From: mike@gordian.com (Michael A. Thomas)
Subject: Re: Why you people alienate so many...
Organization: Gordian; Costa Mesa, CA
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 17:46:08 GMT

In article <thaaang.719142199@cwis>, thaaang@cwis.unomaha.edu (John Dorrance) writes:
> >  I don't remember John getting roasted. He may have otherwise ended up
> >on the motss.con.dim.sum menu instead of just being disgusted at the
> >thought of canablism.
> 
> No, actually, I *was* roasted; deserved it, too. Twice, once because I
> was talking about my feminine mythology class and sounded sexist, and
> once because I was talking about my friend Maggie and sounded internally
> homophobic (I probably was a little). Both got better as I explained my
> position more concisely and thought about what the other people were
> saying, but I was pretty ill after seeing my first few flames.

  Well, I guess that you just got admitted to The Big Bad World is
all. What a shock, people don't always agree with you and are more
than willing to tell you that. Being the contentious sod that I
am, I guess I learned this a long time ago. Ce'st la vie. 
  Getting roasted is part of expanding you understanding of a subject.
It is in some ways quite invigorating -- knowing that you might be
on thin ice, but thinking through the subject more thoroughly and
arriving at either more honed versions of your previous opinion or
changing your mind altogether. Cowering away from flames and 
acquiescing to whatever the accepted norm is (or appears to be) 
is not the answer though.
  Besides, you look cute somewhat on the roasted side -- medium rare
like at Cock Rock :-)

> My mistake was I saw the casual banter going on around here and assumed
> I could just jump right in; that's not true. This is like any other
> social situation in a way; it's a group of people, and you can't just
> *POOF!!!* be an accepted member. If you wade in unannounced, people's
> toes will get stepped on.

  Well hon, I think there is only one way to do it: "Dive on in the
water's fine". It may be a bit of a lie, but you eventually get used
to the water anyway. 
  My initial trepidation was that my writing capability was very 
weak (and still is for that matter). I can hack C code (literally) 
but english is a bit more difficult. The other thing is that I
hadn't really thought too much about a lot of subjects in many years,
being the busy entrepreneur that I am.

> Cabal? Sure, whatever you want to call it.
> But it's not wrong, it's just the way people work. (Of course, I'm
> saying this from the perspective of someone who's been through all of
> that and emerged okay...)

  Personally, I still think the idea of a real Cabal is a joke.
Much to conspiratorial for my taste. I mean really, do you think
that people have that much of their lives invested in soc.motss
to actually plot revenge, and hold membership meetings and the
like? I think that people tend to congregate with complimentary 
people -- nothing more sinister than plain old human nature.
-- 

		Michael Thomas	(mike@gordian.com)
	"I don't think Bambi Eyes will get you that flame thrower..."  
		-- Hobbes to Calvin
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