🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <Evp66o.E8B.0.spadina@torfree.net>,
Jim Butterfield <fjb@torfree.net> wrote:
|Yello Biennual (bdb@GTS.Net) wrote:
|
|: 	More irrelevant sensationalism.
|
|Yello Biennual (bdb@GTS.Net) wrote:
|
|:	Knock off the insulting language - it just makes you look bad.


	Erm.  No doubt if we mine this current discussion
	further, we can find many such, um, non-diplomatic
	words & phrases from a number of participants.


	I have in general no particular intention to directly
	insult anyone here; but I do have an intention to
	speak directly & at times forcefully.  I thought that
	Chris was crossing that line - I've been informed that
	the word he used may have been given with less force than
	I took it - another one of these cultural differences
	as far as I can see.  With the inability of this medium
	to transmit gestures, tone of voice, facial expressions,
	etc., there is more room for interpretation (not always
	correctly 8^) as to the intention of others.


	There are things which to me are obscene which have
	nothing to do with pornography, but rather to do with
	bad ideas that can lead to unjust relations among people.
	Sometimes such ideas are carried forth with the best of
	intentions - thus when one attacks the ideas, those who
	identify with them may find it difficult to avoid taking
	such attacks personally.  Part of the problem is also
	that we've inherited some fairly invasive means of
	persuasion from other more controlled media, so when they
	get used here it can easily (even if unintentionally)
	imply that the users of such techniques have inherited
	the attitudes of control behind the methods of persuasion.
	This may well be largely false perception, but unfortunately
	the low communication bandwidth of this medium is often
	not up to the task of such distinctions.


	It would be nice to be able to say that one always
	assumes the "best" in each of these exchanges, but really
	it is all too simple at times to just react.  In fact it
	seems that things flow best when one waits for a given
	posting to reveal itself both in its own terms as well
	as its place in the ongoing context;  at these times
	one or two re-readings can often provide, if not always
	a better understanding of what was said, at least a
	better chance to try structuring the dialogue to larger
	purposes where appropriate.


	"Afgrty ulpfdnorn, ixoprefla r womvili: audrit sa
	plingor wre tlinsorit!"


	...some Freedom of Expression quoted above - but without
	the accompanying gestures & facial expressions, it's
	entirely meaningless.  What if it's a truly illegal
	utterance in its place of origin?  What if it's Vogon
	poetry (perhaps also illegal 8^)?  The truth is that
	even a collection of words that we know to be utterances
	in our own language can have vastly different meanings
	in differing contexts, even to the point of direct
	contradiction - moreover, as we have been observing
	within these discussions, the same set of words can
	have very different meanings to different individuals.
	Cultural differences & habits of assumption due to one's
	particular upbringing serve to highlight the ambiguities
	in situations like this one, where attempts to be concrete
	may nevertheless be the desired activity.


	In order to make sense of such contradictions, we
	need to develop some forms of shorthand in order to
	limit & shape ambiguity in a productive fashion.
	Devices such as emoticons are the beginning attempts
	to enrich communication in this media, but they do
	not go nearly far enough in expressiveness to be
	able to bear the weight of multi-layered verbal
	interactions.  No doubt in time the very language
	of online interactions such as here in Usenet will
	have evolved to the point where much of the real
	current frustrations of meaningful communication will
	be eliminated.  We are, in a very direct sense, doing
	the work right now towards such desireable outcomes,
	trying different things in order to carry on the
	discussions in these threads.  Viewed in this light,
	it would seem that a little conflict is not too bad
	a price to pay for the possibilities which may arise...


-- 
  ,u,	 Bruce Becker		Toronto, Ontario	1 416 699 1868
a /i/	 Internet: bdb@gts.org	Uucp: ...!gts!bdb
 `\o\-e	 "...and then we had to reformat the Ontario government
 _< /_	 		'cos it had a boot-camp virus"		- Gully Foyle