Lance, thanks for posting this very candid and informative post. It is
almost always a good exercise to see oneself as others see you.
From: "Lance Muir" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [email protected]
To: <[email protected]>
Subject: [TruthTalk] Fw: farewell to TT -- long but most real answer
Date: Fri, 27 May 2005 05:27:13 -0400
----- Original Message -----
From: Debbie Sawczak
To: Lance Muir
Sent: May 26, 2005 14:42
Subject: farewell to TT -- long but most real answer
Lance, this may be too long to post on TT. I'll let you be the judge. I'm
writing as if to you--you asked the question, and besides, that keeps me
more open and thinking less about how others will respond. Do what you like
with it.
Why did I leave? David is partly right about the time factor, but that
springs from the more important issue, which is the quality of
communication that happens on TT; I am serious about communication (maybe
too serious!), so I put a lot of time and thought and energy into reading
the messages and composing readable replies. As it became harder and harder
to understand and be understood, that investment only increased, and with
it my anxiety about the result, since it usually turned out badly. It just
wasn't worth it. Reducing the number of messages would only get at the
symptom, not the cause.
When I started on TT the first time, back in December or January or
whenever it was, I took everybody at face value and expected and practised
normal communication. I actually learned stuff from some people, got new
ideas from them. It wasn't long, though, till it became clear to me that
some key participants were not up for learning anything at all. They were,
at best, only into correcting people. At their worst, they did not read
posts lovingly (putting things in the best light, trusting the intent,
looking for points of commonality). They also did not read them properly
(as wholes, following the thread of argument, looking for the main thrust,
interpreting parts in the light of the whole). Instead they tended to pick
messages to bits and "pounce" on individual words or predicates that raised
flags for them. This was generally done in a tone of superior spirituality,
superior allegiance to God and Scripture. There was never any good way to
respond to this. What can you say in return when someone does this, since
every subsequent attempt to address their response only leads to more of
the same? Here was something I can only describe as deafness, hardness.
With other people outside TT--for example, you and I when we misunderstand
each other--we try again. There is good will. It gets cleared up. Or we
find the places where we agree and go on from there. But on TT, people just
dug in deeper and deeper. Ironically, people ended up going to ridiculous
extremes of untenability to defend something they had said.
The same old arguments kept coming up again and again, with zero change in
anybody's position. That was a bore. We were in an argumentative rut, so
that if somebody posted something that wasn't related to one of the
polarizing issues, it was ignored, or quickly and superficially dispatched,
or twisted into something that did relate to one of the polarizing issues.
Meanwhile on the polarizing issues there was just mindless mouthing going
on, for the most part. If Camp A Member said something, it had to be right.
If Camp B Member said something, it had to be wrong. There were only rare
exceptions to this.
There was a lot of sarcasm. From childhood I have been unable to tolerate
sarcasm. Sarcasm when it is obvious you are joking is one thing (even
though it's a weak form of humour), but then there's sarcasm intended to
make the other person appear absurd or evil so you can beat them unfairly.
It is not real communication and I do not allow it in my family. For me it
is the end of the conversation, which is why I stopped responding to
certain TT people altogether.
Accusation, recrimination, smearing, insulting, and condemning were common
too, and produced anger in me, not all of it righteous. This anger
generally turned to sorrow. I would seek refreshment elsewhere (in
prayer--sometimes confessing and receiving forgiveness for my anger--in
Scripture, in other parts of the Christian community, etc.), and try again,
but this cycle got to be wearing, and the people doing these things seemed
not to notice or care that they were. It was discouraging. When I left the
first time it was with the idea of probably returning refreshed at some
point, and I did. That might still happen this time, too, but if it does it
will take longer. I think I have to grow more, be wiser and stronger and
braver, before I can be of use on TT as it is.
Even those who didn't deal in this kind of thing were mostly not prepared
to entertain any idea they didn't already believe. The whole point of the
exercise seemed to be to prove you were right, rather than simply to be
understood and to understand and consider and appreciate. (I can just hear
it: "How can I appreciate what is patently false? And if it's false don't I
have a moral obligation to say so, every time?") Some, when they didn't
understand something, just shrugged and said, "Who cares? I know what I
think. If I don't understand it, it must be something that doesn't matter,
or worse, something pretentious. Obviously God doesn't want me to be
bothered with these things." I don't think calm closed-mindedness is any
better than ranting closed-mindedness.
When I engaged several people off list, I found them to be quite different.
That, I think, might have been the final stroke, because I realized that
these were probably all decent, warm, pleasant, humble people but the
dynamic of TT was twisting them into something else, and that seemed
downright sinister to me. I suspected it might be happening to me as well.
And if the people engaging on TT weren't the real ones, why bother at all?
Debbie
----------
"Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you
ought to answer every man." (Colossians 4:6) http://www.InnGlory.org
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