Speaking for uppity women world-wide, I hope someone will explain
(off-list or on) why Janet Neuhauser's well-meant and open-hearted plea
should start a "flamed discussion". Granted, I am not an entirely
impartial bystander, but I don't find any words or intent in her message
that suggest or invite flames. Rather Carlos's response, laying down the
law in a manner that, all things considered and given the givens, seems
"high handed" borders on the dread "flame."
My other question was going to be to ask Carlos why, if Janet's letter was
what the list "does not need at this time," *his* message was what it did
need. I mean I would have expected a gentleman with such a fine sense of
the fitness of things to send his chastisement privately, rather than
put down a newbie in public and/or further trouble the waters of the
list at large.
But now that I'm here for a nickle, I think I'll stay for the dime. The
thought has occurred to me that one reason besides tax season that the
list has been lackluster, to the degree that it has (so that an uppity
person might not feel any urge to return), is that too many feelings about
recent events have been collectively repressed -- and, as this exchange
shows, continue to be repressed. Such feelings, I submit, make it more
difficult to speak up about *anything*.
I'm sure many people already know what feelings are: Closely related to,
if not identical with, emotions, they originate, it is now believed, in
"the mind," but are often felt in the body, perhaps even, not to wax
overly poetic, in the list body. They are not a property of pixels,
though that time may come, and they cannot be cleared with EDTA or
hydrochloric acid. In fact there is persuasive evidence that the only way
to clear feelings so that residue and byproducts do not remain to darken
the future is by talking about them, or, as they say in the lingo,
"expressing" them.
I do not of course advocate a list group-therapy session. But I do suggest
that when a new writer comes on with what seems like a *relevant*
expression of honest feeling and is promptly squelched by a self-appointed
guardian of list conduct whom her message does not please, we have more of
the problem, not the solution. (And certainly a disincentive for new
writers.)
OK, Janet has pressed a nerve, citing list failure "in defense of Judy."
But surely putting the fear of open expression into everyone's mind with a
sharp, and I'm sure, unexpected, reproach doesn't exorcise feelings, now
or ever. I think, in fact, that Carlos has the prescription backwards --
where the heart is absent, the "good strong technical argument" is not so
readily engaged. One might even argue that "a good strong technical
argument" was the springboard for the recent troubles (over which we now
discreetly draw the veil).
I myself would like to see conditions improve, for my own continuing
education if for no other reason -- and I assume that later, if not
sooner, they will. But if my diagnosis is correct, contrived chatter
isn't the real cure, not even a fake "cure." Nor is repression the cure,
at least it hasn't been so far. (And for what it's worth, I note that in
raising children repression is the cause of many expensive neuroses, as
former children frequently attest.)
Meanwhile, the reminder of what else I would be in for upon returning to
the list is not lost on me.
Thanks,
Judy