Date: Sun, 31 Mar 1996 08:12:33 -0500 (EST)
From: zodiac <zodiac-AT-interlog.com>
To: marxism-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU
Subject: Re: Tom Condit's Reminescences


On Sun, 31 Mar 1996, boddhisatva wrote:

> 	I think that a step towards creating a better tone, and filtering the
> tripe from the list might be for a poster to seriously consider whether he
> should mention people by name for disparaging (certainly), criticism (really,
> think about it) or even citation (except to be informative).  If we are going
> to exchange ideas, let's exchange IDEAS.

I agree in that you use the phrase "seriously consider" -- which is nice. 
I mean, I wish everyone would just "seriously consider" everything they 
write, not just in this instance of attribution.

But I would like to add I find it very frustrating when people do not
properly attribute their assertions to specific statements and specific
people.  When people do not practice that precision, they start inflating
the position of others to all sorts of bizarre strawman proportions until
the post should come with the .signature: "Any similarities to any person,
living or dead, found in this post is purely coincidental." 

Then everyone else loads up their posts with comments like "I hope you
aren't referring to me, because I..." etc. In fact, the person isn't
referring to anyone, and a big non-discussion results, everyone talking
past each other, not really discussing anything -- rather like throwing
together a bunch of paranoid schizophrenics in a room gives the impression
a large conversation is going on... 

The Justin Schwartz gang were particularly adept at this generalization
you hint at. It didn't raise the level of discussion. It was more like a
game of "I wonder if that relates at all to something I just wrote."

If you hold a stupid opinion of my own position, I'd rather know it, than 
be left guessing if I'm the person behind your generalizations.

Ken.


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