We all like to think of ourselves as good people, sensitive and caring, etc. To those who know us, most of us probably are. The problem is that here most of us don't know each other very well, and we get certain ideas about people we don't know and then we react on the basis of these ideas. Maybe an example will show what I mean. When I lived in New York City, I worked at the Monthly Review office. Every Wednesday, we would have a meeting concerning submissions to the magazine and other magazine business. Harry Magdoff came to these meetings. I had known Harry for a few years, and we got along well. However, he was blunt and often dismissive when what you said didn't match his understanding of things or if he thought what you said was, well, stupid. He was more sharp-tongued, if you will, than Carrol Cox has ever been on this list, at least in my opinion. Harry and I used to get into it pretty good at these meetings sometimes. Once when he was lecturing me about some issue about which he thought my knowledge was woefully deficient, I said, "Harry, you don't have to lecture me about economics. I have a fucking PhD in the subject." This was a really mean thing to say and not very relevant, given how foolish most PhDs in economics are. However, in the context, I was just standing up for myself. Harry didn't take it personally, and from then on, I never took what he said personally either. Personally, Harry was like most of us; he had his kindnesses and his not-so-kindnesses. He said that his style of arguing was honed during the 1930s when the debates among leftists were heated and deadly serious. I tried to keep that in mind. And whenever I'd get mad at him, I'd remember that he and his wife had lost a son. My heart would go out to him then. What if I had lost a son. Plus he'd been blacklisted and couldn't get work to support his family. How would I feel if that had happened to me. The trouble on lists is that we don't know these kinds of things about other participants, and so we just have the sometimes wounding words to guide us. If Harry and I had met online, no doubt we would have been at each other's throat, to no one's benefit. All too often, I get angry because someone hasn't answered an email. I imagine all sorts of evil motives behind this. I wrote to a person not long ago, complaining along these lines. And the person wrote back telling me how sick he had been. So, without sounding like Rodney King, maybe we should try to remember the remarkable things about people on this list and others. I feel totally inadequate when I see that some make references to music, literature, history, Marx, economics, language, about which I know little. So many smart people, all around the world. Surely nuggets of insight and knowledge are worth the occasional hurt feelings or irritation, which given that this is a email list after all can't possibly do us much harm. Of course, if you never learn anything from a person who gets under your skin, then just tune them out.