A couple of thoughts....
1. I hereby return the ding wand to Jo Anne, and repent my sins for
having presumed to borrow it in the first place. The reason: if I want
to do an impartial analysis, and I do, than a ding wand is an
inappropriate tool. Upon further reflection, I think the language of
dings is not what's required here.
2. I shouldn't have called this a "prologue." More like a trial run.
The reason: I'm still trying to hammer out the rules by which my analysis
for Jeroen should take place.
On Thu, 23 Aug 2001, Baardwijk, J. van DTO/SLBD/BGM/SVM/SGM wrote:
> > 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.
>
> But I did clarify later that I have no intend to sue Bob (or anyone else for
> that matter). Minus one ding? (Do you need to borrow Jo Anne's magic Wand of
> Dings -1 for that?)
Since I shouldn't have used the wand in the first place, let's not think
in terms of dings anymore. Let's think, rather, in doing what's needed
to make things right or to come to a truce. Have you offered everything
in the way of clarification and/or apology that you can and should?
(Never mind what Bob does or doesn't do, since you're only responsible for
your own words.)
>
> > 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
>
> Hey, Bob said he would consider unsubscribing; I was just saving him the
> trouble of having to figure out for himself how to do that! I was just
> trying to be helpful! :-)
>
> (Minus one ding?)
Ok, I can think of a couple of ways to read this. The positive way is to
think, "Ahh, Jeroen's making fun of me for being so presumptuous as to borrow
Jo Anne's Wand of Dings, and he's tweaking my nose a little bit." That's
fine and I have no problem with it. I've already repented for my poor
judgment in that regard.
The negative way is to think, "My goodness, Jeroen really doesn't care
whether or not Bob stays or leaves, and he doesn't care whether or not the
rest of Brin-L would prefer to see Bob stay. He's using this flippant
attempt at humor to justify himself because he knows that nobody can
prove what's actually in his mind when he writes."
Or, maybe you're just being evasive about the issue.
Now, with either interpretation, I'm obliged to try to guess at the intent
behind your words, Jeroen. Why am I so obliged? Well, it's becaused
you've employed some idiomatic English & emoticon stylings (the "Hey,"
the explanation points, the smiley face) all of which signal the reader
not to take too seriously some element of the conversation. However, the
thing which is to be regarded as "not serious" is ambiguous and unclear.
Am I to take *myself* less seriously (the positive interpretation)? Are
we all supposed to take less seriously the possibility that Bob might
quit Brin-L? Or are we supposed to take as not serious an instance in
which one listmember appears to goad and encourage another listmember to
leave? Or are you simply being evasive, by offering an explanation of
your intent but also surrounding that explanation with cues that suggest
not to take the explanation seriously?
The fact is that I simply don't know, and so what we have here is a
situation ripe for misunderstanding. "What we have here, boy, is a
failure to communicate." My gut instinct is that you are being evasive
because you're using an idiomatic form of speech typical of when people
try to deflect criticism rather than actually respond to it.
But that's just my gut, and what does it know, right? So let's try again.
Please explain what you actually mean, in all seriousness, without
smileyfaces and what-not, so that I may understand your true intent.
> > Now that you've had a taste of my method, do you still want it? =)
>
> I think you're doing a good job here -- although I do reserve the right to
> publicly disagree with any further analyses (or specific parts thereof).
Of course, but at this point I think we should clarify my goal and
mutually decide what kind of rules I should follow. I don't want to put
myself in the place of grand inquisitor, arbitrarily handing out
judgements and dings, so we need to set some ground rules. Here's what
I'm assuming at the get-go, Jeroen, so please let me know if I'm mistaken.
The problem, as I understand it, is this:
Jeroen believes that he is currently, and has been for a long time, frequently
misunderstood by other Brinellers for reasons he doesn't quite grasp. He
wants to know why this happens, presumably so that he and other Brinellers
can take steps to prevent future misunderstanding.
As I understand it, these misunderstandings fall basically into two
categories:
1) Misunderstood arguments--that is, Jeroen argues one point, and then
other parties miss that point and go off on some other tangent; and
2) Unintendend offense--that is, somebody takes personal offense at
something that Jeroen believes to be innocuous and inoffensive
My goal, then, is as follows:
I will look at a thread in which Jeroen has been involved and which seems
to go wrong. I will try to identify specific phrases which appear to
cause misunderstandings and then explain why, in my opinion, those phrases
caused or exacerbated those misunderstandings.
My job is not to judge the intent of any speaker, Jeroen included.
Rather, my job is to judge what I think the effect of words will be when
read by someone else, and to say why. I will try to establish some kind
of cause-and-effect link between the misunderstood words and the
misunderstanding itself.
It is not my job to take sides in an argument, or to declare one person
right or another person wrong.
I will try to avoid generalizations.
I will always try to take context into account.
Anything else?
> > 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.
>
> Ah, letting *me* do the archive-digging. Clever move... :-)
It's not *just* that. <g> There's also the possibility that I'll pick
examples which don't hit at whatever you think the heart of the problem
is, in which case I'll end up wasting a lot of time and effort. I'm not
interested in ancient history, just recent threads. If something jumps
out at you, if it just begs for explanation, then by all means let me
know. Otherwise I'll just do my best.
Marvin Long
Austin, Texas
"The ego that sees a 'thou' is fundamentally different from an ego that
sees an 'it.'" -- Joseph Campbell
