From: webber@world.std.com (Robert D Webber)
Subject: Re: poly-wired?
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1992 15:59:29 GMT

In article <ZEN.92Aug13220415@death.corp.sun.com> zen@death.corp.sun.com (d) writes:
>
>In article <BsxC4z.DsK@world.std.com> webber@world.std.com (Robert D Webber) writes:
>>  In article <ZEN.92Aug10234913@death.corp.sun.com> zen@death.corp.sun.com (d) writes:
...
>> >upbringing, or that you didn't, because, perhaps, it's something
>> >inherent or wired in.
>
>> It's the part about it being wired in: the fact that you even ask
>> this question makes me wonder whether you aren't looking for a reason
>> to say, "Well, I couldn't do it, but it ain't natural so I'm not
>> to blame."  Your other posts seem a bit defensive of the non-poly
>> attitude, too.
>
>  I feel like I'm talking with some religious fanatic -- someone who
>thinks that any stray thoughts away from the ideal are grounds for
>expulsion or dismissal from the fold. [...]

Where do you get that?  You take exception to what you consider to be
my projection of beliefs you don't hold onto you, but then you turn
around and read this "religious fanaticism" and desire to expel you
into my posts!  Where does it say that I don't think you're part of
"the fold" or even that I believe there is such a fold?  Did I even state
at any point that you were somehow inferior for having problems with
polyamory?  If you think so you're surely projecting so hard you're going
to burn your your bulb: I've had enough problems of my own over the years
not to think that it's easy.  In my botched Cockburn quote I included
the part about "nobody said it would be easy," remember?

As a matter of fact, my primary other is a woman who has believed in
polyamory for years and has more or less practised it, but is now going
through a bad patch where she's having trouble with jealousy.

> [...] Yes, I'm defensive of attitudes
>other than poly -- I happen to believe that there isn't One True Way (TM)
>in this world, in relationships or in other ways, and that other people
>who disagree with my way of thought aren't automatically wrong.  I also
>happen to believe that poly is right for me, despite the problems I'm
>having, but just because poly may be right for you and lots of others
>doesn't make mono or any other way of life wrong.

Did I say that there was "One True Way?"  Hey, you're the one who's claiming
a trademark on it!  I know and lots of people who are happy with attitudes
and ways of life that would make me shrivel and die and we get along
splendidly.  The fact that I think that polyamory is the natural state
of humans is beside the point in my dealings with them: we don't live
in a state of nature, and they don't ask me whether or not I think
monoamorousness is the natural state of humanity very often, so the
question doesn't come up much.  When it does, I tell them what I believe.

If they want to argue with me, they do.  This discussion with you is
unusual in the amount of bad feeling that seems to be developing, and
I really don't know why that's happening.  You accuse me of having
trouble with opinions that differ from mine, but to the contrary
I think that you have problems with my opinions, which differ from yours.
I write what I think, and I get back this stuff about how I'm trying to
impose that on others.

[...]
>  That sounds pretty much like you thought I wanted to be told what to
>do to me.  Why don't you try to read what other people wrote and be less
>condenscending of people that don't agree with what you say or think?

Okay, maybe you didn't think I meant it when I said I apologized in my
post on the last round of this: certainly this continued level of
hostility suggests that you didn't accept that I was prepared to admit
that I was wrong.  So, more formally and directly, I am sorry that I
misinterpreted your original posting, and I wish you well in finding
a way of life that suits and satisfies you.

I'm also sorry that you find my writing condescending.  I try to read
what other people write, but the attitude that what we write conveys
all of and only what we intend is rather naive: literary criticism,
for example, is based on a rather different notion.

> -- d

Bob


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