I would like you to read something I wrote, (names and a few obvious references within it have been edited in order to protect the guilty) because I would like to know 1) if it is merely an attempt to justify my behaviour and is in fact quite insulting, 2) if it’s not so much justifying or insulting but something else, 3) if it is somewhat justifying and a little insulting, but still that there is more to it than only that, or 4) your opinions on whether or not this is a reasonable piece to send someone and why. I ask the Barbelith community because I think it might be the only way to gain some insight into the problem I am currently having. Will you help me?
Here it is:
OK X, I agree that the nomeansno lyrics might have been in poor form, but harassment?—I think you are, perhaps, overreacting. Mostly, I am simply becoming frustrated and impatient in trying to communicate with you—how many PMs this time? How many other PMs in the past? Indeed, you echo my own thoughts expressed last night in xxx when you say “Dull, dull, dull basically.” You and I can agree on at least this: this dialogue has become pretty stale—like I said to you previously, this is what I get from you every time. This is the dance we keep dancing. Yes, I’ve had more than my fill as well.
I find it amusing that you name the four people you name. X, X, X, and X. It seems to me that you are certainly intent on clinging to difficulties that stemmed from one incident. Moreover, these difficulties that you make a gesture to on behalf of these others are well in the past—the incident happened over a year ago! X and X are not currently on the board, and as far as I am aware, I have pretty much settled my differences with X, and I haven’t even directly interacted with X (either on board or via PM) in probably close to eight months, but things seemed OK between us then. So, really X,, you are alone on this. This is entirely something between yourself and myself. No one is PMing me about my style, content, etc. except you. The question becomes are we going to be able to settle this? Unfortunately, you claim that you are not optimistic that we will be able to accomplish this. Thus, you’ve already given up or perhaps you never really thought it possible that we can at least deal with one and other without coming to this redundant nonsense. Explains much of your behaviour towards me, really.
What is also laughable—unless you really are quite hurt by it, in which case I apologize—is that you perceive that you “…represented a position,” and that I “…refuted it, with insults.” If you look to the whole of the post (which is, btw, 1, 486 words long) that you feel this occurred in, then the “insults” you refer to are actually a mere one line (which is, btw, 12 words long), which occurs, as you can plainly see, after I have refuted a particular argument of yours that was moot to begin with. Moreover, it’s really not really an insult, but a witty joke that works on at least three levels (but I already had to spell it out to you, remember?)
You know how I see this X, or at least how I see some of this in a way that I find interesting? It seems to me that what has occurred is that you made an argument, I refuted your argument, and then you got personally upset or offended. I think this may have also led to your attitude and approach in xxx qua your desire to discuss me even though you say that you weren’t interested in discussing me, but that, I suppose, is another matter. It certainly seems to be something you are clinging to in the context of our current dialogue qua how you feel that your (moot) argument (the one regarding xxx) was refuted with insults. Your argument there was self-refuting in the sense that it is clearly an non-starter: the facts are there X, you merely need to look at them. So I point this out, that your argument is a non-starter, then I make a harmless and funny joke in reference to the moot argument, and then what happens?—suddenly you’re posting a response with (I feel sorta’ silly having to remind of you of this over and over):
“quote removed for obvious reasons”
Which, not only did we see is really quite a ridiculous and somehow forced interpretation, isn’t even an argument. This is a willful misrepresentation of what has been asserted and relies heavily on an unfounded “guilt by association” (or something), i.e., this paragraph smacks of attacking the man and not the argument. But, I mean, you wrote it, you know what it says.
It seems to me, and again to repeat myself, that a part of the problem is that you really seem to have some fixed images in your head: your language expresses your rigidity quite readily. For instance, you claim, “You're getting incoherent.” This seems to me to be meant to be an absolutist statement that makes an objective claim, when in fact it is a relative and entirely subjective claim. You think I am getting incoherent—this is your (entirely) subjective claim. Your language about me doesn’t give me any room to breath, X.
See, and I know that you know this because you’ve said more or less the same before, we are currently getting nowhere because the way you and I communicate doesn’t work so well. You analyze, hypothesize, and diagnosis me as x, y, z. You say that I am acting poorly in ways exemplified by f & u. You claim that I am unwilling to look at myself. While at the same time I am expressing similar claims about you. For instance, with regard to what you’ve said about a handful of people who’ve expressed their distaste for me to you, I can easily say the same about you. I’ve certainly been in communication with a handful of members who have had many negative things to say about you and your style, content, etc.. In fact, I know of a couple members who are deeply concerned about your xxx and occurrences of abuse of xxx. Me, well, sometimes I agree with what they say and sometimes I don’t, and with respect to your alleged abuses of xxx, I haven’t seen any specific instances myself; however, there are people who feel they’ve witnessed it and I have no reason to doubt these people, so I must regard it as a possibility but also as hearsay until I see it myself.
Anyway, the way that you and I communicate, for some reason, tends to degenerate into this sort of nonsense. Now, it seems to me that we might want to try new or alternate tactics or else it doesn’t seem as if we’ll solve the difficulties that are between us. Maybe it will be, as you say, “scratchy,” but it certainly doesn’t have to be like this! Thus, you can continue to be drearily predictable with your “standard X fare”—in which case, I don’t know how willing I will be to continue this discussion—or you can surprise me with something that is a “grown up” [quoting a phrase used repeatedly by the person I’m having this discussion with] attempt to remedy our ills. Perhaps unlike you, I have hope that we can see the latter.
small irrelevant part at end edited for content |
). I'll answer the section that you post from your PM later, Haus (although I have made moves towards that in my last post to this experiment gone awry).