anderson@uwmacc.UUCP (Jess Anderson) (12/07/86)
Note: I've removed Harnad's original cross-posting to sci.lang, as the "abuses of the net" discussion seems only peripherally relevant to that group. I feel strongly that we have an important issue to discuss here. The major axes of the domain have been deliniated by Messrs. Harnad and Ellis, with charming and vigorous commentary by a few others. In article <408@mind.UUCP>, harnad@mind.UUCP (Stevan Harnad) writes: > [...] The issue is much simpler. It > concerns the difference between saying (1) "You're a liar" (which is > ritually intoned frequently by certain posters) and "I believe you are > mistaken," and that between "that's a pile of [suitably abusive > epithet]" and "I'm afraid I disagree" or "I believe there is evidence > that that is incorrect." The issue is whether the tail ends of the > gaussian are to be allowed to turn the Net into a Global graffiti > board, or whether the Net's extraordinary intellectual communicative > potential will be better realized with some humane, commonsense > constraints. > [...] All this righteous indignation on behalf of the "freedom" to be > personally abusive! There are some serious biases in these remarks. "Graffiti board" [sic] vs "extraordinary intellectual communicative potential" [sic] is a comparison of apples vs oranges, nay, apples vs rodeos. To call the phrases "that's a pile of shit" and "that is incorrect" opposite ends of the *same* Gaussian is to show that one is unaware these curves lie in completely different conceptual spaces. The dainty idealism with which Stevan appears to view the net's potential strikes me as alien to its very purpose, which is the exchange of ideas. The more clearly, plainly, and simply ideas are stated, the more likely an actual exchange will occur. I think *everyone* on this net will very clearly understand the phrase "shit-eating grin," while the phrase "coprophagous sourire" may delight a few as it confounds many. The constraints Stevan argues for would, I believe, stifle the very energetic imaginations of people like Michael Ellis, whose "rough" language has among its many effects a tendency to shatter the facades of gentility and self-satisfied smugness in the language of most academic discourse. That alone is an estimable service to humanity and to the free interchange of ideas. As it happens, my own preference is somewhere in the middle. I seldom find myself having to use dynamite to dislodge the steel doors of closed minds, as I infer Michael has had to do in another newsgroup. Parenthetically, I think the phrase "Berkeley Mafia," though rather cute, associates the minds of a major university with criminals (which is offensive to both groups) while it associates successful businessmen with idealistic anarchists (which is offensive to both groups)! :-) -- ==ARPA:====================anderson@unix.macc.wisc.edu===Jess Anderson====== | UUCP: {harvard,seismo,topaz, 1210 W. Dayton | | akgua,allegra,ihnp4,usbvax}!uwvax!uwmacc!anderson Madison, WI 53706 | ==BITNET:============================anderson@wiscmacc===608/263-6988=======