--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "curtisdeltablues" <curtisdeltablues@...>
wrote:
>
> -- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, maskedzebra <no_reply@> wrote:
>
> Robin2: You have, then, answered Bob Price: for you have judged his post to be
devoid of substance or truth. His posts were not answered then because, try as
you might, you could not sense anything sincerely felt or intellectually
articulated that went to what was important. I think it is good to have made
this clarification: viz "He was being a dick to a stranger on the internet". Bob
Price's unanswered posts were, then, unworthy of a response. I would like, for
my own purposes, to know what set of criteria you morally or psychologically
apply to make this determination: As for example, you deemed my post something
to be answered, not Bob Price's.
>
> What is it about this post in particular which puts it in another category
from those two posts from Bob Price?
Curtis3: I just want to note that after being kinda clear about my lack of
interest in
this subject you have doubled down with a few paragraphs, including suggesting
that you post Bob's insults again to stick them in my face. And of course I
can't control what you write but is this really friendly? Is this how you react
to all your friend's preferences?
Robin4: I mist have misinterpreted those two posts. I took them to be a moral
and intellectual challenge; not just "Bob's little FU to all things Curtis". If
they had been what you have characterized them here in this post, *I would have
recognized this for myself*, and would have, had I been your friend, urged you
not to answer them. Because they were not worthy of being answered. I have no
bias one way or the other: I don't forge alliances in order to alter my own
moral responsibilities: If Tom Brady does something dirty, I don't, because I
root for the Patriots and like Brady as a person, given him a bye and judge him
differently from how I would judge James Harrison of the Steelers, who I don't
particularly like and think it is dirty player. When I read the first of those
two posts I refer to, I thought: Wow: Curtis can really show what he is made of
here by answering this putdown of himself.
When you just blew this off with some comment like: "That was the most
disgusting post I have read at FFL" (or words to this effect), I was appalled,
shocked, stupefied. Because I have noticed that whenever Judy criticizes you,
you come right back at her. But even in this case, you sometimesat
suspiciously significant junctures in your dialogues with hergo silent, and
refuse to take a stand which would enable the reader of this feud to know you
have the confidence to stand up to Judynot as an adversary, but in terms of
the form of her arguments against what you have written.
In order to comprehend how you can walk away from those two posts, Curtis, I
would have to have some kind of experience in reading those posts which would
make your decision understandable to me in terms of not being a dishonourable
act {which I deem it to be in the absence of an kind of reasonable
explanation]. You can of course, as you do here, define those posts as just
"Bob's little FU to all things Curtis"'; but this peremptory fiat does not make
of them what you say they are. There has to be some kind of agreement between
your judgment of those posts and what they really are independent of your
saying what they are. Should one interpret and define those posts according to
what you say they are here? Is that the last word? No, Curtis, you can choose
to rule them out of order, declaring there is nothing there worthy of taking
notice; but then the question comes in: Is Curtis's appraisal of Bob Price's
critical posts about him congruent with what in fact is the objective nature of
these Bob Price posts?
And if in this case you are correct, then the fault is all in me: since I took
those posts to merit, to demand, to require an answer. You don't even try to
defend your interpretation of them here as not deserving your attention: they
in their very nature did not warrant you taking any notice of them. But you
never explain why; you just arbitrarily legislate your own reality, and we are
all left with only one option: either we accept Curtis's characterizing of
these two posts of Bob Price, or we don't. But you never give any basis for us
to make this decision, so I think most of the readers at FFL, because of your
reputation, simply concur with youYou see, Curtis, they have never entered
into any process by which they could justify your decision not to respond to
those posts. And they still haven't, even as Steve is certain that you have
scored big time.
I find this an abdication of your moral responsibility, and if you don't see
this, then that is in itself an extraordinary indictment of you.
I am still waiting to hear an argument that makes sense of this, Curtis.
Evidently, being Curtis, you don't have to explain or justify your judgments of
people, of posts: if you say it is so, then it is so. I don't find myself
following in lock-step with this. I read Bob Price's posts, and sure, I am
taken aback at their audacity, their harshness; but I keep reading to the end,
and I come out of the experience with the unavoidable conclusion: There is much
substance in this; Curtis will have to address this. But you walk away
muttering that Bob Price has said nothing about you which merits any kind of
response. Well, Curtis, for that to be the case, it must mean that both these
posts could be read by a third partyperhaps someone who knows neither you nor
Bob Priceand deemed to be unworthy of being taken seriously. Do you believe
this is the case, Curtis? If those two posts were dug up and reposted here, do
you think you could justify having taken the position that you have?
No, Curtis, you just don't get where your own predilections and self-asserted
prerogatives run up against reality, and where reality has some say in the
extent to which you are justified in asserting those predilection and
prerogatives and then imposing them on usand therefore on reality. There is a
very important point here: Curtis has essentially told all of us readers at FFL
that Bob Price's two posts are irrelevant and even frivolous: they do not go to
any critical issues with regard to Curtis. I Curtis will make this decision on
your behalf, and then you can simply be spared any further difficulty in
reconciling what I Curtis has decided these posts are with whatever might have
been your (the reader's) first experience of what they were. I doubt that
anyone but your most loyal supporters would have immediately had the same take
on these two posts as you are telling us was your take on them, Curtis.
On the contrary: You did notthis is my conclusion at leastchoose to answer
either of those posts because you *couldn't* answer them. Now that is my
position, Curtis, and for you to get me off of that position you will have to
construct some kind of argument; not legislate what I have said out of
existence. Does my analysis here simply invalidate itself like Bob Price's
posts did?
Curtis3: I have to ask myself why? Even in casual acquaintance situations if a
person
mentions a preference like this it would be respected. If I was sitting next to
someone at a lunch counter and said I would not like a sticky bun, but thanks
for offering it, the usual reaction is not to grab an icing dripping treat and
shove it into my face.
Robin4: Bob Price was calling you out for being disingenuous and manipulative:
of course you would prefer that he not do thisand you would prefer that no one
remind you about this. But the issue, Curtis, is not your preference that these
posts never be discussed again because you don't like the sensation they cause
inside of you when they are mentioned (sticky buns); the issue is to what
extent those two posts addressed you in some authentically real and pertinent
way. You have sidestepped this issue altogether. This is incredible to me that
you don't see this. Take what I have written so far in this post: If you write
that you don't like what I have said and you don't want anyone to bring up what
Robin has written, does that therefore constituteyour saying thisa moral
ground upon which to stand that supersedes in its importance the arguments I
have made so far in this post? Apparently for you this is the case, Curtis, for
I find nothing different in principle here from what you have chosen to say is
the way reality must behave according to how you have fielded those unpleasant
and vexing posts.
I don't think you get this at all, Curtis; this is your blind spot. And it
represents an impediment to a real friendship. Which is why it is being
discussed now. If I felt you were just deceitfully and dishonestly rigging
things in a way which you knew was wrong, and you therefore had a guilty
conscience, that would be one thing; but I actually believe you think you are
right. This is what astounds me. Because, if you really were consciously
culpable in this regard, you would not make the argument you make here, which,
as you can see form how I have deconstructed it, is no argument at all.
Curtis3: So what is it that makes you so hell bent on shoving my face in Bob's
little FU
to all things Curtis?
Robin4: Only one thing, Curtis: truth, reality, justice. I admit to being
shocked by Bob Price's first postwhich you found "disgusting". But I never
conceived of the possibility that you would not reply to him, and defend
yourself. You never, to repeat, explained the existential basis of walking away
from this challenge to your integrity. I was not "shoving [your] face in Bob's
little FU": if Bob Price's post had been just that: "a little FU" I would have
recognized this and would have urged you, had you asked me, not to respond. I
have only raised the matter of these posts because in the manner in which you
have refused to address them, you give evidence of their validity. Get it,
Curtis?
Curtis3: You must believe that somehow you know what it best for me, my growth.
In fact
later on you are going to make it quite clear that you feel that I am not
handling the feedback areas of my life properly and need a little school'n from
someone who knows better than I do what is good for me. You will attempt to make
the case that unassisted by your superior powers of discernment for what is good
for me, I lack the ability to learn anything about myself.
Robin4: Well, Curtis, in the classroom, if someone tells you, the teacher, to
FO based upon an unfavourable assessment you have given of one of their
presentations, does that then end the matter? And if you choose to ask them to
become responsible for what you deem to be a shoddy performance, does that mean
that pupil can do what you are doing here, and simply say: Don't shove this in
my face! I have decided your failing mark does not concern me. So let's just
move on, Mr M.
I disagree with you in what you say here that I am putting myself in the
position to "know what is best for me, my growth"and you are not "handling the
feedback areas of my lfie properly and need a little school'n from someone who
knows better than I do what is good for me": WRONG, CURTIS. I am not,
arbitrarily or compulsively or mischievously, or therapeutically, or
didactically seeking to make you a better person in the way you have accused me
of doing. It is not this at all, Curtis: it is merely a matter of where, in
your actions (actions here being defined by your judgments and opinions and
determinations made on FFLsome of which touch me personally), you end up
creating an influence, an effect, which interferes with the lines of objective
and innocent understanding.
News Flash: I have just been informed of the death of Christopher Hitchens: 62.
This is a major event. And it immediately creates a perfect touchstone for me,
as I think, ironically enough, that this was a great soul. I won't go any
further than this, except to say that a heroic person has been taken from us
the living. And am suddenly quite affected by an emotion which does not
necessarily coincide with what I am attempting to do here, Curtis, in answering
your post. Whew: his death has created an effect which is palpable.
Curtis3: I hope you will consider this feedback in the manor you suggest I
lack. What is
up with this behavior to someone you say you want to be friendly with? Can you
relate to me as an equal?
Robin4: Nope; it is strange thing; but I think, given the impact of the death
of this remarkable human being that I must break off here. I will post this.
And then return to this post sometime later, because the issue before me right
now, and one that I cannot set aside, is the death of this person that I
respected so much. Even as our beliefs about ultimate matters differed
considerably. Christopher was dead right on Iraqamong many things. And, I
believe, Bill Clinton too. I wish that I could have known him personally. We
will have to wait to see what his fate was until we undergo what he has just
undergone. I salute you at least in this, Curtis: I know you will be in
agreement with me about Christopher Hitchens: this really is a tragedy.
