On Wed, 22 Aug 2001, J. van Baardwijk wrote:
> Ah, but I don't live in America. I'm not even American.
Very true, but you're communicating with Americans, among others, on an
English-language list. If you don't really care how we read your messages,
you might as well write in Dutch and leave the rest of us Yanks stranded.
But if you do care how we read your messages, then you have to be prepared
to offer up mea culpas when you unintentionally write something that
sounds bad by the standards of American English (or British, or Indian, or
Jamaican English, or whatever).
It's not a one-way street, of course. Native English speakers have to be
prepared to cut some slack to those for whom English is not the native
tongue, and if our self-indulgence in some idiomatic mode of speech causes
offense or misunderstanding, then we have to be prepared to offer up mea
culpas of our own.
For such a situation to work we all need to be prepared to be generous
regarding the other person's intent: assume the intent is benign until
the alleged offender has been given multiple opportunities to prove he or
she is being nasty on purpose.
> BTW, close examination of the almost 1,200 messages I've posted here will
> reveal that the English I use on this list is a mixture of British English
> and American English.
No quarrel there. Part of the problem may be that your English is so good
as a rule that it's difficult to believe that you'd make mistakes.
> Believe me, if I had wanted to threaten Bob (or anyone else for that
> matter) with a lawsuit, I would have written something that could not
> *possibly* be interpreted other than as a direct threat of legal steps...
> (something like "shut up or I'll sue you for every penny you've got").
I think I'll start my analysis here. I hope JoAnne will temporarily loan
me the magic Wand of Dings +1.
In the case of Bob vs. Jeroen, we have a conversation that had already
turned fairly unpleasant. After some generally uncharitable exchanges, we
see the following:
*******
Bob:
The jews of Israel are not cut any slack because of the holocaust
and in fact it is apparently reasonable in your world view to accuse
them of the same crimes perpetrated on them by the Nazis.
Jeroen:
Did I accuse Israel of committing genocide on the Palestinians? I
really don't remember saying that; I remember criticizing Israel for the
way it treats Palestinians, but I don't recall accusations of genocide.
Bob:
I cannot of course quote the precise exchange because it was years ago but I
do remember you explicitly linking the behavior of Israel to the holocaust.
*******
Jeroen replied by saying he could find no such instance in the Brin-L
archives, challenged Bob to provide proof of his assertion, and then made
the little speech which Bob took as a threat of legal action.
Frankly, in this instance, I think Bob was in the wrong first, for making
his inflammatory accusation and for dragging the "N" word into a debate.
(Isn't the rule that a debate's automatically f***ed once the word "Nazi"
enters the fray?) A moment's reflection should have told him that making
such a statement without ready proof was a really bad idea, in my opinion.
When Jeroen asked for proof, Bob made it worse by basically saying that
even though he can't produce proof, he's sure it's true in some
significant and, one assumes, damaging way.
So, here I'll give a ding to Bob for the intial accusation, and another
ding for neglecting an opportunity to moderate his speech in some way.
Then Jeroen makes what some have called a threat of legal action, which
may or may not be worth a ding depending on how much slack you want to give
Jeroen for not being a native English speaker.
Then Bob makes another mistake, IMO, by ignoring a second opportunity to
moderate his speech or at least to withdrawal an accusation which he seems
to be admitting he can't prove. Instead, he summarily drops the argument,
says he will assume that Jeroen is preparing to sue him, and threatens to
consider leaving Brin-L. Depending on how seriously Bob takes any threat
of litigation, I probably wouldn't ding him for jumping to a worst probable
scenario. The man's a doctor, IIRC, and has probably learned to take all
talk of lawsuits very seriously. On the other hand, his reaction strikes
me as a bit extreme--this isn't a medical issue after all--but with
potential mitigating circumstances, rather like Jeroen's instance above.
Now it's time for Jeroen to collect his dings, because instead of saying,
"No, of course I wouldn't sue you! Don't be silly, I'm just trying to make
a point," he replies:
*******
This statement is almost as good as a signed confession. If you throw
insults at people, and are sure that you can convince the court that these
are mere comments and not insults/libel/slander, you have nothing to fear
from a lawsuit. If you can provide the court with all necessary evidence
to show that any accusation you make is, in fact, justified, you have
nothing to fear from a lawsuit.
Yet, you do fear a lawsuit...
*******
After which, Jeroen goes on to offer Bob a copy of the listserv
"unsubscribe" instructions and says "Bye."
Ding #1 to Jeroen: instead of clarifying the fact that he has no intent
to sue Bob, he rubs Bob's nose in it and says that he's
practically confessed to slander. (IMO, people don't have to be guilty of
anything to not want to associate with the kind of people who appear to
casually threaten lawsuits over silly stuff like the crap that sometimes
happens on Brin-L.)
Here's a case that might also explain why people misunderstood Jeroen's intent
on this particular issue: instead of explaining his lack of desire to sue
at the most appropriate opportunity, he chose to use the possibility of
a lawsuit as a way to further condemn Bob, which in turn makes it hard for
observers to grant Jeroen much benefit of the doubt where the alleged
lawsuit-threat is concerned.
Ding #2 to Jeroen: in response to Bob's statement that he'll consider
leaving the list, Jeroen basically ushers Bob to the door and implies he
won't be missed, which, let's face it, is pretty contemptible by
Brin-L standards, where the tradition is to try to bend over backwards to
encourage people to stay unless they are absolutely incorrigible. Maybe
this is a two-dinger.
In summary: in the case of Jeroen vs. Bob, we have an incident in which
two very responsible long-time Brinellers lost their cool and failed to
extend to each other any generosity or benefit of the doubt. I know that
a lot of people have criticized Jeroen for his part, prompted largely by
the desire not to see Bob leave. An equal measure of blame, though, goes
to Bob for injecting the whole Nazi/Israel business into an already
deteriorating conversation, and IMO it's totally unfair to lay all the
blame at Jeroen's feet.
Recommendations? Well, there are certain things that should never be done
without stepping back and taking some very deep breaths, and those
things include dragging Nazis or Israel-vs-Palestine into an unrelated
debate; saying things that hint at real-world reprisals, such as lawsuits;
threatening to leave the list in a huff; and encouraging people to leave
the list in a huff. When we consider that both Jeroen and Bob are both
experienced long-term Brinellers who should know better, I really can't
think of any excuse for this kind of meltdown.
On the other hand, meltdowns like this can often be filed in the category
of "sh*t happens" and then dropped if both participants are willing to say
to themselves, "Jeez, what what I thinking?" and then make up with one
another. But that's up to them.
> >Do you REALLY want a direct answer to this question?
>
> Of course I do.
>
Now that you've had a taste of my method, do you still want it? =)
> >Alternatively, if you'd rather pick specific instances in which you
> >were misunderstood, I'll be happy to do my best to analyze those
> >instances in the context of the overall debate and try to produce an
> >answer to "why."
>
> You really don't want to do that. Those misinterpretations (and some other
> things I'm not exactly happy about) have happened for almost as long as
> I've been subscribed; the research alone will keep you busy till Xmas...
Jesus, I don't want *all* possible instances, Jeroen. I'm not looking for
a second job, and this one wouldn't even pay me anything. :-) But when
one considers how much work it is to reconstruct a thread and then analyze
it, I wouldn't mind having you tell me about a couple of misunderstandings
you consider representative of the problem you perceive.
Marvin Long
Austin, Texas
"The ego that sees a 'thou' is fundamentally different from an ego that
sees an 'it.'" -- Joseph Campbell
