Hi, Dave--sorry if I was unclear in my refs to a darkening and roughening of
tone and language in your posts and others, by which I didn't mean yesterday
but since Sept 11--and understandably so. These are dark days for all of us,
and I haven't seen much evidence that they've brought out a latent best of
breed in anyone, myself included. Those who are usually just cranky have
tended toward the belligerent, the irascible toward the fiery, the sarcastic
even more bitterly so, etc. etc. And as feelings have run high and hot, so
has the discourse, with posts of a sometimes shocking bellicosity, but my
point last night was that we should resist taking each other's worse side
for true and try harder to cut each other more slack. I think it would ease
tensions too if we were all more conscious of the national(istic) factors
endemic to every discussion now, or so it seems. American listees need to
understand how our government's actions are perceived by Canadians, Brits,
and Australians on Poetryetc--to be more understanding about the fact that
it's their/your world too which the US is screwing up and simply to tolerate
the necessary voicing of anger and fear more patiently, even if we have to
grit our teeth and bite our tongues; by the same token, with feelings of
tremendous grief, anger, and anxiety becoming more or less chronic for us,
it's harder than ever to let the continual "instruction" on our country from
those abroad just roll off our backs, so a bit more sensitivity and support
toward American listees would likewise be welcome, along with bearing in
mind that we're experiencing on the ground, up close and personal, what some
of our European or Australian colleagues are too ready to lecture us on.
We're in the most mutually inflaming positions relative to one another right
now, and a heightened awareness of your justifiably intensified anxieties as
of our own understandably thinner skins might help us cultivate a little
kindness together. God knows we all need it from one another, but we're none
of us going to get it without finding more generosity in ourselves.

The other thing I think we all lose sight of more easily or rapidly in every
thread, it seems, is that the intensification of feelings and viewpoints
doesn't make them any more absolutely right or wrong than usual, nor us any
more or less wise. So when disagreements erupt into violent arguments,
nothing results but further entrenchment in our own positions and a greater
alienation from others--nobody gives an inch and nobody learns a thing
because the passionate attachment to our own viewpoints deludes us into
believing we must be right if we feel it so strongly, if we know it so
deeply. Your expressed concern about the possible presence of determinism in
Dom's post or Fred's endorsement of it is certainly one I can identify with,
and both of us no doubt have good reasons for that concern, but we shouldn't
forget that Dom and Fred likewise feel as they do for reasons we're probably
not in a position to judge, assuming we even know what they are. And the
fact is, they could be right, however convinced we are in our heart of
hearts that they're utterly wrong. Whether people are born good, evil, or a
mix of both is still an open question, and if we browbeat each other without
acknowledging that undecidability, the effect is one of disrespect toward
each other and the breakdown of dialogue that inevitably follows from it. We
all need to listen more or better, and we have to lower the volume before we
can even begin to hear one another.

Well, sorry to have gone on and on, soapbox-style myself--and didn't mean to
target you in particular, Dave, especially as you so often seem to be making
a real effort at Nietzschean self-overcoming (thanks).

Candice




> If there was a rough tone in my latter posts it was down to the unholy
> lateness of the hour, Candice. Like I almost everyone else, I too didn't
> notice the 'towers of evil' post either, but it wasn't so much Fred's anger
> at that I was taking issue with, nor do I object to the presence of
> Americans on this list.
>
> What did concern me was Fred's endorsement of some odd elements in Dominic's
> post. I've read that latter about five times now, and it seems to me that it
> is (whether consciously or not) perpetuating one of the hoariest
> conservative myths of all: that people are naturally evil and therefore need
> to be curbed, by the force of law and the force of 'hard-edged' economic
> realities.
> That telling word 'determinism' was lodged in Dom's post.
>
> Now I have a simple take on these (this, you know, is one of the reasons
> poets need to be 'stupid'). People are neither intrinsically good nor evil,
> they are equally capable of either potentiality, just as the fabric of
> reality itself is not a hard-edged structure but a quantum flux of perpetual
> possibilities. After the wave has been collapsed, then the Myth of
> Inevitability can impersonate reality, but the not-yet is always brimming
> with alternates, other births, as it were, that can dissolve these stone
> superstructures.
>
> One only has to have a little experience of work at the bottom of these
> structures to know that below the supposed hard truths of power and
> economics the reality is continual chaos. Economies, societies, work in
> _spite_ of the Fables of Necessity preached by the Financial Friars, not
> _because_ of them.
>
> Best
>
> Dave
>
>
>
> David Bircumshaw
>
> Leicester, England
>
> Home Page
>
> A Chad's Alphabet
>
> Painting Without Numbers
>
> www.paintstuff.20m.com/index.htm
>
> http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/index.htm
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Candice Ward" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Tuesday, December 18, 2001 6:59 AM
> Subject: Re: (no subject)
>
>
>> Yeah, I hear what you're saying, Alison, and I found the feminist
>> overgeneralizing in Fred's first post today hard to take, but I can still
>> sympathize with him on the "towers of evil" post. They're each issues on
>> which any of us may or may not be in sympathy, but neither one constitutes
>> everything there is to be known or said of a person, whichever way those
>> views shake down. Fred's been a participant on this list for several
> years,
>> as I recall, and he's often made smart contributions to threads as well as
>> posted a number of interesting poems. His views and strong feelings on
>> recent events have certainly led to some posts that were harsher than
> usual,
>> but that's been the case with a number of listees during this period, and
> it
>> doesn't seem like the whole story on any of them. Fred himself doesn't
> seem
>> to be generalizing the particular line on those events that he finds
>> particularly obnoxious to the list as a whole, but only to a certain
>> faction. If he objects strongly to what they've been saying in posts, that
>> doesn't necessarily make him a bigot, does it, or his posts abusive
>> (personally, I mean), however harsh they may be? He and David had a
>> well-tempered exchange this evening, despite often being at loggerheads
>> recently, and however sharp or harsh I've found quite a few of David's
> posts
>> to be, with a much rougher tone and tenor than is usual for him, it never
>> occurred to me to challenge his presence on the list or suggest that he
> vote
>> with his feet if he didn't like the fact that there's a large American
>> presence on it, say. Same with Lawrence, who doesn't exactly mince his
>> words!
>>
>> For myself, I'd hate to see any of them leave the list and would miss
> their
>> company if they did go, but I sure wish as much as you do that we could
> all
>> be more sensitive and civil toward one another. Well, if wishes were
> horses
>> (a saying I've never understood, now that I think of it)--but what a lame
>> conclusion they've carried me to! So, enough--
>>
>> All the best, everyone,
>>
>> Candice