Thank you for your thoughtful response. Although I don't quite fully agree with you, at least now I can understand you, which if not totally satisfactory, at least is somewhat useful. Perhaps it is my own fault since English is a learned language rather than a native language with me, so I lack the necessary skills to understand obscure humor and sacarsm. The other disadavantage is that I only got on the list recently and was unable to follow the drift of some of the verbal acrobatics in the middle of a continuing exchange or the manners of this subculture. Consequently, I felt unfairly excluded which as you know is a form of oppression. Speaking of oppression, one may argue that what I was experiencing when I read your post that led to my intemperate protest was the oppression of language imperialism and intellectural segregation, justified or not.
As you may agree, unintended oppression is still oppression to the victim, and when one is oppressed, all are oppressed. That is why I felt I had the right to speak for the whole list. Relativism does not apply to questions of oppression. Personally, I have been a victim of British colonialism all my life, so I qualify as an expert on oppression from the victim side. As for the intellectural basis for any uttereance, it seems to me it is not neccessary or useful to relate every sausage to Picasso. Sometimes a sauage is just a sausage. Not that sausages per se are inferior. Its just that they are better for breakfast than for esthetic enhancement. It would serve your messages better to bear in mind that the internet, like international banking, is already dominated by English speaking types and polluted by concepts and thinking processes that are natural to that langauge passing as universal truth. So it is encumbered upon you native English speakers to avoid abusing your unfair and unearned privilege by making your unterances simple, straightforward and to the point, for us third world types. (I have more to say about language imperialism upon your indication of interest. I now have an aversion against typing long postings since I had been told it is an imposition.)
For every occurance, different actors while going through the same acts, have different perspectives. You may appreciate the following story. (My apologies if you have heard it already, but it still may be appicable to our discussion).
When two Christians were thrown into the lion's den, all three being started to pray. Curious, the Roman Emperor asked about the purpose of the praying. The first Christian indicated he was asking God to make it fast and painless. The second confessed that he was asking God to make the lion eat the other Christian first. The lion said he was merely saying grace before a good meal.
Henry
K wrote:
> >To K:
> >
> >I don't know whether my having allowed myself to be
> an open target of
> >attacks has had some cleansing effect on the style of
> your new postings,
> >but I welcome the apparent turn in approach that no
> longer makes other
> >subscribers feel like they are eavesdropping on some
> private verbal
> >fencing.
> Henry,
> I realize that you might be wary of what I might type
> in the following. Nonetheless I hope you can bear
> with me. I think what follows is intellectually
> grounded; though some may complain that such
> abstractions might only lead us each to a corner to
> gaze at our navels. While I don't quote any big name
> theorists, you can be sure that there is an
> intellectal foundation to both the serious and
> humorous in what follows.
>
> I must say, that my inclination, which I'm keeping in
> check right now, is to pull out my sarcasm and irony
> swords and have a go. But, I know that you'll just
> delete me and I had an awfully damn hard time
> recuperating from the last deletion. I have never
> been deleted before and I must say that it is a
> unique experience. Why I actually had to go to a new
> clinic for cyberpsychic treatment to get some help
> understanding what the experience of deletion is, what
> it means, and how I might adjust to life after
> experiencing such trauma. The shrink there comforted
> me by noting that I've probably been deleted many,
> many times. It's just that no one ever actually
> *told* me about it. :-)
>
> All joking aside, though, Henry I was hoping that
> you'd take my first reply to you seriously. I'm
> really quite serious here. You found what I typed to
> Frances offensive, if not oppressive and, indeed, felt
> that you could speak for the entire list as similarly
> experiencing oppression. I would be curious as to
> precisely how you found what I typed offensive, how it
> was lacking an intellectual foundation, in what sense
> it was 'private' verbal fencing, and, following
> Frances, what constitutes oppression. No, rest
> assured, I'm not being argumentative. Just very
> curious. These list dynamics always just fascinate
> me, you see.
>
> To be honest, your attempt at publically humiliating
> me had little to do with my shift in posting styles.
> I think it is quite okay to be both serious and
> humorous in these exchanges. And my reply to Frances
> was just that. In fact, I took you seriously and
> never thought you'd read another post from 'K' again,
> so exactly why would that matter?
>
> Furthermore, it seems to me that your intervention was
> itself a bit of private verbal fencing, no? That is,
> attempting to silence your interlocuter by publically
> stating that you will be ignoring them ('you are
> deleted') is a flame, is it not? It was especially
> interesting to me that your decision to delete came
> after a very serious and intellectually-grounded
> response on my part: 1] Who decides what is
> appropriate, substantively, to discussion and what are
> the theoretical criteria for that decision? 2] Who
> decides what is stylistically appropriate and what are
> the theoretical criteria? 3] Are there really ever
> any exchanges that aren't intellectually grounded?
>
> In any event, I think the pretense that polite
> discourse is somehow preferable and superior to flames
> and the use of irony, sarcasm, humor is seriously
> misguided. If you are an academic, then surely you
> must know that the pretense of politeness nearly
> always obfuscates and normalizes intellectual
> discourse that can be rancorous, aggressive, and
> motivated by the desire to humiliate others in the
> extreme.
>
> SnitgrrRl