On Tue, 31 Jul 2001, John D. Giorgis wrote:
> At 01:03 PM 8/1/01 +1200 K.Feete wrote:
> >Dean was, for me, the last strike- less because of what he said, which as
> >I mentioned has been said and done before, but because, scanning my
> >email, I saw only one reply condemning him for it.
> >
> >That's not right. We should be more of a community than that.
>
> I find it worth mentioning that Dr. Brin gave exactly the same reason for
> his leaving. "Oh, it wasn't so much what Person X said, it was the
> failure of everyone else to publicly condemn Person X for saying it, on my
> behalf."
>
> As it was, there were a lot of valid reasons why the latter never happened
> - the incident (with Dr. Brin) happened on a holiday weekend in the States,
> many others were simply not reading that particular discussion, and others
> simply aren't in the habit of calling people out in public - preferring to
> either stay out of personal disputes, or bring up such matters privately.
>
> I dunno, but the logic never seemed right to me then, and it doesn't seem
> right to me now.
I'd like to agree with John and amplify his point slightly...two wrongs
don't make a right. It's wrong to go off half-cocked on somebody on-list,
but it's just as wrong (in the context of a listserv) to reply with anger
in public when the issue is essentially a private one. Last summer should
have taught us that lesson pretty thoroughly--it did for me, anyway.
Also--I think I've been on this list for, gosh, three or four years now,
and I'm pretty sure I've seen everybody screw up, including me, including
our eponymous mascot, by shooting his or her mouth off hastily at least
once. (There are some exceptions, but not many.) It ain't the end of the
world. It's happened before, it'll happen again, and since it ain't a
punch in the nose, it ain't worth much angst. Something else I've tried
to learn.
And for all the folks who cry out about how the "tone of the list"
has somehow deteriorated, I don't really buy it. I really miss the
participation of David Brin. And I miss the people who have left over the
years. And it's been longer than I'd like since a new Brin book came out
to spur our conversations topicwards. But for crying out loud, we're
mostly still here. In spite of our occasional bitching and moaning we
mostly stay, and those who leave for a while often come back. But for as
long as I've been here this has been a fairly rough-and-tumble crowd of
conversationalists.
So here's a suggestion: when someone says something that ticks us off,
let's stop trying to be moralists about what is basically a matter of
conversational etiquette. We're not here to be thought police or grammar
police. Well, maybe sometimes on the grammer....but let's be a
sociologists instead. Remember that some people in the world are going
to rub you the wrong way no matter what, and let's not take such things
personally. Instead of thinking "Why, that dirty so and so...!" think,
"Gee, I WONDER why that dirty so and so," said whatever he said. Maybe
it'll give us enough pause to make sure that whatever we say in response
actually does some good.
John Giorgis, for instance, frustrates me endlessly by failing to embrace
the obviously superior and oft-witty truths with which I occasionally
grace his benighted soul, but in spite of that I'm convinced that he's an
utterly decent and good person who just happens to disagree with me
endlessly.
And actually, I'm going to humble myself, offer a sacrifice in the manner
of the ancients, by spilling my virtual blood in the marketplace of ideas,
and stammer, "You know, I think I'm beginning to agree with John about the
Kyoto treaty."
Man, that hurt.
Marvin Long
Austin, Texas
Happiness is a warm delete key.
