petie
Verified Member
Personalities being what they are, I decided to rant a little about the subject. I hope anyone with any thoughts on the subject will also rant here so maybe we can all learn something.
Having different opinions of the same situation is basically impersonal. That is, my opinion is this or that for the following reasons and your opinion is that or this for the following reasons. Either or both of us may be way wrong or ill advised but none-the-less it is about the facts and the perceptions of them we hold—not so much who we are. Actually, it is a lot about who we are in a very deep sense which takes in our genes and experience but I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about situational decision making. We have perceptions, and see facts and more or less calculate our opinion based on the situation. This is relatively dispassionate. It only confuses the pursuit of truth to invoke attacks on the person. It isn’t about the person. Its about the facts and circumstances as one sees them. Personal attacks often show the ass of the attacker much more than that of the attacked.
In support of this, I would ask the reader to consider 2 or three names of posters who consistently show themselves to be asses. We all have a different opinion, right? I won’t embarrass them by naming the ones that come to my mind, but I’d bet a dollar to a donut that 95% of us are thinking of the same names. If that is the case, it would seem that all of the attack posts of the Asses have backfired. While trying to sound superior they have only shown themselves to be crippled sort of like, “What’s wrong with him?” or “I wonder what happened to him in his childhood that made him like that?” Its about them—no one else.
I won’t repeat my previous post(s) about Ego-offensive vs. Ego-syntonic. I’ll just say that if WWYD threads are about learning, being an ass about it gets in the way of learning. Also, if you wish to advance an idea about anything, personal attacks on dissenters works against the advance of your idea. It makes one think that the idea is not very strong if it cannot be defended with logic and information but instead must resort to personal attacks to get the point across. And, just like with the WWYD’s, the side effect is that you are showing your own ass—not the dissenter’s.
It isn’t about the person unless you make it so. Then its about you.
I’ll say two more things. If you are not willing to be wrong, you cannot learn. Think about it. The other is that I’ll bet I am not the only one who has a family member who really does ride the short bus. I have a grand nephew who is an absolute joy and honor to be around who is picked up by the short bus daily and taken to a special school. He can do some things better than most but due to a congenital condition, he cannot do some other things at the level of his chronological age. Anyone who has known a person like this knows that they can teach us very important things about life and love attitude. We are not superior to 'these, the least of my brethren.'
Having different opinions of the same situation is basically impersonal. That is, my opinion is this or that for the following reasons and your opinion is that or this for the following reasons. Either or both of us may be way wrong or ill advised but none-the-less it is about the facts and the perceptions of them we hold—not so much who we are. Actually, it is a lot about who we are in a very deep sense which takes in our genes and experience but I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about situational decision making. We have perceptions, and see facts and more or less calculate our opinion based on the situation. This is relatively dispassionate. It only confuses the pursuit of truth to invoke attacks on the person. It isn’t about the person. Its about the facts and circumstances as one sees them. Personal attacks often show the ass of the attacker much more than that of the attacked.
In support of this, I would ask the reader to consider 2 or three names of posters who consistently show themselves to be asses. We all have a different opinion, right? I won’t embarrass them by naming the ones that come to my mind, but I’d bet a dollar to a donut that 95% of us are thinking of the same names. If that is the case, it would seem that all of the attack posts of the Asses have backfired. While trying to sound superior they have only shown themselves to be crippled sort of like, “What’s wrong with him?” or “I wonder what happened to him in his childhood that made him like that?” Its about them—no one else.
I won’t repeat my previous post(s) about Ego-offensive vs. Ego-syntonic. I’ll just say that if WWYD threads are about learning, being an ass about it gets in the way of learning. Also, if you wish to advance an idea about anything, personal attacks on dissenters works against the advance of your idea. It makes one think that the idea is not very strong if it cannot be defended with logic and information but instead must resort to personal attacks to get the point across. And, just like with the WWYD’s, the side effect is that you are showing your own ass—not the dissenter’s.
It isn’t about the person unless you make it so. Then its about you.
I’ll say two more things. If you are not willing to be wrong, you cannot learn. Think about it. The other is that I’ll bet I am not the only one who has a family member who really does ride the short bus. I have a grand nephew who is an absolute joy and honor to be around who is picked up by the short bus daily and taken to a special school. He can do some things better than most but due to a congenital condition, he cannot do some other things at the level of his chronological age. Anyone who has known a person like this knows that they can teach us very important things about life and love attitude. We are not superior to 'these, the least of my brethren.'