• How about using it to have another idea? Put it in a different context and see what it does there. Add another layer to it, putting a social-psychology proposition next to an economic one, or a biological proposition next to one from sociology. Take the two together and use them to ask a new question about something that seemed settled in the Contracts class, or that never made sense in Torts anyway. Drawing a conclusion is merely prelude to another "argument." But creativity in the combination of ideas avoids the sterility of debate by taking the discussion out of the box.

• At the moment, the reason people are tending in the direction of "So what?" is primarily that they're not doing the reading. They think glancing at the assignment in the hour before class is good enough. "So what" is the question one asks when the other fellow's subtleties aren't clear because one hasn't taken the time to understand them. That will soon change.

-- MichaelDignan - 05 Feb 2009

We are continually asked this question but I am increasingly unsure of what can be done with "the idea." Is the question merely asking what kind of understanding can be achieved about the idea itself? Or is it asking what can actually be done with it, manifest in the world at large? To implement an idea in the real world requires coming to a conclusion, however final or temporary, that some solution to a problem is better than another. To come to a conclusion about what to implement, you have to "choose" in some sense, right? I know that the word choice has been frowned upon as of late, but it seems to me that at some level it has to be used, at least insofar as it describes conscious actions undertaken to influence numerous unconscious ones, through policy decisions for example.

So when Prof. Moglen asks the question, "What can we do with this idea?" I don't know how to respond. It seems to invite the drawing of conclusions. Except that whenever a conclusion is drawn, instead of discussing the merits of the conclusion, any consequent discussion is dismissed as doing "violence with ideas" rather than thinking about the "usefulness of ideas." This prompts many people to raise their hand and then say, "So X. So what?"

I understand the need to not get wrapped up in debate about the rightness of conclusions and can certainly sympathize with the idea of thinking about how ideas can be useful. I am just somewhat frustrated by the question, "What can we do with this idea?" if we aren't supposed to try and draw conclusions based on it.