I didn't say his age was an offence, Gillian--I was just answering
your question about why some of us seemed to be relating to Daniel as
much younger. It does take a particularly youthful sort of arrogance
to arrive on-list and challenge the list-owner's ethical beliefs, it
seems to me. At the same time, a few of us (including me) have been
rather curmudgeonly toward the young upstart's refusal to knuckle under
in the face of our hoary wisdom (speaking now to your observation about
"seniority" and "forelock tugging"). I don't think anyone was expecting
or demanding such obeisance, but that we just became increasingly
irritated by Daniel's failure to recognize that he could learn a thing
or two here, by his resistance to any real dialogue, and (for me) the
growing obviousness of how little he had to offer intellectually. In
fact, I think the extended length of this thread and the considerable
attention Daniel got from us, despite his (self-acknowledged) empty or
pseudo-intellectualizing, speaks to a certain generosity, even list
patience, toward him.
You're quite right to call me on the rest, though, and I should have
begun to ignore Daniel's posts long before this (as I have the poessays
from the beginning). So, please accept my apology if I seemed to have
"harangued" you, since you certainly didn't deserve that. And yes,
let's let both threads die of malnutrition now, by all means.
Cheers,
Candice
>Gillian replies:
>
>Where's the offence in being 23? I'm not sure that I'd say 'appealing', but
>he's got more resilience in the face of attack than I have.
>
>I have no experience of Daniel's b-c style, so can't comment on his
>ignorance, arrogance or obnoxiousness there.
>
>I certainly support the view that persistent unwanted mail could be regarded
>as harassment and needs to be discouraged heavily.
>
>
>Candice said:
>
>Those of you who enjoy Daniel's conversation are perfectly free to
>"take it back-channel," as the saying goes. What some of us would like,
>alternatively, is to keep the front-channel open to other listees and
>other topics, while keeping our in-boxes from being overloaded with
>what we consider junk. Is that so unreasonable?
>
>Gillian replies:
>
>All lists generate threads that are uninteresting to a large number of
>listees. Generally contributers to a thread don't need to be disciplined
>into stopping because threads die out when people stop contributing to them.
>In this respect they are self-organising. When list members have said
>enough, the thread will stop. [Wouldn't it be good if we ALL agreed to
>ignore 'poessays'? Please?]
>
>Having an inbox overloaded with junk goes with the territory at poetryetc. I
>filter poetryetc mail to arrive in its own folder. And I sort and delete by
>subject title. Isn't it better to take individual responsibility for
>managing poetryetc mail than to harangue others on the list about what they
>should or shouldn't post?
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