WEB: Why Attack? [was Revisit number forty two hundred]

[Barb Weismann]

This isn't to Joe specifically.
I am asking for clarification:
--Did I attack someone?
--Was my explanation of dissociation then understood to be saying I didn't
attack someone?
--If so, I am being perfectly sincere here--what were the attack words?
Was it in my petition?  If so, we had better talk a little further about
what constitutes personal attacks.  I haven't seen anything I regard as an
attack in the past few weeks.

Barb


On Thu, 1 Jul 1999, Joe Mabel wrote:

> I disagree.  If I think person A has attacked person B unfairly, I'm going 
> to speak up, even if I'm otherwise a bystander (though I will usually 
> address my remarks privately to person A).
> 
> In my opinion, conflict, even attacks on individuals, is not necessarily 
> inappropriate or unfair, and that I'm suspicious that talk of "civility" 
> becomes a means of restraining dissent. However, underhandedness is another 
> story.  Writing an attack on someone and then weaseling out of it ("oh, I 
> didn't mean YOU" without even so much as an apology that ones words read -- 
> even accidentally -- like an attack) is either incivility, cowardice, or a 
> refusal to see things from the other person's point of view.
> 
> I, for one, am a lot less offended if someone says, "Joe's totally wrong 
> here" or even "Joe's lying" than if someone says, "One of our IPs who 
> maintains a crisis resource directory seems to have an honesty gap," or 
> some such...especially if I step forward to discuss the matter and they 
> deny they meant me, or even pretend they don't see how I could take it as 
> meaning me.
> 
> And just so I'm not accused of the same,
> - yes, several people have done this sort of thing lately
> - I've been to busy to even keep track of who is saying what, so I don't 
> have names. Besides, I'm not particularly angry at anyone or picking a 
> fight here (honest) but I'd like to see people think before they flame.  If 
> anyone asks my opinion of a particular statement, I will gladly give it.
> - the most egregious case of this was a recent email that indirectly 
> impugned someone's honesty but left room for the writer to weasel out.
> - the second most egregious was criticism of what is happening in certain 
> roles in SCN where the writer (who probably had honestly been writing about 
> roles, not individuals) seemed totally shocked, but not apologetic, that 
> real human beings had these roles and took the attacks personally.  You may 
> not have known who was doing these jobs, but obviously SOMEONE was.  Either 
> you are critical of them and should stand your guns or you aren't and 
> should drop the matter.  Saying, in effect, "Oh, I think things need to 
> improve around here but it's nothing about your performance" is ridiculous. 
>  Conversely, if someone is in a public role in the organization (board 
> member, head of a committee, volunteer coordinator, they should expect 
> criticism of their performance.  It is not uncivil to say, "I think 
> conferencing software deserves much higher priority than it is receiving 
> from the Hardware/Software committee."
> 
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> Joe Mabel
> 206-284-7511
> "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain." L. Frank Baum
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Rich Littleton [SMTP:be718 at scn.org]
> Sent:	Wednesday, June 30, 1999 11:35 PM
> To:	Al Boss
> Cc:	scn at scn.org; webmasters at scn.org; scna-board at scn.org
> Subject:	Re: WEB: Why Attack? [was Revisit number forty two hundred]
> 
> 
> I think I'm experiencing deja vu all over again.  I intend to discuss
> civility a bit more in the future, but a succinct (and civil) comment at
> this point.
> 
> 99.9% "attacks" ("complaints" from a different perspective) occur because
> Person X thinks he/she has run into a problem.
> 
> Thus, to complain about the complaint WITHOUT FIRST GETTING INVOLVED IN
> SOLVING (or explaining away) the problem, is not helpful.
> 
> So, how about this being the basic rule:  No complaints about the
> complaint (attack) unless one has first worked to solve the underlying
> problem.
> 
> Rich
> 
> ______________________________________________________________________
> 
> *****  Unless stated otherwise, this message may be forwarded.  ******
> 
> On Wed, 30 Jun 1999, Al Boss wrote:
> 
> > "It's not personal."
> >
> > People always say that. It's almost never the truth. What they mean is,
> > "It's not personal to me."
> >
> > I got hit by a car a couple years ago. Neither the car nor the driver
> > meant anything personal by it. It wasn't directed at me; my role as a
> > bicyclist just conflicted with their role as a motor vehicle. It felt
> > pretty personal to me, though.
> >
> > I used to work in an organization where warring managers used to play a
> > version of org-chart chess, using their respective staffs as sacrificial
> > pawns. It wasn't personal to those managers; they were scarcely aware of
> > who we even were. That fact made it no less personal to the piles of
> > emotional corpses of all those people who got screwed.
> >
> > It wasn't personal to the purchaser of a Big Mac, but it sure was
> > personal to the cow.
> >
> > We all mean well, we call care about SCN, we're all passionate and
> > involved or we wouldn't be having this conversation. And, we're not as
> > awful as the examples I used above. And none of that matters when you're
> > the one who's hurt, or who's dragged down in front of your friends and
> > peers.
> >
> > Consider the consequences of what you do when you interact with other
> > people. It's generally personal to the individual on the receiving end.
> >
> > Al
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