simplyputs at their respective blogs. Here's a quote:

Picture a disembodied mind, conventionally constituted, educated in science and philosophy of the modern secular West, convinced of the universality of rationality, the dignity of its own lonely suffering, and ultimately its own moral superiority in a world of apparently inferior intellects. Sum up a short statement of its philosophy of life, put it in simple words, and you might find something beautiful yet partial, like this recent blog post of Julian’s...

Relativize that heartfelt expression, dignify its truth as an aspect of a partially valid worldview, situate it in a second discourse which identifies its own context as one that is able to transcend and include the first discourse, and then refuse the trap of either (a) dismissing the relative truth-value of the second discourse, or (b) asserting a universalized and metaphysicalized superiority for the second discourse, and you find something like this recent post of Balder’s, itself a response to Julian’s blog post...

I have mentioned these posts and their discussions before here and in some detail here. Overall, to me Joe seems quite right in the portrayal of the two attempts at simplyputting.