Adam Kimball (akimball@finebrand.com)
Tue, 26 Jan 1999 11:02:05 -0800
Eugene & all,
We would all like to get on with the program, obviously. And I do agree that
email with strangers presents many problems, but I'm afraid I have to disagree
with your interpretation of this particular event. You don't seem to think
enough intent was present to justify the use of the word insult by Katherine's
latest email? I think you should read those lines again. Katherine made no
attempt to intepret Judy's email correctly, she completely misread Judy's
statement about Phil Davis, and followed it up with a total insult. I wonder
who you think Katherine was talking about when she said:
> The dogs bark, but the caravan moves on.
Phil Davis? Me? You? She was directly quoting Judy. If that doesn't qualify as
an insult, I have no idea what does. My little American Heritage defines insult
as: "To speak or treat with disrespect or contempt." Equating anybody with a
barking dog, even loosely and vaguely is surely to treat them, and their ideas,
with disrespect.
And that is only the latest incident...
-Adam
Eugene Robkin wrote:
> As a long time lurker and occasional intruder on this list I have to throw
> out (or is it up) the following.
>
> Unless you are within the body odor sphere of someone else you are only
> getting part of the communication. Words alone account for no more than a
> third of normal communications with people you do not know personally. The
> rest is facial expression, body language, voice tone, and pheromones.
> Telephone and written communications with someone you know well is one
> thing and email with virtual friends (actual strangers) is another. Unless
> you deliberately remove as much emotional content as possible from what you
> write and resolve to ignore as much as possible from what you read, this
> email mode of discourse will always periodically explode. The feedback
> systems are all incomplete and without dampers and therefore unstable.
>
> I've followed the flare ups on this and other lists. Much to my regret,
> I've started two flame wars by accident and I know exactly how it's done.
> So let me be clear here. Katharine did not insult or attack Judy and Judy
> did not insult or attack Katharine since intent is not present. What is
> present is the verbal patterns that these two usually use with their
> families, friends and neighbors and a misinterpretation thereof by everyone
> else.
>
> All you've got is words with emotional loadings without the feedback
> systems that tell you how to actually interpret the emotional content and
> humans are really good at misinterpreting emotional content.
>
> What you all have seen is the result of not getting the complete message
> but only the words. I repeat, you only got the words and not the entire
> emotional context and the personality clues that tell you what the actual
> message is. Think about the common cliche used over and over again in
> foreign policy and political discourse. "We sent a message", "They did not
> get the message", etc. That means the words or actions by themselves did
> not convey the message which had to be extrapolated from the entire history
> and context. Think about what it means when you say of someone "I get
> along with them because I know where they are coming from" or "They know
> where I am coming from" which means you share history and context.
>
> All of the private messages that say "A is right and B is wrong" only
> exacerbate the fundamental problem of instability of email messaging. We
> are all on the same tightrope and without conscious cooperation we will all
> fall off.
>
> I thought Katharine's postings about color stuff were very clear and I
> really hate to think that the faulty nature of email communications would
> trigger her withdrawl from this list. I have learned a lot from both Judy
> and Katharine and I really would like that to continue.
>
> I would like to return to the list membership as of Monday and sweep the
> events of Tuesday into the bit bucket.
>
> Thank you all.
>
> Eugene Robkin
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b3 on Sat Nov 06 1999 - 10:06:44