Wednesday, 17 February 2010

A Source of Constant Amazement


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Though perhaps it should not be, the inability of artefact collectors to follow a simple argument is still a source of amazement to me. Yesterday in a blog post here on Antiquity Collection and International Cultural Exchange, I explained in passing that dealer-lobbyists frequently use a manipulation of Article 1 of the 1970 UNESCO Convention-with-a-very-long-name in an alarmist manner ("inclusively" instead of "exclusively"). This is intended to scare collectors into supporting radical no-questions-asked dealer lobby groups like the ACCG. As an afterthought, I decided the terms I used might need explaining for some readers. For this reason I added a footnote containing an example which thought was sufficiently bizarre that it would be self-evident why Art. 1 needs to be in the Convention. It pokes fun at the idea of patenting a view of an ancient monument. It was actually intended to be ironical and entertaining and the point made seemed quite clear to me. Not to a dealer in ancient coins though, it appears. This morning I find that one of them has blogged a "call for reason and logic" over the "proposal".

Alfred de la Fe characterises me as the "extreme left of the Archaeology “clique” ..." (he earlier contributed a text on Barfordian logic, so my blog clearly has his attention) and although he does not want "to waste time dissecting his post" (phew, eh?), he says my post [consisting mainly of an extract from the preamble and article 2 of the UNESCO Convention] "makes several illogical statements and jumps to some pretty radical conclusions". As an example, he then quotes the entire footnote in and then discusses the example, as though it was a serious threat ! To then make his utter lack of understanding crystal clear, he then trots out... the argument based on the lobbyists' manipulation of UNESCO 1970's Article 1 ! Unbelievable (vignette).

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