From: "Christopher Gillen" <philosophiste at msn.com>
To: <johnny at charm.net>
Subject: Re: It takes an angry man (was: Angry List)
Date: Wed, 23 Apr 2003 08:52:51 -0700

Will Gorham writes:

> I wonder what would happen if we all posted with pseudonyms for a week.
> I bet there would be some real surprises.

  I think the real surprise would be in how little difference it made.
There are some listers, such as myself, who would be readily identifiable
even if posting as "Little Bunny Foo-Foo".  Although there is a certain
amount of baiting that occurs, it seems to me that arguments still progress
from the idea to the individual and not vice versa.  That is to say that
certain listers are regarded by others as anathema not because of who
they are but because of what they believe.  I think the main problem is
that too many people here internalize these disagreements.  There are
listers I agree with whom I wouldn't care to spend an afternoon in the
company of and some I think are damned fools who nonetheless make for
quite pleasant company.  Too many people these days seem to seek out
internet communities as a kind of replacement for the nurturing
environment they lack in their personal lives.  This leads to inevitable
disappointment and disillusion and results in puzzling emotional outbursts.
Unfortunate, perhaps, but one cannot cater to all possible sensitivities
without devolving into a mush-fest of kittens, Reader's Digest poetry,
and deliberate misspellings of the word 'love' as 'wuv'.  As has been
argued before, the list is NOT Seminar, nor is it necessarily polite,
nor does it necessarily love you.  The list is merely a meeting point
for alumni of a certain educational institution who have in common *only*
that shared origin and the desire to be in communication with each other.
It's the coffee shop late at night after the tutors have left and
security has fallen asleep in the guard shack.  There's only the most
rudimentary code of behaviour to comply with and one which easily 
encompasses the fact that some people are assholes.  The *point* is that
they are *our* assholes.

- Christopher Gillen, A'90

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