[WikiEN-l] Anet Dartmouth, Again

Fri Aug 27 21:40:14 UTC 2004

Geoff Burling wrote:

>And Christiaan Briggs wrote:
>  
>
>>>Bah! If I don't recognize the contributor -- or even more clearly, if
>>>that person is editting from an IP number -- I'll just consider
>>>her/him/it a troublemaker, list the articles that person produces on
>>>VfD & revert all of her/his/its edits as "vandalism".
>>>      
>>>
>>So who the hell do you think you are???
>>    
>>
>My above passage is an example of a rhetorical technique known as
>irony. Unfortunately tone of voice does not always successfully transmit
>across the Internet for some reason, & obviously it failed in this case.
>I apologize for that failure here.
>
I hope that in my own response to that message reflected that I did 
detect the irony.  I often use it myself, and can sympathize when I see 
it misunderstood in someone else's writing.  Quoting that passage out of 
context made it seem far more serious.  I actively resisted the 
temptation to respond to Christiaan, because I felt it would be a futile 
gesture.

>>>And if I may allowed to be chauvanistic for a moment, I think this
>>>ideal is a valuable part of Western Civilization that needs to be
>>>taught to the rest of the world. We should respect other people's POV,
>>>we should be willing to explain our own POV, & that there should be a
>>>fair & beneficial exchange between them
>>>      
>>>
>>*groan* spare us your offensive ethnocentric colonialist views, please.
>>    
>>
>
>I assume that you, too, misunderstood what I meant by "Western Civilization".
>If not, then I am puzzled why you reject an ideal that the land you
>appear to be writing from -- the United Kingdom -- has struggled to promote.
>While the struggle may not have always been praiseworthy, orderly, or even
>successful, many people in that land have worked to perpetuate the ideal
>I talked about.
>
Western Civilization to me really relates to Western Europe plus key 
members of its former colonial empires.  It does promote certain ideals, 
but that does not mean that it has been uniformly successful in 
implementing those ideals.  This distinction is difficult for the person 
who has not yet grasped the concept of irony.

Ec