idallen@watmath.UUCP (12/15/84)
This has nothing to do with Jenny. Here we have to people in mortal moral combat, anger veiled as sarcasm pitted against more anger: > > Wait......How can this be???? A male programmed this game....but that > > MUST be impossible.....The original poster is probably right now > > changing her opinion of the game....anything that comes from a male > > (at least from what I've seen of her other postings!) must by > > definition be sexist and bad..... > BULLSHIT. Nobody ever said all males were bad. Some of them are. So > are some women. I don't think it can be denied that many men > discriminate against women. But not all men do. And to those who > don't, thank you! If you're not a chauvinist, then nobody has insulted > you. If you are, then you deserve what you get. I was upset by the sarcasm, but I was more upset by the reply. It was so obviously futile. The anger in the thougtless sarcasm didn't teach, it provoked an angry answer that also won't teach. Here behind our protective glass TTYs, anger does little more than provoke more anger. We don't learn anything from it. The futility of it makes *me* angry. Dammit, people, if you post a follow-up article *please* think of whether what you say is going to make a *difference* to your readers. Don't pour your raw anger out onto the net in a form that won't change anyone's opinion. Take a deep breath and write something that won't provoke more thougtless anger. Yell if you want; cry if you want (that may be more effective); but don't just flame back. *Teach* (in the instructional, not punitive, sense) the boorish clod something! Someone has to turn stupidity into humanity. In the face of raving stupidity, be so damn sensitive and sincere that the twit can't help but notice. Grit your teeth! Scream in the halls at the ignorance of the cretin! Pound your keyboard! (I'm doing all that right now.) But don't post that raw anger. Post words you have crafted to step over the bullshit -- careful words that will really be listened to and understood. I am screamingly tired of reading flames and stupidity followed up by counter-flames and futile outbursts. It makes me mad. I'm pounding my keyboard, yelling out the window, and I hope I've followed my own advice. (Apologies to the two people who wrote the articles from which I used excerpts. It's easy to think that anger works constructively here on the net like it can face-to-face. I wish it did.) -- -IAN! (Ian! D. Allen) University of Waterloo