--- In [email protected], Sal Sunshine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > On Oct 13, 2006, at 1:17 AM, TurquoiseB wrote: > > >> Judy, has it ever occurred to you that adults don't > >> tell other adults what they'd "like you to do"? That > >> it's usually up to the person to decide for him/herself > >> what is best? I guess not. > > > > Some people are only comfortable in a situation in > > which they are constantly told what to do and what > > not to do. After thirty years or so of this, they > > aspire not to enlightenment but to telling other > > people what to do and what not to do. :-) > > Exactly. Condescension becomes a way of life, and > if you can't beat em, join em, I guess. > > It's very doubtful Judy would put up with the manipulation > in the TMO were it to really occur with anyone else, with any > frequency at all. She'd simply find a new doctor, dentist or > whatever. But it's impossible to admit she's been taken in > all these years.
For the record, if I had a doctor who phrased her recommendations as "Do this!" I'd be a lot more likely to look for a different doctor than if she said, "Perhaps it would be best if..." I prefer being treated like an adult. Sal, most of the time your posts are pretty reasonable, but every once in a while you seem to have these little seizures where you start spouting absolute nonsense, usually at me. (Barry's always in that state.) Typically, when it's pointed out to you that you're spouting nonsense, you stand on your head trying to find some shred of rationality in what you said, and you end up arguing about something that's only very distantly related to what you were complaining about in the first place, or even not related at all, as here. I never said anything about excusing TMO manipulation; you made that up. I was making a simple and entirely reasonable, noncontroversial point. Adults in relatively civilized societies are *constantly* being told by other adults what they ought to be doing, and in turn are themselves telling still other adults what *they* ought to be doing. There are rules and regulations and recommendations in virtually every area of life. Most of us (control freaks like Barry excepted) just accept this as the price of living in an organized society. Now, you can tell people what they ought to be doing authoritatively, as in "Do this!" or you can tell them politely, as in "It might be a good idea if you..." or "Perhaps it would be best if..." Usually people respond better when they're told politely, as if they have a choice, even when they don't. Except, apparently, in the case of the TMO. As far as some people are concerned, the TMO is condescending and manipulative if it uses the polite approach, and fascistic and tyrannical if it uses the authoratative approach. It's as if the organization has no right to have any rules at all. Of course the TMO is manipulative, and of course it has some rules we don't like. In some cases we have to go along with the rules we don't like in order to get something we want. That's life. The TMO has never had a whole lot I want, so I've managed to avoid being in a position where I had to go along with its more onerous rules. But none of that has anything to do with the point I was making. Your original challenge to that point made no sense, so you tried to turn your argument into something else entirely, against some point of your own devising that I never made. That you and Barry are agreeing about something should tell you that you went way off track. His take is even more of a straw man than yours, but at least he has the excuse that he didn't bother to pay any attention to the context of the discussion, because all he wanted to do was create an opportunity for a putdown. To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
