Posted by sigismund on July 26, 2010, at 15:25:12
In reply to Re: the system here » sigismund, posted by chujoe on July 25, 2010, at 5:51:44
>Sig, I've talked about it before in other threads on this board, but in brief what I mean by "philosophically empty" is that "civility" at Psychobabble is enforced by a form of coercion that cloaks itself in the language of personal responsibility while denying the possibility of responsibility by enforcing what is really a language code, not an ethics. This system is, also, inherently arbitrary. Finally, limiting discussion of controversial issues to "I statements" that describe one's feelings rather than on'e knowledge (knowledge being infinitely and superficially relative) means that argument in any real sense is impossible.
I've never been very impressed by civility as such. I prefer friendliness, which you can't legislate for. The effect of the manners which the civility rules encourage is to make me feel at home in a situation in which I read meaning into people's posts. With people I know I most often feel I know how they are feeling, so naturally it feels quite paranoid.
Thanks
poster:sigismund
thread:951844
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/admin/20100714/msgs/955999.html