If you have enough primary sources relative to what the secondary sources have, and if your overall grasp of the issue is as good as that of the authors of the secondary sources.
On the other hand, if what you have is what the paragraph quoted by paper-machine suggests, and if you’ve not devoted months of thought and study to the issue (which ESR may or may not have done), it could easily be the case that you’d learn a great deal more if you paid attention to some good secondary sources.
If you have enough primary sources relative to what the secondary sources have, and if your overall grasp of the issue is as good as that of the authors of the secondary sources.
Assuming the authors of the secondary sources are interested in presenting an accurate account, as opposed believing it is there duty to lie for the “greater good”.
Yup, assuming that. Or at least assuming you can discern any lies well enough that on balance you still benefit from reading. Which is the same thing as you have to assume when reading anything else.
Just out of curiosity, have you made a careful examination of primary sources in order to tell us that
Eric Raymond has a fairly good description of historical attitudes towards homosexuality
(as opposed to, e.g., a plausible-sounding description that has been fudged “for the greater good”, or that is inaccurate because the selection of sources Eric Raymond happens to have encountered gives a misleading picture, or that is inaccurate because Eric Raymond has misunderstood something or jumped to conclusions that fit his own biases, or whatever)?
… Or is it only people on one side of any argument who should be expected to lie for the greater good, expected not to be interested in truth, and so forth?
Yes, primary sources screen out secondary sources.
If you have enough primary sources relative to what the secondary sources have, and if your overall grasp of the issue is as good as that of the authors of the secondary sources.
On the other hand, if what you have is what the paragraph quoted by paper-machine suggests, and if you’ve not devoted months of thought and study to the issue (which ESR may or may not have done), it could easily be the case that you’d learn a great deal more if you paid attention to some good secondary sources.
Assuming the authors of the secondary sources are interested in presenting an accurate account, as opposed believing it is there duty to lie for the “greater good”.
Yup, assuming that. Or at least assuming you can discern any lies well enough that on balance you still benefit from reading. Which is the same thing as you have to assume when reading anything else.
Just out of curiosity, have you made a careful examination of primary sources in order to tell us that
(as opposed to, e.g., a plausible-sounding description that has been fudged “for the greater good”, or that is inaccurate because the selection of sources Eric Raymond happens to have encountered gives a misleading picture, or that is inaccurate because Eric Raymond has misunderstood something or jumped to conclusions that fit his own biases, or whatever)?
… Or is it only people on one side of any argument who should be expected to lie for the greater good, expected not to be interested in truth, and so forth?
Not as careful as Eric but what I have seen agrees with him.