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JAM | Nov 18, 2023

Dennis A. Minott | Here’s the thing, EVERY murder is dramatic

/ Our Today

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Forensic personnel conducting ballistics tests at a crime scene in Kingston, Jamaica. (Photo: jcf.gov.jm)

I can only think of one thing more dramatic than murder, that is mass murder by man or historic Biblical-scale fatalities occasioned by earthquakes and volcanic eruptions in a super-active seismic zone like ours in Jamaica, Haiti and the Dominican Republic. 

To be frank, Dr Nadeen Spence is being a mischievous sophist who is playing word games to avoid thoughtfully treating with Lisa Hanna’s urgent well placed advocacy. Plato, the great Greek philosopher, dismissed such sophist thinking as lazy, useless, and harmful—dangerous habitual claptrap with which thinking people need not be detained.

Plato believed that the sophists were more interested in dragging out and winning arguments than in seeking the truth. They used clever arguments and fallacies to mislead their fellows, rather than trying, with evidence, to understand their point of view. Plato argued that this type of thinking was harmful because it could lead to people making bad decisions.

In this case, Dr Spence is using sophistry to avoid responding to Miss Hanna’s honest and justified dread of rampant murder and other violent crime in today’s Jamaica. Spence is focusing on the degrading definition of the word “dramatic” to avoid addressing the substance of Hanna’s point. This is a classic sophist tactic, and it is exactly the type of labeling and thinking that wise old Plato warned against. 

Jesus The Saviour also disdainfully alluded to the odious sophistry in the Pharisees of his time. He cryptically advised that they habitually “swallowed camels” and delighted in being “whitewashed sepulchers on the outside” but within “dead men’s bones”.

Lisa Hanna speaking at the Jamaica Diaspora Conference in Kingston on June 16, 2022. (Photo: Facebook @MPLisaHanna)

I nickname such conduct, that of too many social science academic doctoral laureates, the ways of what reggae artiste, Junior Kelly, and others like “False Pretenders”.

In addition to being useless and harmful, Plato also believed that sophistry was immoral, distracting and just lazy. He argued that the sophists were only interested in winning arguments, even if it meant lying or cheating. They had no regard for the truth, and they were willing to say whatever it took to win and be numbered among celebrities.

Plato believed that this type of behavior was morally wrong, and he roundly condemned it in his writings.

Dennis A. Minott.

Demolish sophistry, Lisa. Thank God, you have a fine brain and a lively conscience! 

Queens HS did not make a mistake, neither did Princelings Petra-Kene and her sister .

Thank you for the benefit of your time. 

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