There's always going to be somebody offended, are you looking to not offend a majority of the people? the right people? your people?

Not trying to be arguementative, just saying that it's near impossible to be sensitive to everybody.

Ed, I do indeed see the meaning in what you say. Often I find political correctness tries to please everybody and ends up saying nothing because it has said everything.

I'd argue that 'social maturity' should also allow the other person the status of being mature enough to consider what is being said before getting offended (not suggesting any one did get offended).

If others decide to hijack a meaning and decontextualise then that questions their own agenda.

BTW, nice to see the word 'ass' being used in this way again.

The masses are asses so pay your taxes with molasses.

Ed, where are you? You called me an ass for suggesting (as you did) that the thread be closed, so when I got my gloves on again you ran away.
Don't you want to play anymore?

incorrect. I called you an ass for the 'Aunty Harlan' comment. It showed that since you were getting frustrated with your loosing struggle of trying to be enlightening without being controversial, you decided to go the route of blaming others (an authoritive figure like a babysitter, ie 'Aunty') for your inability to get your point across via any other means other than direct and controversial. I decided to save typing and just write, 'Ass'.

as far as the topic where it left off...what was the question again?

Ed, while I appreciate your right to interpret things incorrectly I must point out that you are being grossly unfair.

You may recall that the thread was reopened after we approached Harlan, who agreed to reopen it but under supervision that it didn't stray into 'religion'.

You yourself suggested we get away from discussing the words such as 'mystic' and 'mythic' in case the thread was closed down again. My posts were to challenge the notion that these words were automatically synonomous with religion. Perhaps I over laboured the point but it was certainly not a case of being contraversial.

You replied with a comment about maybe Harlan was right to have closed the thread the first time. Then, from somewhere, matters of 'social maturity' came about.

I suggested (maybe too abruptly)that if you didn't want to talk about 'mystic and mythic' anymore we could perhaps discuss 'violence'. This was in fact a serious comment as I would like to discuss the semantics of these words.

My 'Aunty' comment was more in reply to your suggestion that the thread should be closed (certainly not a comment on Harlan herself). You then had the audacity to tell me to 'tackle it'(without actually defining what I was supposed to be tackling. You then withdrew with, it seems a personal insult.

I was not blaming anyone for anything as I saw nothing to be blamed on anyone. It just seemed you didn't want to play anymore and I thought perhaps i'd been a bit rough for you or I'd pooed on the playground unintentionally. As for being 'direct', obviously I wasn't direct enough because my intentions seem to have been misconstrued and (now) misrepresented.

If you want to know the question then perhaps re-read the thread and especially some of your own posts, which might enlighten you as to my responses.

However, should we decide to carry the conversation on (as I'm more than willing to) perhaps we should do it off-forum until we have decided what we are arguing over (as I didn't realise we were) and not risk annoying anyone.

you win the award for the greatest number of spins in a single post. I'm tired right now, but I'll pick out a doosy to illustrate my point:

Quote:

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My 'Aunty' comment was more in reply to your suggestion that the thread should be closed (certainly not a comment on Harlan herself).

---

Calling a mod 'Aunty' after you are given a warning...only has one meaning. calling a mod 'Aunty harlan' can only be in the pejoritive.

Errm, when was I given a warning? It is news to me.

Aunty was not an attack on the mod, it was a tongue in cheek follow-up to your own suggestion that the thread should have stayed closed. Did it ever occur to you that it was aimed at your "women's intuition" comment rather than the mod?

Perhaps my non-use of emoticons was to blame.

Incidentally, I had also pm'd Harlan earlier to say there were no personal attacks intended.

Tell you what Ed, let's just leave it as I can see this degrading into a cat fight.

a miscommunication no doubt...it happens sometimes and is a large part of what this thread is about - we've both illustrated the point.

Since Ed seems to be in a debunking mood this week, and Trevek can't resist peeping in once in awhile.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mysticism