Posted by andy bolger on February 28, 2002 at -1:19:13 from 213.1.76.168:
In Reply to: Re: Free Speech was Titty posted by Robert Hill on February 27, 2002 at 22:01:16:
What a wonerous phenomena Tarsboard is! One minute it is heading down the road of acrimonious flame wars, the next we have stopped for a drink in the Inn of Sweet Reason. Prue makes some valid points about the unintended consequences of following one set of rules (how to compose a letter) without thinking through their consequences in other settings ( implicit gender hierarchies). I think it is fair to suggest that she could have followed what she may have thought of as the rules of addressing a letter without working out that implied that girls were less important than boys. After all she was supposed to be a piratically inclined teenager not a feminist social theorist. A practical feminist maybe but not a theorist. But that doesn't mean that Prue's explanation is valid as some others expressed here. If AR had wanted Titty to be the recipient of Sapho? he would have made her it. I can only assume that he thought it fitted the story better to chose Roger.
We can never know, however, for as Collingwood pointed out in "The Idea of History" if we want to know why a historical decision was made even a time machine which allowed us to quiz the person concerned would not provide a clinching argument. AR may never have thougth it out, perhaps it just seemed right to him, or perturbed by the drift of the questioning he might produce some sort of defensive answer. Who knows? As Collingwood argued, the only method available to us is to conduct thought experiments and stick with the most robust answer until it is "exploded" by one with more current force.
(Robin Collingwood was Barbara's and Dora's brother "The Idea of History" is a seriously good book for which I must thank Tim Johns for turning me onto.)
As for Titty's name, I can only think that it is a mark of AR's fondness for the "real" Titty that he stuck with this name whilst he chnged Taqui to John.