---In [email protected], <anartaxius@...> wrote :
No, people become insulted. A person saying x might be interpreted by y as an insult, but interpreted by z as a helpful hint. Being insulted is a response. What to some might seem a pox on their cherished tradition others might see as a reasonable evaluation of idiotic beliefs, or even championing truth. You can swear at an anvil, and what does it do in response — nothing. You can berate someone in a language they do not speak, and while they might notice you are agitated, in not understanding the words, they will not responds as if it were an insult. So it is all in the interpretation. I have never said what Barry says is wisdom. It is what Barry says, that is all. People respond in different ways. He clearly knows enough about certain aspects of human nature to elicit the responses he gets on FFL. If I lived where he lived and saw him every day, I probably would have a better idea what he is like, but I tend not to draw conclusions so readily based on what he writes. Wisdom does not come from others, if you want to be wise, you have to mine for it yourself. Xeno, one of these days you're going to have to have to take a real stand on something. I don't know on exactly what or exactly why but it will happen, if you are lucky. Because to go through life waffling like you do, running the middle ground and basically existing in some sort of nebulous haze where nothing has any edges or definition is my idea of a nightmare. However, you seem to have chosen this sort of outlook and means of surviving but by doing so you are doomed to embrace all sorts of ugly and the noxious along with the mediocre and unremarkable.
