Learning Experiences

AKogler <akogler@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Sep 2, 2:56 pm, green_kni...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Catja
Pafort) wrote:
Jennifer Meyer-Mahoney wrote:
I have been on the wreq for 10 years now. I have never seen you give a
rational constructive response to anyone.

I must be reading the wrong newsgroup then. I don't always agree with
Sheila, but I've had plenty of rational discussions with her, and I've
learnt a lot from her. It wasn't always a comfortable process, but it is
a debt I owe nonetheless.


And what have you learned, Cat, by her name calling?

Sheila has never called me anything other than by my name. [I don't mind
'Cat' a lot, but it's not the name I go by. I haven't said anything
because I take it in the friendly spirit is is used, but I keep looking
around for someone else.]


By the headers?
by the way she treats people on line who disagree with her? Do you
find her attitudes and comments fair,

You know, that's a dilemma for me. I don't like the subject lines and I
don't agree with everything Sheila says or how she says it. (While
agreeing with a lot of what she says and sometimes feeling great empathy
with the mode of delivery.) At the same time, I feel compelled to speak
up and say that she's always treated me fairly, I've had any number of
interesting and inspiring discussions with her, and I've been learning a
lot from her. Nor am I the only one, and I feel uneasy when I see 'but
nobody likes her' posts, because that definitely ain't true.


or helpful? Do you think they encourage learning?

I think that, on the whole, they are mostly counterproductive, though
being challenged worked for me. Way back in '96 when I first started
posting in rec.eq or thereabouts there was a discussion in which Sheila,
as I recall, categorically stated that it is *never* right set up a
horse so you can punish them.

I started writing a long post defending just that. By the time I reached
the end of it, I realised she was right. She never had to rip my
arguments to shreds. I could do that all by myself.

After that, I started paying attention and reading past the rhethoric. I
can see why my eighteen-year-old self got into that situation, but that
doesn't make it right.


This does not mean that since then I haven't made bad, and/or
hard-to-defend choices; just that I don't pretend that they were good
ones.


Catja


--
writing blog @ http://beyond-elechan.livejournal.com
.

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