Organization: Queen's University at Kingston
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 23:46:47 EST
From: Graydon <SAUNDRSG@QUCDN.QueensU.CA>
Newsgroups: soc.bi
Subject: Re: Purity
 <1993Jan4.223344.7425@tcsi.com> <93005.004022SAUNDRSG@QUCDN.QueensU.CA>
 <1993Jan6.013546.16827@tcsi.com>

In article <1993Jan6.013546.16827@tcsi.com>, miket@hermes.tcs.com (Michael
Turner nmscore Assoc.) says:
>
>[Graydon] [opening minds]
>[Me]
>        Well, you stopped, anyway.  Is it so much harder to say
>        something like "labels don't work for me," and try to elicit
>        from people memories of situations in which *they* have been
>        unpleasantly labeled (an almost universal experience)?  And how
>        is it less "adult" to do so?  Especially by comparison to
>        responding using the diction of a three-year-old?
This presuposes that the person asking you has the habits of thought
neccesary to notice labeling, and that they are willing to acknowledge
being (to whatever small degree) hurtful in their social conduct
toward someone they're uneasy enough around, or ingnorant enough of,
to ask a 'what are you' question of in the first place.

>[Graydon]
>        Ok - it is possible to use 'an instance of an human being', but it
>        doesn't communicate clearly as often as 'a people'.
>[Me]
>        "A people" doesn't communicate much except that you have a
>        serious grammatical affectation.  You still haven't said what
>        this does that other, perfectly acceptable, English doesn't
>        also do.
>
>        "An instance of a human being" communicates not one whit more
>        than "a human being", which in turn says nothing more than "a
>        person."
>
>        Let's whittle it down a little more.  How about "I'm me"?
To someone else, that communicates 'I'm what you see occupying
the vaguely people shaped volume you're talking to', and is likely
to be pigeonholed as someone who is either defensive, cold, or trite.
(at least, that seems to be what people around here do.)

>        A basis for this: some psychologists have found that "I'm me" is
>        precisely the response given most often by people who have
>        most completely accepted themselves.  The less the self-acceptance,
>        the more baroque, or off-the-wall, or affected the response.
>
>        "I'm a people" might be a good response from someone with a
>        multiple personality disorder.  Hey, let's go with that one.
>        So, Graydon: Do you all accept each other?
Generally, yes; there haven't been four of me for some years now.
I still get minor dustups between pragmaitic and mystical habits of
thought, and between the 'dutiful child' programing and my innate
bloodymindedness, but nothing severe.

>[Graydon]
>        If I want other people to respect which shutters I have closed
>        in my mind, it behooves me to respect theirs.  Which means, to
>        me, that I can refuse to provide them with a label for myself,
>        or do my best to refuse their attempts to label me, but that I
>        ought to leave my opinions of their shutters out of things as
>        much as I can.
>[Me]
>        Is this your roundabout way of saying that "A people" is the most
>        polite response you can think of?
>
>        Also, when you say "other people", do you mean "other peoples"?
>        Or is there only one "peoples"?
The most polite, in the sense of formally polite, response is probably
something like 'a mature male homo sapiens'; this is less than useful
in a social setting.

The number of peoples in existence in a function of the beliefs of
whom you ask.  My belief is that the only basis for distinctions within
homo sapiens are chance, and choices.

>[Graydon]
>        A capacity to believe that one has an understanding of universal,
>        or even very general, applicability is a trait I associate with
>        adolescence and madness.
>[Me]
>        Understanding of what?  Everything?  Then agreed.  But what does
>        that have to do with the subject at hand?
You would appear to be applying what 'a people' conveys to you
very generally in talking about the capacity of the phrase for
semantic conveyance.


>[Graydon]
>        Ever run into H. Beam Piper's test for an adult?  [Your]
>        reaction fails it.  The defintion in question, which I continue
>        to find a good thumb rule, asserts that someone is probably an
>        adult if, when you say something they do not understand, ask
>        you what you mean, rather than telling you you are crazy.
>[Me]
>        I didn't say you were crazy.  I asked about a third possibility:
>        How about when people smile condescendingly and erase you from
>        their list of people with whom they can expect to have an
>        adult conversation?
I get labeled as a heritic very fast; childish, not for quite some
time.  (That I loom probably helps.)
You also had some rather negative things to say about anyone, and me
in particular, who would use an sf author as a reference for a
an adulthood defintion.  Chucking me into the bin labeled 'sf geeks',
pretty much.  Regarded as equivalent to telling me I'm crazy.

>
>        But OK, OK, Graydon, I give in, I take the bait, I'm buying
>        the ticket and getting in line: just what DO you mean by
>        when you respond "A people"?
>
>---
>Michael Turner
>miket@tcs.com
Well, I've got several objectives in answering a 'what are you?'
question; one is to give them something that they don't have bin
for.  (You know, in mind candy sword and sorcery novels, how the
hero has a henchman who doesn't say much but pops up at convient
moments to do in the one-to-many-whatevers that are plaguing the
hero?  I look like that guy.)   'a people' is not obviously sarcastic,
nor defensive, and I say it with a cheerful innocence quite at odds
with what I look like.

Another objective is to find out how annoyed the person who asked
the question gets when someone does not co-operate by providing the
name of their bin.

Still another objective is to find out what kind of response I get
- a 'what do you mean by that?' is different from a 'I think I'll
just nod' is different from an 'I know what you mean' nod is etc.

The idea is not to play by any rules for one response and see what
happens.  Generally, (YMMV) it works well.

What I mean, of course, is the sum total of my genes, my experience,
my memories, my thoughts and my choices.

Graydon
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
saundrsg@               "Praise then Darkness and Creation unfinished"
   qucdn.queensu.ca                   - U. K. LeGuin
Newsgroups: soc.bi