Re: On topic or off topic (was Re: The cost of Mental Health)

In article <72jqodFqjncoU1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Yowie <yowie9644.DIESPAMDIE@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"Ian Davis" <ijdavis@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message

The how else do you recommend how the acceptable topics of conversation
(activity, focus, fund raising etc etc) are defined?

I think if one goes to a catholic church it should be because one wants
to be catholic. I think if one subscribes to a wicca newsgroup it should
be because one either wishes to understand wicca better, or become more
wiccan. I'd be inclined to say any topic of conversation would be
acceptable if the person discussing that topic was discussing it for
the above reasons. George Fox going into a church the better to make
a statement about how wrong churches were seems to me wrong. I am
not an activist, because the gaining attention by acting in negative
ways doesn't seem to me right conduct. Another way of looking at this
is whether the post adds to or subtracts from the value of the group
posted to. If it subtracts it is even if on-topic harmful. Rather
than worrying about on-topic/off-topic, I'd think we could skip the
middle man/woman and go right to the issue of "do nought that harms".

I don't like the fact that homosexuals stole the name gay from all
the gay people in the world.

I don't think it was 'stolen' - the secondary homosexual meaning (and yes,
the association between 'gay' and 'homosexual' has been there for quite some
time) slowly became to understood by the majority of the English speaking
population as the primary meaning of the word. This happens all the time to
words, thats part of the evolution of language. Those who want to draw aline
in the sand and say "this is the correct use of the word and none cshal
change this meaning" don't understand how languages change over time. We
aren't, after all, using the same language that Shakespeare wrote or spoke,
he wans't using the language Chaucer did, and Chaucer didn't use the
language Beowolf was written in.


There was a deliberate policy on the part of the homosexual community to
engage in an act of rebranding themselves, by insisting they be called by
the name they took for themselves. Rebranding occurs a lot and it can
be very successful in accomplishing change. But it is an exercise in
saying we have a poor image; let us change our poor image by giving for
ourselves a name which has a good image, and then leverage that good
image so that we as a spin off also have a good image. The idea that
somehow the name change was accidental or mere consequence of the tendency
of language to change over time, makes me think that you do not grasp
what actually occurred at all.

I'm uncomfortable with people who say I
can be Quaker and yet make up my own rules as to what that means. It
goes with the territory of being an absolutist that I think things
have a right way
to be, and that they can't make up that right way as they go along.

I am not an absolutist... :-)


Very few people are. Most people work from the premise that driving around
in the dark isn't really that bad, because if one doesn't much know where
one is going to end up, it doesn't make much sense to go seeking maps. To
them rights and wrongs either are not knowable, or are the domain of imagine
Gods to educate them about, and or judge them on. There are also the camp
who say "God wouldn't let me sin". Ergo, anything I do, is no sin. My
outlook is radically different. I think that we are given a sense, as much
a sense as sight or hearing, which is attenuated to the universe we live in
(at least to a lesser or greater extent) and if we respect this sense we
are likely to be walking rightly, and if we ignore it we are likely to be
choosing to walk wrongly. My imagined purpose in being here is to alter
the universe in the ways I am supposed to alter it. Axiomatic to me is
the notion that the universe is not some senseless thing lacking purpose
but some wonderful work of art to which I may either enhance or mar. Do
you know the story of the cleaning lady who when asked what she did replied
"I'm helping to build a cathedral". Well, I'm building tomorrows universe,
though I personally prefer to think of it as creating yesterdays universe.

I like evolving language, its fun. Although one of the traits of getting
older, I have found, is the increasing dislike for change, particularly
language. When a kid says "that is so *sick*" or "that is so *gay*" I really
have no idea whether the thing in question was good or bad or something else
entirely. Now they had said of the thing "its choice" or "gross" I would
grok their meaning sraight away, but "choice" is not the word of choice
these days.


What sets Canadians apart is they like use the word like like all the time.
It is a little painful when one winces at each use of "like" in such an
inappropriate context. For my generation things went from Fab and Groovy
in the 60's to Cool and Far Out in the 70's. People back then were Into
things. And 60's Babes transformed into 70's Chicks. Strange to say I
didn't much like that language either. For someone to be into something
left me thinking they were more into the how they appeared to be than they
were into the subject matter they claimed to be into. I tend to see people
who struggle to conform as people afraid to be themselves. Someone who said
"Far Out" every other sentence (cf: Foul Play - the movie) seemed to me
incapable of communicating without posturing and posing -- not cool for being
able to be so hip.

Ian
.

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