WHAT IS THE HONORABLE RESPONSE?

@Rockhead,

No, i have been becoming increasingly worried about how i should deal with this sort of thing over the course of several weeks. We called the plumber in on Sunday, and a crew came out Monday (even though it was a holiday here), and it was all just hunky-dory by Monday afternoon.

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@Setanta,

just checkin'...

you're kinda swimming against the current a bit.

have fun...

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Ah . . . perhaps you mean my personal plumbing. The answer to that is no, as well. Almost 40 years ago, i contracted a particularly virulent form of dysentery while i was overseas--i lost 65 pounds in ten days, and was literally at death's door. My personal plumbing has never been completely in order since that time--it's just a matter of sometimes it's worse than normal, and when there is a problem, it takes longer for me to get over it. Once again, this disturbing trend was in train before i came down with the "stomach flu," or whatever it was.

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@Setanta,

woooops. uhhh. no.

TMI Shocked

anyways.

If you need to say something, say it.

how you say it makes all the difference.

you can do it...

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@Rockhead,

Well, as far as this thread is concerned, i don't believe i've had this much fun since the last time i got my pecker caught in my zipper . . .

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@ossobuco,

re Ingrid, but not from my wild posts when I first knew, where I tried to get a2kers to listen. I now assume I worded them wrong.
http://able2know.org/topic/57943-1

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@Setanta,

yeah...

who started this damn thing, anyways???

(I wear button flies meself)

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@Rockhead,

I started it.

That other thing, though--just makes your eyes water to think about it, don't it?

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@Setanta,

indeed...

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@ossobuco,

I admit there were posts trying to get attention on my part before that, by a few minutes.

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@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

Recently, i have seen people whose expressed personal philosophies are not objectionable to me, and whose ideas i usually enjoy, whose opinions i usually respect--post things which were offensive to me.

What does "offensive" mean? That you strongly disagree on the merits? In this case, feel free to disagree. Just make sure the disagreement remains about the merits of what's said, not the merits of the person you're disagreeing with -- which, contrary to your reputation, you usually do.

Or does offensive mean "personally offensive"? Normally my advice would be to say, in the thread, that "remark X was uncalled for because of Y." This probably wouldn't work for you. You'd get a lot of look-who's-talking" flak from posters whose personal philosophies you do find objectionable and whose opinions you don't usually respect. Then you respond to the flak, carnage ensues, and the thread gets disrupted without your objection doing any good.

Therefore, in your case, I'd advise you to raise your concerns in a PM. From reading your exchanges, my sense is is that those people you enjoy and respect tend to be people who enjoy and respect you back. That should give the two of you a pretty good chance of resolving your difficulties.

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@Thomas,

Thomas wrote:

Setanta wrote:
Recently, i have seen people whose expressed personal philosophies are not objectionable to me, and whose ideas i usually enjoy, whose opinions i usually respect--post things which were offensive to me.

What does "offensive" mean? That you strongly disagree on the merits? In this case, feel free to disagree. Just make sure the disagreement remains about the merits of what's said, not the merits of the person you're disagreeing with -- which, contrary to your reputation, you usually do.

Or does offensive mean "personally offensive"? Normally my advice would be to say, in the thread, that "remark X was uncalled for because of Y." This probably wouldn't work for you. You'd get a lot of look-who's-talking" flak from posters whose personal philosophies you do find objectionable and whose opinions you don't usually respect. Then you respond to the flak, carnage ensues, and the thread gets disrupted without your objection doing any good.

Therefore, in your case, I'd advise you to raise your concerns in a PM. From reading your exchanges, my sense is is that those people you enjoy and respect tend to be people who enjoy and respect you back. That should give the two of you a pretty good chance of resolving your difficulties.

Sometimes it helps to read the thread, Boss. Earlier, in response to remarks by the Cunning Coney:

I wrote:

I did not intend to discuss this, and certainly don't intend to name any names, but two recent incidents involved one of our most level-headed members lashing out at others on the basis of political partisanship, and another involved one of our most serene members making a remark which i considered shockingly racist.

There are some people whom i expect to lash out for partisan reasons, and some people whom i expect to make racist remarks. But i would never have thought that either of those members would have behaved in such a manner. So, i felt compelled to dissociate myself from their remarks, even though i was not in fact participating in either thread--basically i faced the conundrum which Sofia described. So, i did not see it merely as a matter of disagreeing with my friends. It was a sensation of violently disagreeing with people whom i considered to be acting quite out of character. These two are just examples--i've seen quite a lot of it in the last few weeks, and it also involves people for whom i have a regard, even though i would not necessarily think that they took me for a friend.

The advice of your last paragraph is well taken, Boss.

Send us a note, just a silly little something, so i can hold it out for the little doggies to smell, and get all excited.

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@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

Sometimes it helps to read the thread, Boss.

Sometimes, but not often enough to be worth the effort for my first response.

In the scenario you describe, I usually stay out. I do this for reasons of laziness, not of honor. I guess the most honorable thing to do, and also the most effective one, is to try to throw some cold water on the fighters with a sarcastic remark about their fighting.

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@Thomas,

hmmmmmm.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BNWmnHPFvE&feature=related

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Our hypochondriacal, attention-seeking gump of a thread-master has just called me a dipsomaniac again. He knows very well that my late night visit to my local pub for two pints of John Smith's Extra Smooth and friendly chit-chat with some of my neighbours about literary matters, sport and the state of the distaff is a vital component of my diet and recommended by many doctors and that the resulting alcohol content of my blood is not sufficient to cause a policeman to raise an eyebrow in the event of my driving (which I don't) and that it keeps me cheerful and tolerant throughout the next day and my bowels in perfect working order.

He, this bad-tempered, intolerant, dog owner and flea-bitten pavement polluter, has, despite having me on Ignore, a really big girl's blousie thing to do, posted on the evolution thread for no other reason than to repeat this slanderous slur and bald lie and to once again gratuitously insult Bob Dylan and in doing so, from ignorance I presume, has lined himself up with the elitist Pope of today against the people's Pope who went before him. Which is a really strange thing for him to do as his posing as a liberal is thereby exposed as a joke and he is displayed before us as a hypocrite or as not knowing which way up he is nor the direction of the wind.

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@spendius,

Here is the post he made on the Latest Challenges to Teaching Evolution thread--

Quote:

Silly me . . . i ought to have known . . . that post was directed at the dipsomaniac, eh?

If that isn't lurking in ambush for the purpose of being nasty I don't know what is. One wouldn't say it was "on topic" would one?

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@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

So, please tell me how you would deal with a situation in which you see someone you like and respect posting something which is offensive to the ideas you hold dear.

If I haven't already posted on the thread, I stay shtum and pretend I never dropped by. I don't think there is anything to gain.

~~~

Related/unrelated? I think it could be related.

driving home around New Years, I was listening to the CBC. They were doing a little feature on the best advice people ever got. I was quite taken by the story someone told about their dad telling them that a really good life rule was to assume that other people mean well. To try and figure out what positive thing they might have been trying to do or say.

I've been trying to apply this in my real life as well as here. I'm not always successful, but it's definitely made my relax about a lot of things.

~~~

Tone. There are ways to disagree politely, with courtesy and grace. With style. Barking/biting/snapping works in the dog park. You've definitely got the writing abilities to disagree with opinions in a smooth way, without appearing to attack the poster personally. Why you don't want to apply your writing skills (one of the things I've always liked best about you - and why I keep buying you journals to encourage you to WRITE) is an enormous mystery to me.

~~~

A thousand years ago in university, I was a dangerously stressed young woman. I was sent to a student counsellor after the original prescription to drink a glass of wine each day didn't help calm me down.

We talked. He told me to ask myself a series of questions each time I got wound up. 1. is my reaction doing me any good? 2. is my reaction doing anyone else any good? 3. if not, why am I doing it? The answer 99/100 times is "no good reason". He told me he wouldn't bother booking me for a second appointment since I clearly understood what he was saying. I didn't need to go back - and I still run those questions through my head at least a half-dozen times a week.

so - would commenting on things no one knows you've seen (and that you're feeling heated about at the time) do you any good? would it benefit anyone else? if the answers to both are honestly yes, I'd recommend posting about your views on the topic - without addressing a particular poster, and without jabbing your virtual finger into anyone's virtual face. It wouldn't give you a good adrenaline rush, but it might help with that 'honour' concern.

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Personally, I wouldn't say anything - just chalk it up to new information about the person and stay away from exposing myself to it. None of us are anybody else's conscience, and if someone shows themself a racist, say, then what can/should anyone do about it? They're entitled to be whatever they are and if you don't like it, you don't have to engage with them. Just reassess your opinions of the person and stay away from them.

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@ehBeth,

Listen to the Girl, Set. She is wise.

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@Mame,

Quote:

They're entitled to be whatever they are and if you don't like it, you don't have to engage with them.

But, Mame, my dear, the trouble with that is that it can easily cause an isolation from social life or the necessity of only conducting superficial relationships which determindly avoid matters on which clashes of conscience arise.

The more you know someone the more chance there is of such a clash seeing as how many subjects there are from which they arise.

I think it is better to expose yourself to the conscience of others. There is a danger that one's own conscience is tailored to suit one's needs and others might have other needs to which their conscience is tailored.

I don't have a conscience myself as I never do anything which I might be ashamed of.

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WHAT IS THE HONORABLE RESPONSE?

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