Re: The Need for Debate

>
>Here's a quotation for all to think about, *not* addressed directly to
>you necessarily:
>
>"That question, as phrased, is both inflammatory and inaccurate.
>I can stand a little inflammation, or a little inaccuracy; but the
>combination is poison."
>	--Ursula K. Le Guin
>
>
>
Even if an article is both, unless its aimed at you personally you don't
have to take it to heart. That's what I really don't understand... I'm
really quite thick skinned, and I don't understand people who get so
worked up about such things. I think that's where things so wrong, for
me anyway: maybe sometimes I do overgeneralize a little unintentionally,
but what I expect is a rebuttal and what I get sometimes is a personal
attack, which (unlike some) I can shrug off, but which I do think seems
far more offensive than anything I might have written, if I were the
kind to take offense.

>>It is very easy when there is no tone of voice, no facial expressions,
>>as in email, to see the worst in what someone has written. Will everyone
>>please please just try to assume the best, and then (since a lot of us
>>happen to be argumentative, as several people have pointed out) maybe we
>>can all just talk happily and not have the constant angry replies to
>>what was probably not intended to be offensive in the first place.
>>
>>
>
>It's not up to the offender to decide what is and what is not offensive,
>unfortunately.  Only the offended can forgive.
>
>
>
No, but its not the offender's fault or responsibility either. If what
was said was not intended to be offensive, then for the most the there
is no blame on the part of the offender is someone takes it that way.
It's not up to him or her to somehow "fix" the situation or apologize.
There are some exceptions, but generally if you are offended by a
message that wasn't intended to offend you, then it's your problem and
not that of the person who wrote the message. That's freedom of speech
after all: the freedom to express your views even when they might
(coincidentally) upset other people. Deliberately inflamatory speech is
on the other hand banned in many countries: "inciting to riot",
"inciting religeous hatred", etc.

>I was attending a lecture by Marion Woodman (Jungian psychoanalyst,
>author of many books, lecturer) on Friday night.  A man, a minister,
>asked her for her advice on the problem he was having talking to
>narrow-minded co-religionists, how angry they made him.  I spoke to him
>at the break and gave him two quotations, one from Pauline Oliveiros,
>"Speak your experience as your truth", and one from William Blake,
>"We become what we behold", or as Stephen R. Donaldson phrased it,
>"We become what we hate".
>
>"But what can I do in my persona as a teacher, when talking with my
>brother -- and these people?" he asked me.  I said, tentatively, "Mercy,
>pity, peace, and love?"  He tapped me on the shoulder, and I gave him
>a hug.
>
>I didn't see him at the second part of the lecture.  I wondered whether
>he had gone off somewhere to weep.
>
>
>
My solution would have been: simply avoid talking to them as much as
possible outside of work. If they're not willing to hear what you have
to say then what's the point? I have an uncle who's a real maniac who
can talk for hours about how bad the EU is and the kids now a days and
fifty million other things, and who gets immensely angry if you disagree
with him on any of these things, and I simply avoid him.

Reply