Richard Foxe wrote:"I think the effect on one's character of breaking civility and behaving in ways you wouldn't to someone's face is a very "real life repercussion." You may get away with it in that nobody's going to arrest or fire you, but nothing gets away from your subconscious. All the things you would restrain yourself from in real life are carefully deposited in this mental bank. One's mental life is quite real."

Timothy replied and I began to reply but the topic closed:

I think you have built an interesting fiction of how people should interact.
I would in fact speak my mind in reality the same way I do here, and I bet the same of others.

However, I am intimidated by facial expressions, which are utterly lacking here. Where I might blush and stutter at a scowl or raised eyebrow in real life, here I am confident in my ability to rephrase and reexplain in order to get my point across.

Your post is an attempt to get me to shut up. "breaking civility" where?
Repetition is breaking civility? That's what the most frequest target is, posters beating a dead horse. You and others can always stop responding. The internet takes the shame out of personal interaction.

Straight talk does not equal "breaking civility".

I think you are equating me with MJ and other posters. I don't believe you are responding to me at all.

and my response wasn't about you personally. In fact, since I don't read that many posts, I don't think I've read anything else from you, so I don't know your board personality at all. And yes, I was thinking of MJ, since he's put himself in the spotlight lately.

I wasn't trying to shut you up at all (the "you" was the impersonal you, meaning "a person"). And like you and Timothy, I strive for integrity here, so there's no discrepancy between my board contributions and my daily interactions. In fact, "Richard Foxe" may have more equanimity that I do in real life. We may have different ideals of what we are, but I'm glad to know we don't use the relative anonymity of the board to take shots we wouldn't do in person.

I like the lack of shame here. But that is not an endorsement of "shamelessness."

Gosh, thanks for lumping me in with Timothy. I really like his sentiment of "Who gives a sh!t" regarding others' opinions of my posts.

However, who is to define the line between lack of shame and shamelessness?

If everyone strived more for equanimity, people wouldn't resort to namecalling in the face of MJ being correct. I don't doubt that MJ is much the same in real life as he is on this board.
And the same goes for those who resort to namecalling.
ALSO those who "cut with kindness" delivering insults that don't register until long after the interaction. Slow poison is rampant and I value straight talk that seems blunt or brutal much more than niceness hiding insults.

To call a poster out on a logical failing, strawman, red herring, appeal to authority, etc, often only gains an insult for a reply. If the poster could acknowledge that criticism and rephrase, reexplain, bring a quote to the debate, or just plain admit to being wrong, this board would be a much better place.

But the ego gets in the way.

Plus, the art of apology without qualification seems completely lost. "I'm sorry I called you names, but can't you see how you hurt my feelings and caused me to lash out?" Is not an apology.



Thank you for explaining your response further. :)

... knowutImean, Vern?

>
> Plus, the art of apology without qualification
> seems completely lost. "I'm sorry I called you
> names, but can't you see how you hurt my feelings
> and caused me to lash out?" Is not an apology.

I'm assuming you are referring to my apology on another thread. I understand your drift. Perhaps I should have explained it better.

I allowed myself to get hurt feelings and I made assumptions about the poster's intentions. I lashed out. Each of these is solely my fault. The poster didn't cause me to do anything.

The apology was a sincere one.

Like Richard Foxe, I'm not up on everyone's user name although I've seen you lately, I don't feel like I know your persona here.

MJ gets what I consider "insincere apologies" _all the time_.

Sorry, I didn't mean to make a jab at anyone in particular. I'll go see if I can find what went down.

oh...my bad! lol

Don't trouble yourself with digging. The whole thing is not worth the energy to catch up on...hehe

You've successfully escaped the vile clutches of a false and misleading cult. Now you get to be yourself.

Being true to yourself requires no excuses or apologies.

Let's just say you started a rather heated debate. Happens all the time round these parts. No big whoop.

Timothy

Literally it means something like submission, but it is really an unequivocal acknowledgement that the other's feelings have been hurt. (In fact, it's a cultural politeness to exaggerate the other's degree of hurt and one's own fault or regret--even if by our American standards it wasn't our fault at all.) This contrasts with the American ideal of sincerity. Sincerity isn't incompatible with offering a factual account of what happened, as factual truth is valued in the U.S. But offering "accounts," which often sound like an attempt to shirk blame, are incompatible with Japanese sunao, which values 'relational truth'(ongoing harmony) over incidental facts.

At first I resisted this idea, because the American notion of apology entails a legal admission of guilt ("Aha! So you admit you're wrong and I'm right!"). But in Japan, mutual apologies serve as a social lubricant, with an unrestrained apology typically being met with the other person's heartfelt apology as well.

I like it!

Western culture seems to have an insidious need to come out on top somehow, and the "insincere apology" that includes blame falls right into that trend.

mos are good at it. "So sorry you were offended." includes the sentiment that one should have taken the offense with humility. There is no apology for the cause of offense, only for the offended's _feeling_ of offense.

"I think the effect on one's character of breaking civility and behaving in ways you wouldn't to someone's face is a very "real life repercussion." You may get away with it in that nobody's going to arrest or fire you, but nothing gets away from your subconscious. All the things you would restrain yourself from in real life are carefully deposited in this mental bank. One's mental life is quite real."

What? How someone behaves on the internet is an extension of who they are, not a separate person or identity. If you're an asshole online then you're an asshole in real life.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/20/2011 02:11PM by Strykary.

Some of the most vitriolic postings I've ever seen come from people who also profess to be TBM.
Guaranteed they keep that under wraps in real life. Then they find an outlet, and kaBOOM!!!

Other similarly repressed people do this too, but there isn't a lot of it on the board... except for spring break, after conferences, etc... when the mormons come to SAVE us with RIGHTEOUS JUDGING!!!

LOL


So I propose that people who do this are massively afraid of judgment in real life and put on a mask most of the time.
People who are consistently aggressive or aggravating on this board are not who I am talking about, and probably do carry their attitudes over into real life.

You know the vitriol I'm talking about. It's the sort that gets deleted by admin. Not just annoying people. Poisonous people.

Most of us here probably couldn't build that nicey-nice mask to stay in the church with. Too much internal/external consistency!

"Some of the most vitriolic postings I've ever seen come from people who also profess to be TBM.
Guaranteed they keep that under wraps in real life."

Of course they keep it under wraps in real life. They don't just go around telling people to fuck off, they find subtler methods of expressing their distaste and apprehension for others, passive aggressiveness and etc.

Which goes back to why I like blunt and direct people who may seem rude to people who insist on being nicey-nice. My second post in this thread says it all.

I don't like anyone who tries to appear nice all the time. It's not normal. Let out the bitchiness, don't store it up and explode.

Let's see, I'm thinking of one or two in particular around here. Or three or four... Why are they all women?

Hey! My mom fits this bill too! Dammit!
In theory, "everyone playing nice" sounds good, but it never works like that in the real world.

WinksWinks nli Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Let out the bitchiness, don't store it up and explode.

I think that there's a time and place for it. In private, with close friends, sure. I enjoy a good gossip/smack-down session as well as the next person. But in public, no.

You are talking about the slow poison that I was talking about.

Asserting one's opinion and repeating yourself in order to get your point across is more what I mean.
Not allowing injustices to happen right in front of you.
Standing up against bullies in public.
Sticking up for the little guy who has too little self esteem and gets taken advantage of.
Demanding an apology from bitchy one-uppers who are trying to score verbal points.
Correcting misinformation.
Getting an unpopular truth out in public.

All unpopular things to do. All things that take a spine and a "who gives a sh!t" attitude, to steal a line from Tim.
Things that take balls to do.

Private smack-talk takes no guts. Gossip is slow poison.

WinksWinks nli Wrote:
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> Private smack-talk takes no guts. Gossip is slow poison.

I think it takes a heck of a lot of self-restraint, and knowing your audience.

The objects of my private gossip usually end up self-imploding anyway. They don't need my help to do it. Nor do they care much about my opinion.