From a reader:

J.,
The *essence* of Cole’s outburst is that *concepts are useless*. (Tony at
“Across the Bay” flails in the general direction of refuting this. He
doesn’t hit it squarely, although he does illustrate Cole’s hypocrisy in
trying to have it both ways.)
It is in no way necessary to “live in the Middle East” in order to be able
to grasp — *conceptually* — the issues that occupy us there, any more than
it was necessary to have lived on the moon in order to achieve the first
landing on its surface.
In “The Gulag Archipelago”, Solzhenitsyn wrote that “To taste the ocean
requires only a single drop.” He did not explicate it in these terms, but
he was referring to the utility of concepts to human affairs. Juan Cole is
essentially arguing a radical empiricist angle, the necessary implication of
which (in a *consistent* — not hypocritical — application) is that
transmission of knowledge is impossible because only direct experience with
every discrete detail (grains of *sand*, even) can result in knowledge.
Tony glanced off one implication, which goes like this: Why should anyone
pay attention to Cole’s books? We couldn’t learn anything from them,
anyway, because they have no standing next to direct experience of what he
attempts to impart.