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OML Archives-
Subject: Re: orgonomy - Wed, 14 Feb 1996 14:19:35 -0500
Date: Wed, 14 Feb 1996 14:19:35 -0500
From: "Shawn P. Wilbur" <swilbur@bgsuvax.bgsu.edu>
Subject: Re: orgonomy
To: orgonomy@jefferson.village.virginia.edu
Sender: owner-orgonomy@jefferson.village.virginia.edu
How do the ad hominem attacks if their target is simply shifted?
Chris, are you not now guilty of an attack on my character? Forgive
me if my post was misunderstood, but i do not see many facts to be
disproven. There *seems* to be universal agreement that the facts are most
important. But we are no closer to them. In the meantime, people are being
accused of causing wrongful death. It seemed, and still seems, to me that
an accusation of that seriousness deserved close scrutiny - at the level
of "facts," where i found it unconvincing, and at the level of rhetoric,
where i found it manipulative.
As for the "absurdity" of concern for the "ecologies" of human communities
- whether online or otherwise - perhaps we'll have to agree to disagree.
It is too simple to say that "an email message" is too small and
insubstantial a thing to seriously disrupt a fragile collectivity like
this one. As with any ecology, as the article in question points out,
there are many elements - among them, alas, our characters - precariously
balanced. You only have to look at the snowballing dissention in the list
to see how little holds the OML proto-community together. As someone who
volunteers a great deal of time dealing with the intricacies of these
human-and-information ecologies, i feel justified in making the comparison
i did (although i would not have rephrased it as Chris did.)
Sure, "open debate" is one of our reasons to be here, but the openness of
any given gambit surely has to be open to question. I assume that one of
the criteria of open debate would be an attempt at objectivity, and of
establishing and maintaining an atmosphere conducive to objectivity. Good
faith, and investment in joint goals or values (at least those of fair
play), are, it seems to me, necessary as well. The net complicates all of
this, messing with the pace of our reasoning, confusing issues of identity
(so that you never know how many people you're actually debating with, or
who they are, or what their actual stakes are), and generally isolating
individuals from one another, so that it is easier to hurt (and easier to
ignore injuries to others.) And then our subject matter intervenes, since
for at least some reichians, "character" is precisely a scientific issue.
(Not my area of expertise, though.) Given this, it is a serious but
sometimes necessary move to question motives, particularly where the
evidence of a desire for truly open debate seems lacking. And that judgment
is one we each have to make. I made mine based on what i thought was shoddy
rhetoric, an evasion of science, and very serious accusations against other
members of the OML. In any event, i can't separate actual open discussion
from the care required to maintain a space in which it is possible. And i
find it hard not to speak up when both seem threatened. If other members
of the list think that is an "irrational" response, then so be it, i
suppose. We come to this list with very different backgrounds and areas of
expertise, and, no doubt, very different notions of what is important or
rational in a given circumstance.
So i'll wait for the open, rational discussion...
-shawn
On Wed, 14 Feb 1996, Christopher G Caruso wrote:
>
> Shawn P. Wilbur wrote:
> > it is hard not to ask *why* - to what end - this
> > message has been posted in this forum and in this form. It is clear that
> > it has little potential to educate or build the community we are
> > attempting to build through forums like this one - *But* does have
> > considerable potential for causing disruption. Apparently the stated
> > concern for ecology does not extend to the fragile ecologies developing on
> > the net. The essay is clearly a bomb dropped for maximum effect. This
> > hardly seems consistent with the life-affirming character of reichian
> > work.
>
>
> This is quite an outlandish metaphor. The "disruption" supposedly caused
> by an e-mail message is akin to environmental carnage? That's pretty
> absurd.
>
> As another poster pointed out, you are guilty of the very things you
> accuse Carlinsky of, Shawn. Namely, virulent attacks on people's
> character, rather than discussing the issues at hand.
>
> If Carlinsky is wrong, let him be disproven. Open debate of different
> points of view on orgonomy is the whole point of this list. Let's stop the
> ad hominem attacks and stick to discussing the issues in a rational manner.
>
> I look forward to Dr. DeMeo's reply, as well as the reply from PORE.
>
>
> --
> Chris Caruso Check out: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~ccaruso/
> ccaruso@sas.upenn.edu http://www.igc.org/fair/
> Philadelphia, PA USA http://www.mcs.com/~jdav/league.html
>
>
>
> --- from list orgonomy@lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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