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#21

you are absolutely right, and I have no need to continue to offend someone, I’m more so addressing the need to offend someone at first, or, the need to ‘be yourself’ in all your imperfect glory, until you figure out who you and the other person is going to communicate.

I’m not cutting you down here, so see the constructive intention behind my comment on your quote here

I wont say nigger for a plethora of reasons,

But you did say it, which, is fine by me. But you make my point that nothing is off the table, because there is always the possibility of ‘meta-conversation’. So declaring one thing or another to be off the table only turns us into hypocrites and liars, it doesn’t solve the problem of offense. We can only solve the problem of offense with ourselves, and between ourselves and the speaker, no abstract rule will save us when it comes to language.

Neighbor Scout.

personally, I find n-word condescending, and useless. If all language is symbolic, as ‘they’ say, then switching out one symbol for another does nothing to change the inherent meaning.

Besides, how will some of my friends react if I suddenly started to say ‘n-word, please?’ Oh wait, we do say that once and a while, but it’s ironic. Culturally, nigger (and vocalizing ‘nigger’ is much more worse than my actual use ‘nigga’) is more appropriate for me and some of my friends. Of course I have white friends who are shocked to hear a teacher say it in the ‘meta’ context, and they don’t know my other friends.

I actually do see why pussy, when used derogatorily, sucks way worse than nigger. It’s harder to justify, whereas the female community has embraced bitchy and even cunty, pussy is usually a sexy word, not a mean one.

I guess the only thing I’ll really be able to expose here is how snide and cynical me and my friends are, and how at 27, the only people I care to not offend are the people I want to be my friends. But really, I don’t care if I offend my friends. If offense were a game, it would be our national pastime. Maybe that makes us twisted. I think it keeps us sane.

It would be different if I balked at whitey or cracker, but I have a few t-shirts with those very words. Somehow organically, we grew into the angry labels, and transformed them. I don’t think I’m going to get anywhere else to organically bring these points home to people who weren’t there when it happened.

#22

[quote=“TonyZ, post:21, topic:487”]Neighbor Scout.

Besides, how will some of my friends react if I suddenly started to say ‘n-word, please?’ Oh wait, we do say that once and a while, but it’s ironic. Culturally, nigger (and vocalizing ‘nigger’ is much more worse than my actual use ‘nigga’) is more appropriate for me and some of my friends. Of course I have white friends who are shocked to hear a teacher say it in the ‘meta’ context, and they don’t know my other friends.

I actually do see why pussy, when used derogatorily, sucks way worse than nigger. It’s harder to justify, whereas the female community has embraced bitchy and even cunty, pussy is usually a sexy word, not a mean one.

I guess the only thing I’ll really be able to expose here is how snide and cynical me and my friends are, and how at 27, the only people I care to not offend are the people I want to be my friends. But really, I don’t care if I offend my friends. If offense were a game, it would be our national pastime. Maybe that makes us twisted. I think it keeps us sane.

It would be different if I balked at whitey or cracker, but I have a few t-shirts with those very words. Somehow organically, we grew into the angry labels, and transformed them. I don’t think I’m going to get anywhere else to organically bring these points home to people who weren’t there when it happened.[/quote]

mind if I reply now

#23

I understand that. I want to no if ‘we’ can, like I asked in my question. Forget about what everybody else can say for a moment and ask yourself if we can, us REWILDers. In a analogical sense, I mean, if everybody else including me wanted to go down with civ, would you still go. Personally, I don’t think so or you wouldn’t have joined this forum and done all the other ‘walking away’ things you do. Whadda you think?

[/quote]

Yup, uh huh, I saw that too. I just read it loud and clear. My computer works fine. Thanks anways for the elaboration.

#24

well, we’re off track here. the point of this thread is to have an open-discussion (HOW do those get off-track again?) about what kinds of conversations we want to have.

Surely, as an individual who is becoming wild, you want to keep all your tools on the table, you never know when you might need them, which,s trangely enough, kind of makes the case to at least remain aware of the larger culture’s trends, so your communication, in a referrential age, remains relevant.

But to answer your question directly, no, there is no real place for it ‘out there’ but we are ‘in here’, and were are ‘of here’ so those discussions remain valid because if anything, we are ‘keeping it real’ for the one foot that still is in civilization, and our historical self, who was born into civilization.

I think, as much as I annoyed Scout in his thread, it wasn’t about the word, it was about how poorly I communicated my intentions. He and I have had a private discussion on these matters, and when I realized that I missed what he said, that we don’t need elders to go out in the woods and play, all I heard was we don’t need old people bitching at us, I realized, yes, I was the asshole. Because of that, I missed my chance to make my more serious point that working with the worst that primitivism has to offer still has some benefit, and that yes, it’s immature to write anyone off, or say fuck them, and mean it.

So you got to be careful, even important, universal positions are easily drowned out in the ‘pursuit of cool’ (another more sublime cultural referrence).

So, offensive or not, we have a duty to see into what each person is trying to say, well, we have that duty to the original post, and to those we choose to respond, otherwise, you can start your own post and say whatever the hell you want, if you want to say whatever unrelated (or thread-killing related rant) things you have inside of you to comment.

I’m surprised how well people do that at this message board, I think that is probably because of the the amount of people who have come here on ‘referal’, but hey, maybe that’s me, talking out of my ass again. Perhaps I should be surprised, perhaps I should just feel blessed…

#25

There is something that I generallly don’t do, but I have found myself doing it more here on this forum because it seems to be a very common M.O. here and it’s rubbing off on me.

Rather than attempting to read a whole post and looking for the intent behind what the person is saying and responding to that, I am tending toward pulling quotes out of context and responding to them as they stand on their own. Which is very sketchy in terms of understanding the other persons intent.

Usng quotes as examples of what you believe the person is getting at is a reasonable way of getting a “perception check” or clarifying. Too often here it turns more into a way of pulling apart what the person said in order to muddy up the meaning and win an advantage over them in the “debate”. Or if that is not the intent it becomes the result anyway.

This leads to threads going off on tangents that are addressing the twisted meaning of an isolated quote that’s been pulled out of context.

Like I said, clarifying the intent by quoting is useful, disecting what someone says and taking individual statements out of context and attacking them point by point is a typical tactic of politicians and intellectuals who are trying to prove something or destroy an opponents posiition. I don’t really see it as sharing ideas or communicating.

#26

Thanks guys, for bringing this thread back to what it was intended for. I deleted a couple of my off topic posts, sorry for the tangent. :-[

#27

I didn’t even notice. No problemo! :wink:

#28

I do ask everyone at rewild.info to not use obviously charged words and languaging.

Regardless of what you consider reasonable, we have a very impersonal forum here, and even non-charged words can go awry. I don’t ascribe this dynamic to low self-esteem on anyone’s part, but rather to the straightforward ease of miscommunication when we have only letters on a page and emoticons to go off of.

Unless the context justifies it, using charged language, such as the ‘n-word’, or the ‘p-word’, will bring me out of my hole and into the middle of your thread to put my foot down.

Some things feel like a slap in the face to a large enough group of people that it just doesn’t recommend their use.

Does this put us down a politically correct track? Who cares? What do we need to do to keep this a safe and welcoming space to talk about rewilding? Doesn’t this matter most?

I don’t want to know what ‘makes the most sense’, or sounds the ‘most reasonable’, in terms of posting guidelines, I want to know what we actually need to do to encourage satisfying and powerful conversation. This means, what do the people, the foolish, stubborn, optimistic, pessimistic, thin-skinned, thick-skinned, undernourished, overfed, gun-shy, neurotic, phobic people that we call rewilders, what do THEY need.

Obviously, they (meaning WE) do not need reasonable things.

I have a pretty clear sense for myself about this, but I always stay open for new ideas. In the meanwhile, unless moderators (like myself) adjust them, please use your common sense and the guidelines I’ve encouraged to keep this place vital and healthy.

#29

I haven’t noticed this (recently). Can you give me some examples? Did someone do this to you?

#30

Hey heyvictor,

I agree with you, and I have an offering for you. I think the parsing and quoting of language is a tendency to break up what people say. As I indicated above, I have been purposefully alienated with that language (or should I say typing?) tool, especially when I was being targeted and having my swiss-cheese intellect parsed into sentences and paragraphs. On the other hand, it’s overwhelming to get a ‘sense’ of what someone is saying when they are hitting on multiple topics, and the parsing and quoting seems helpful.

What you can’t do in face to face conversations is literally throw someone’s words back at them, unless you have a great memory. Most face-to-face conversations respond to each other emotionally. What I think is funny, is that by the time we get a handle on each other, this medium will be obsolete, well, I’ve been working on it for 12 years, and I think perhaps video messaging will be more commonplace than people understanding what we mean when it comes to the written word.

Without giving someone your emotional input, 90 percent of the conversation is lost.

also, to everyone, I dont’ think it’s a good idea to delete a post. you can’t take back words, and so, if we choose to be scientists, linking back and forth, and making presentations, then there will be nothing worth deleting, because every ‘share’ is a lesson.

and if we wish to muddle through and attempt to have personal conversations, then it’s good to offend, and apologize, rather than redact. You get more out of the apology, than out of the erasure, as I’ve experienced.

not saying these are our only choices, but they do seem to be landmarks on the conversation spectrum.

but in the personal, we can communicate a lot, and in the demonstrative (‘scientific’) we can also be playful. It real does take skill to make it happen, to show people who you are online.

Is it a futile journey? I’d hope not. I’ve seen a lot of improvement. And we’re all getting things out of that ten percent now.

I would like to see people be more demonstrative in their communication, if even to demonstrate their personality, through giving us a glimpse at their process. Who is going to demonstrate offensive language? Crude Humor? Their own ass? well, maybe we’ll get a peek up a loin cloth or two :wink:

#31

Oops. Sorry, I was mixing up the settings of your stories.

In my defense (or rather, in defense of what I said about Midwest compared w/ West), I do think that an Eastern U.S. city (I’ve been to Philly, Boston (lived there a summer), New York, and lived in Charlottesville, VA [dubiously Eastern]) is more similar to a Midwestern city than a Midwestern city is like a West coast city.

In the U.S., the West coast is a whole different animal, IMO (though admittedly I have never been to the deep South, or the desert states, so I can’t speak with as high a degree of confidence as I’d like). I lived near San Diego for a summer and got the same vibe that I do from Seattle. It is very confusing to me because I always had the idea growing up that I’d fit in better on the West coast, but it seems that everything that there is (was?) to love about the Hippie Promised Land has been abandoned. Either that, or SO many people have moved to the West coast that the culture has been diluted.

Either way, I’ve never been to San Francisco and I never plan to! My idea of San Francisco is a beautiful idea that I don’t want to have squashed by good old-fashioned, can’t-argue-with, empirical expereience. :wink:

#32

But anyway, none of that has to do with the topic at hand…

so, carry on… I’ll shut up. :-X :slight_smile:

#33

The South is more like the midwest ( the “corn/hog/whiskey/bible belt” stretches from South Carolina to Iowa). Hard core left winger east coasters have a hard time fitting in in the left coast because their “what do you do? Where did you go to school” shallowness does not fit in with the “who is your plastic surgeon/life coach” shallowness of SoCal or the “I don’t care what you think” "been their done that "Northwest attitude.I’m from SC spent too much time in Vermont , lived 3 years in Beautiful Glenwood Springs Colorado. Been to Pagan festival in NM. Spent summer picking Morrells in eastern Oregon. Seen Survival Research Laboratory show in Seattle then long sunny day in Portland followed by searching for spot to park VW van in Eugene. The 3 years in SF… Never Mind

#34

[quote=“Neighbor Scout, post:22, topic:487”][quote author=TonyZ link=topic=523.msg5797#msg5797 date=1194400391]

Neighbor Scout.

Besides, how will some of my friends react if I suddenly started to say ‘n-word, please?’ Oh wait, we do say that once and a while, but it’s ironic. Culturally, nigger (and vocalizing ‘nigger’ is much more worse than my actual use ‘nigga’) is more appropriate for me and some of my friends. Of course I have white friends who are shocked to hear a teacher say it in the ‘meta’ context, and they don’t know my other friends.

I actually do see why pussy, when used derogatorily, sucks way worse than nigger. It’s harder to justify, whereas the female community has embraced bitchy and even cunty, pussy is usually a sexy word, not a mean one.

I guess the only thing I’ll really be able to expose here is how snide and cynical me and my friends are, and how at 27, the only people I care to not offend are the people I want to be my friends. But really, I don’t care if I offend my friends. If offense were a game, it would be our national pastime. Maybe that makes us twisted. I think it keeps us sane.

It would be different if I balked at whitey or cracker, but I have a few t-shirts with those very words. Somehow organically, we grew into the angry labels, and transformed them. I don’t think I’m going to get anywhere else to organically bring these points home to people who weren’t there when it happened.
[/quote][/quote]

Now ??? Or did you already answer my question, Tonyz? Sorry, sometimes I have brainfarts and miss things.

#35

yeah go ahead, I thought it was rhetorical. sorry for the delay, I was out hiding.

#36

Just a thought here. Not coming down on anyone. But maybe something that has not been considered.

I’ve been on a few forums that had a good number of people from outside N. America for whom English is not their first language. Some of them have expressed difficulty in understanding posts where people choose to use their own way of spelling words.

This forum seems to be pretty much N. Americans and/or fluent English speakers. Using a lot of alternative spellings of words or just being in a hurry, as well as leaving out punctuation, may contribute to keeping it that way.

I’m not always a shining example.

#37

I guess you didn’t make it rhetorical enough for me, 'cause I didn’t see it like that.

Anyway, to answer your quetion in the way before I learned of its impressive agenda: I donno; I donno your friends. Also, have you noticed this that ‘please!?’ works just as well as ‘n-word, please!?’ nowadays (or, at least, I guess it does) if used with the same tone? And in that, did you notice how the ere lacks labeling and the later supports outright labeling? For instance, in my opinion, the added label in “n-word, please!?” spits quite superfluously, crassy, confrontational, and challenging. Do we really want to spend additional calories on such superfluousness and spittle-spattle when we when have so much more tangible and pressing stuff to fail or fulfill? Hmmm…whatda you think?

Anybody? :-\

#38

Perhaps you and/or they can speak up and give examples of what they have difficulty in understanding, otherwise, personally, I don’t know where to began.

Again, if you or them provide zero examples then, what do we supposed to work off here? Do you have something? Who did they see doing this here? What did they see? Can you show use how they came to such conclusions?

And, earlier in another post you claimed:

Will you share any examples of where you saw this, ‘cause lately this statement of yours hasn’t come to my attention around the forum. And I must add that I fear being redundant to a degree here because I noticed that another has asked ya a similar question? Perhaps, you answered him in a personal message, I donno, IDK, I just want to avoid reading as much examplelessness as possible.

#39

I don’t always choose to express things in the best way myself, and Neighbor Scout I think you have pointed out an example of me doing that here.
I did reply to Willem in a personal message.

I have no desire to single anyone out and start anything, but in general I think the things I was talking about in both of these posts are just something to be aware of in posting on a forum. Maybe others don’t agree.

#40

my inefficiencies have multiple flourishes