Posted by bob on May 13, 2000, at 15:21:39
In reply to Re: I'm outa here (middle finger raised), posted by boBB on May 13, 2000, at 14:10:10
Questioning what can be interpreted as the status quo is one thing -- persistent personal attacks accompanied with an expressed lack of intention to reconsider what was said and whether it was appropriate.
boBB, in spite of your concern over how "offensive" you might come off, at least as you've expressed it in other posts, from what folks (including me) have said about you lately you should see this isn't the case. Sure, you go on the attack quite often -- but you attack structures and systems of belief. When it comes to individuals, your comments have always been more along the lines of "wake up and smell the coffee" than slurs or insults. Furthermore, you try to present if not evidence, but a logical argument for your views.
You may write like a cattle prod, but you poke it where it needs to get poked and you give reasons that are often compelling and, in any event, deserve close attention.
Fred started off with a serious issue for consideration -- forced treatment (and ECT). His explanation was personal experience, which is highly-valued commodity around here. But rather than arguing issues, he resorted to persistent and unrelenting personal attacks as his way of making a point.
You may consider him an ally, but all his method did was clamp shut minds almost as tightly as his own. Your methods are quite a bit different. Given that you're a writer and have shown you know quite a bit about discourse styles, I thought you'd be able to recognize the difference.
No, this is not a theater, nor is it Comedy Central nor the rest of the internet. It may be a public forum, but electronic forums like this -- particularly those run by universities or other government institutions -- do have policies of appropriate use. Quite frankly, even if Dr. Bob was a rabid supporter of First Amendment rights, his employers could still force him as moderator to enforce those conditions of appropriate use or shut down the board. This may be a public forum, but participation is voluntary. Furthermore, I doubt that anyone could make a case for access to Babble being a right protected by the ADA or something similar. In choosing to participate, you choose to abide by the board's conditions of use.
Fred had a very important issue to discuss -- one which most of us probably know nothing about -- but he chose to wage a personal vendetta instead of trying to educate us. Maybe Janice could have handled it differently, but I doubt that I would simply have turned the other cheek if I had been Fred's target instead.
Electronic text is a notoriously difficult medium for expression, and smilies do little to improve it. I've been a regular user of email and other forms of electronic communication for a little more than 15 years, and I've seen hundreds of cases where people read far too much into what someone else has said, blowing statements into issues far out of proportion with what was said. I've been on both sides of that argument myself.
It can be very difficult to keep a cool head when you have so little context beyond the words -- inflections, body language, facial expressions -- to go on. But this isn't the Martha Stewart's Living Plan-a-Hampton's-Beach-Party bulletin board -- it's one to which people can bring some rather raw nerves and sensitive topics. The "conditions of use" at the top of the Babbleland page aren't meant to snuff out minority opinions -- they're meant to snuff out forest fires before they spread and destroy this board.
So boBB, if you're so offended by this small community's standards for civility -- well, I *will* miss your thought-provoking, well-argued wake-up calls. But if you think you're taking a stand, fighting for an important cause -- I think you need to see who around here is doing that cause some good versus who around here is hurting his or her own cause through their choice of actions.
sincerely,
bob
poster:bob
thread:32651
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20000508/msgs/33379.html