Posted by used2b on April 9, 2005, at 11:54:49
In reply to Re: please be civil, posted by Larry Hoover on April 9, 2005, at 10:46:05
> It's a little challenging, sometimes, to phrase things in such a way that you're not being judgmental. But, it's a really good skill to have, in real life. I've certainly put it to good use, myself.
>
> LarIt might be a useful approach sometimes, but I would as soon sacrifice my life as I would sacrifice my judgement.
Applying judgement is to be judgemental. The judgemental behavior prohibited here is only that which offers certain conclusions. In most contexts that promote free thought, criticism of ideas is jealously defended, and if people feel put up or down by their association with an idea or a behavior, they can either adjust their behavior, rebut the criticism or take it for what it is -- one person's opinion not couched with any authority but that of their own voice. Read the editorial page of your paper, and consider the hundreds of English teachers who contributed to shaping the language of those opinion columns. "I" statements are seldom used in the critical discusion of ideas.
There are well-established traditions in civil law that allow people to pray to a court for relief if they believe they are slandered or libeled. The rules of language one is required to deploy here have no little or no relation to any published civil tradition.
I'm not commenting on how the board is run, except to suggest that what one person calls civility is just that -- one person's judgement. Learning the rules here is about like learning the rules of Fear Factor or Monday Night Wrestling -- they make sense in this context, and might be useful in developing an ability to apply unique rules in microcultural settings, but the actual rules have little to offer as a transferable set of standards because they are not accepted or applied an any other known settings.
poster:used2b
thread:478484
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20050408/msgs/481999.html