On Thu, 08 May 2008 08:35:52 -0700, John Palmer
<jpalmer1@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>On 8 May 2008 07:16:11 -0700, aahz@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
(Aahz Maruch) wrote:
>
>>In article
<bcca88d3-93cb-4e48-bc6c-9fcd77ea11bf@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
>>Lane <absolutelane@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>>>
>>>I only hope that the mood returns for lively discussion and persuasion
>>>and the tendency to personal swipes starts again to diminish.
>>
>>You're joking, right? This is Usenet, after all.
>>
>>>I still don't know how my being called an asshole is a reason for
>>>marriage proposals. Oh wait, I forgot. It's because I don't get it.
>>
>>Roughly, yeah.
>>
>>To put it another way, in case you're interested: the marriage proposals
>>had less to do with calling you an asshole than with cheering on you
>>getting called on your ***ism. Had a different forceful but pungent
>>wording been written without foul language, it would likely have
received
>>the same response.
>
>Possibly. But I would guess that hearing someone cheered on for use of
>a personal insult ends up feeling very different from having someone
>cheered on for a powerful argument. The latter seems like it's
>cheering on the argument, the former, like it's cheering the insult,
>and hence, approving it, and essentially re-sending it.
I wanted to go back to this to clarify something.
I would bet that the reason that this kind of back and forth can cause
a disconnect is that it's a switch of perspective. Aahz is talking
about what people will do. The same kind of thing, delivered
differently, will result in the same kinds of responses.
And that's when I had this "aha" moment about the feelings.
I believe (or, if you prefer, "guess") that for a good many people,
the cheering of a biting, belittling argument that does not, at the
point of the cheering, include a direct, personal insult, would
probably feel very different from seeing a personal insult cheered.
Because (as I think I said later) I think the first is more likely to
sound like "Good argument, I like what you said" and the other is more
likely to sound like "good insult, I'm glad you tried to hurt this
person", and if that happens, I think the feelings would be very
different.
I didn't see where it mattered if the argument was insulting overall.
It just seemed, to me, that cheering a direct insult was playing with
fire (or, perhaps, a meaningfully hotter fire).
Now, one thing that might help folks understand me is this: there was,
in fact, a time when I was a whiny pain in the ass who'd complain
about how people should be nicer. But I've mostly grown past that. I
still talk about people's feelings, I still would like people to care
more about people's feelings, but I've long learned that I can't judge
the situation.
If PersonA says something hurtful to PersonB, maybe PersonA weighed
the pain carefully against the im****tance of what was said. Or maybe,
if PersonA hadn't said that hurtful thing, the im****tance of what was
said wouldn't be recognized. Or maybe PersonA is in so much pain that
arguing with PersonA about whether a kinder statement would have been
better is ignoring PersonA's feelings in favor of PersonB's. Or... or,
who knows what. Point is, it's none of my business, and even if it
was, I wouldn't have any way of telling anyone what the right thing to
do is, because I'd never have all of the information I needed to know
that.
I wouldn't ever tell anyone "do not insult anyone". But I might say
something like I said above, in the spirit of "try not to hurt anyone
unintentionally". Try to understand that cheering an insult might seem
more hurtful than cheering an insulting argument that isn't (at the
moment, at least) delivering a direct dose of nastiness.
Or don't; no one says anyone has to pay attention to me :-). But
that's where I was going. That was the message that popped into my
mind and that I was eager to share.
(Make whatever jokes you like about oversharing; I already have to
myself.)
Which brings me to the misunderstanding with serene.
Serene, I never intended to proclaim that anyone was responsible for
not hurting other people's feelings. As I said above, I know full well
I can't make that judgment.
A while back, I had thought my feelings were im****tant to you... that
if you were hurting my feelings, that you'd want it brought to your
attention so that we could find out what went wrong and work things
out.
That is the only reason that I said anything to you about your hurting
my feelings. But it was based upon a faulty assumption that I've now
corrected. It won't happen again. As such, I hope you will leave the
past in the past, where it generally belongs.
John Palmer
*Email should be directed to my first name, no space, my last name, at
newsguy, with a com extension.
--
Everything I needed to know in life I learned in Kindergarten. Like:
A pain one has chosen is easier to bear than one unchosen, and knowing
that one can leave makes the leaving less necessary
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