tim@unc.UUCP (07/24/83)
Really folks, let's try to foster an atmosphere of tolerance and make allowances for people holding differing viewpoints. How can we expect to hold amicable discussions if we persist in casting aspersions on the motives of other contributors and attacking them without even properly reading and attempting to understand their articles --- indeed, often misquoting them in the process? I am referring to exchanges such as the following one which took place recently in this newsgroup: The poster of this article then provides a distorted view of an interchange that he objected to. The final part of the interchange had been an angry article from a person who had been totally misrepresented by an extremist on the opposite side of the abortion debate. To be specific, the guy had been misrepresented as saying that only a person who has had an abortion should be allowed to hold an opinion on it. That's obviously not true, and the guy had never said it or implied it. The person I've quoted above objected, not to the misrepresentation, but to the anger expressed by the misrepresented person. Anger seems a perfectly responsible and appropriate reaction when someone lies about you in a way designed to be harmful. Moderation is impossible when dealing with the sort of person who will not even listen to your statements, preferring to pick out keywords and form an emotional response, and then repeat emotional buzzword arguments in the hope of drowning the other person out. I am very familiar with the feeling that the misrepresented person expressed, the feeling that no one is even listening. The answer is not for us to shut up, but for people to start responding to our words instead of responding solely to their own emotional reactions. In case you're curious, here is the distorted version of these events which was in the article I am replying to. - An attempt by one contributor to stifle debate on the abortion issue by arguing that only those who had themselves had abortions were qualified to speak on the matter. Now, the article to which the distorter was replying stated quite clearly that nothing of the sort had ever been said. Is this person paying attention? - A response by an anti-choicer suggesting that those who argued for a woman's right to choose were sexually irresponsible, suffered from guilty consciences, and were akin to murderers. - A retort by the first debater to the effect that the anti-choice viewpoint would flourish well in a totalitarian state, such as the one depicted in the science fiction novel Fahrenheit 451, and suggesting that a resort to fusion-based thermonuclear devices would solve that problem. Wrong, wrong, wrong. The article was about misrepresentation, not about abortion. This was completely clear from the article; I'll have to assume that you didn't read it carefully before responding. That leads to exactly the sort of anger that got this started. Let's all try to be a little more charitable in our submissions to this newsgroup. A little moderation never hurt anybody. Preach but don't practice, right? There have been a lot of articles lately which say "Let's be nice to each other" in nasty and inconsiderate ways. I for one am getting very sick of them, particularly when they also support the sort of air-head response to controversy that creates the bad feelings in the first place. The absolute last straw is when the article accuses an innocent person of a particular offense, then commits the offense itself. Reread the first paragraph of my first quote and you'll see what I mean. ______________________________________ The overworked keyboard of Tim Maroney duke!unc!tim (USENET) tim.unc@udel-relay (ARPA) The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill