Saturday, Sept. 15
Dear TIPS colleagues:
May I make a plea for peaceful and thoughtful conflict resolution on
this list serve, just as I hope for peaceful and thoughtful approaches
may be found to the conflict our nation faces?
I am feeling somewhat "unworthy" to post this plea, because I realize
that I too have sometimes responded to posts in overly-sensitive or
argumentative ways.
Nevertheless, I make this plea! The exchanges over recent events, with a
few notable exceptions, have been growing more and more caustic and less
and less helpful. Please, let us communicate with one another in a more
reasoned and caring way -- everyone has been through hell this week, and
as a community of scholars (of psychologists no less!) I would hope that
we would be somewhat sensitive to the
emotional stress and physical exhaustion that all of us are experiencing
to greater and lesser degrees.
While expression of divergent viewpoints and disagreements on how we
should define what has happened, or the course of action the U.S. should
take, could be helpful for us as teachers of psychology, accusations and
insinuations are less helpful. I am not trying to stop discussion, but
just asking that we try to respect one another as human beings while we
are disagreeing.
I especially urge caution about suggesting possible links between any
member of this list and the perpetrators of the violence of these past
few days. No matter what our political viewpoints -- and there is a
wide range on this list, as there is in the U.S. as a whole, we still
live in a nation where one is free to express strong and even
impassioned disagreement with the party in power and the powers that be.
Thank you for allowing me to speak my mind,
Deb Hume
Deborah L. Hume Ph.D.
Assistant Professor in Psychology
Stephens College
1200 East Broadway
Columbia, MO 65211
Phone (573) 876-7141
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
