(ha ha! I tricked you all by changing the title to the thread.  This is a
thirtyfive post day on enviroethics, and still counting!  Some kind of
record I'd say, but of course numbers don't "mean" anything--just ask any
humanist.)  :-)

This is really just a "personal" note responding to Ray, but you're all
invited to read along as well. :-)

Hi Ray,
I agree with you about the difficulties of expressing oneself via email,
when it would be far easier to communicate face to face.

OTOH, <smile> there is something to be said for the benefits of a written
medium such as an email list: one gets the chance to think over carefully
what one says, prior to "saying" it; one gets to hit the delete key for
either *incoming* or *outgoing* emails that cross too far over the tertiary
quality "snideness" line; and one gets a written archival record, which
affords us *all* the opportunity when disputes arise to go back to the
original posting of record that's democratically available to all in the
list's archives and see what was actually said at the time.  All of these
benefits are *unavailable* to us in spoken discourse.  So all in all, I
think it's a "wash," as they say.   :-)

>Hello Jim
> Good to hear from you. This medium demonstrates how difficult it is to
>communicate, especially absent body language. :-)
>
>You said:
>> Hi Ray,
>>
>> I'm not really sure what to say about this, except that *possibly* it
>seems
>> that my new-found paranoia about the "sort of snide remarks that seem to
>be
>> the mode of exchange here" extends to what you write below.  :-)
>>
>
>Your paranoia has a very simple remedy - just restrain yourself when a snide
>remark comes to the tip of the tongue!  It is a remedy that I honour more in
>the breach! :-)

But Ray . . .  "restraining myself" is no fun!  <grin>  Why, it sounds like
you would take away what amounts to at least *half* the attraction of email
lists, if it's not more than half the attraction.  The trick IMHO is to
balance an appropriate level of what you are referring to as "snide"
remarks with an *equally* appropriate amount of content balanced with
quality, in the hopes of providing the list with generally edifying
discussion of environmental ethics.  :-)

Furthermore, <SUPER DIGRESSION MODE ON> if I may be so bold as to offer my
"personal opinion" on the general topic of the "sort of snide remarks that
seem to be the mode of exchange here" (and let me be clear that this is
just me speaking now, as just a plain member and citizen of the
enviroethics list biota, and not as some kind of quasi-official co-list
owner or anything), in other words, "in my humble opinion" or IMHO:  I
personally believe that most of what you are interpreting as "snide"
remarks happen to be in fact remarks that are made in an overall basically
playful and ironically self-aware way.  I say "MOST" such remarks, and not
"all" of them; and certainly I may be wrong, as ALWAYS.  The point is that
I think you *unfairly* characterize "snideness" as the "norm" ("seem[s] to
be the mode of exchange here").   Now, of course anyone here on this list
can certainly feel free as usual to "pile on Jim T" with regard to what I'm
saying here, just as people usually do about almost everything else I
happen to post to the list (except in the case of my "Saving the Biosphere"
post, sniff, sniff, which never did get the critical condemnation it so
richly deserved <sniff>; see e.g.
http://www.mailbase.ac.uk/lists/enviroethics/2000-07/0052.html ).  (Just
one more bit of shameless self-promotion here, again.)   :-)

But see Ray, that's just the point.  I intentionally write to provoke
(oops!  did I really say that?  I guess the cat's out of the bag . . . ).
Half the fun of participating on this list, for all of us I think, is
seeing what kinds of different viewpoints can be presented to us all about
some of these issues, and then seeing where the discussion on those
differing viewpoints can take us.  (After all, if it were all just
"preaching to the choir," how interesting would THAT be?)  (I mean, if we
wanted THAT, we could have all just piled into a Volks Wagon Microbus and
this week and gone down to the EarthFirst! encampment in Tennessee!)
<grin>  (Where's Ben Hale when you need him?)  I personally, for one, had
not given the "primary-secondary-tertiary" qualities issue much thought
prior to this week as applied to *environmental* values (previously just to
chocolate, silly me).  This discussion has been ENORMOUSLY helpful for me
personally this week to think about some stuff I otherwise wouldn't have
thought of.  (I won't tell you what I would have been thinking about
otherwise, except to say that it rhymes with "willing" animals.)

And now you see?  That last statement there is a JOKE.  Sometimes the jokes
are funny, and sometimes they are not, but only an aesthetician as such
(and such as . . . Ted Cohen) can *really* tell the difference!   See e.g.
Cohen's essay on "jokes."  (Cohen, Ted. "Jokes" In Pleasure, Preference,
Value, edited by Eva Schaper, 120-136. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1983--the same volume the McDowell aesthetics essay is in, btw . . .
so for one-stop aesthetic realism shopping . . . ).  What would a Jim
Tantillo email be without impossibly excessive documentation??  See, even
the Cohen reference is a joke of sorts, as are a lot of the things I tend
to refer to. . . .  Other people here have their own respective
characteristic ways of posting (including "snideness" I'll admit); but IMHO
that is part of what makes this whole thing so very, very interesting.

So I guess I just wouldn't get *too* worked up about what appears at times
to be "snide remarks," as you call them.  According to my dictionary (HA!),
snide means:

"1. false, counterfeit . . . practicing deception: DISHONEST . . . 2.
unworthy of esteem . . .  "

Nobody here is snide: we all believe in what we believe in, and
passionately so.  Only the really mean-spirited or dishonest people, here
or elsewhere, can make "snide remarks."** (see footnote below)  I daresay
(get it?  "dare" ? ha ha.  that's wordplay.  I absolutely "will" myself,
sometimes.  ha ha, that's another funny pun) that most of the people here
on this list are actually *incapable* of making truly *snide* remarks.
Most of us poor slobs simply make: a) remarks that are sarcastic, and
intentionally so (which doesn't make them snide, necessarily); b) remarks
that are funny, or sometimes (mostly?) not--in which case they may come
across as "snide," but they aren't, really; and/or c) remarks that are part
of our ongoing attempts to reason together as an epistemic *community*, one
that has gathered here in cyberspace (or whatever you want to call it) for
the purpose of sharing our knowledge and personalities for a *variety* of
individual reasons.  As such, seemingly "snide" remarks may in fact be
affectionate and self-referential allusions to the growing history that we
all share together as mutual antagonists, friends, colleagues, in some
cases "lovers" (J.F. I heart you!) . . . .  See, in this last case, a
playfully sarcastic and only thinly veiled dig at "J.F." (I "dare" you Ray,
to identify who that is) is something that can ONLY make sense in the
context of our (meaning *all of us*) shared conversations here on the list:
note that somebody coming *late* into the conversation is unlikely to get
the reference or the *gag* (another pun!) at all.  But for me, the constant
digs at J.F. (or at anybody else) is, at least in *some ways*, a sign of
genuine respect and mutual (I hope) admiration.  For the fact of the matter
is that my teasing J.F. about his "meaningful words" or about anything else
he writes is a sign that I have in fact *read what he writes* and that I
*appreciate it* enough to want to refer back to it and keep it alive a few
moments more in our collective, shared memory.

Now, what's NOT respectful, on the other hand, and "IMHO," are the
occasional "drive-by" contributions that are occasionally made (sometimes)
by lurkers on the list, who will quickly stop by, make a comment or two
aimed at something somebody has said in the course of one of our long
conversations, and then simply "drive away" without making any further
responses to subsequent questions or comments from people who regularly
post to the list.  (Or people who join for five minutes, make a snide
remark, and then promptly unsubscribe.)  This drive-by participation is
neither polite nor a sign of arguing/conversing/debating in good faith.  I
would rather argue to the death with someone like John Foster, who is
faithfully here, every day, day in and day out (for better or worse
sometimes <grin>), than with some of the others who in their "seriousness"
about saving the environment don't have the time or courtesy to pull up a
chair and stay a while.  You know, get to know folks.  Get to know which
folks you can tease, and which ones not to tease--get to know what
particular kinds of comments tend to get under certain other peoples' skin.
. . :-)  But also, more importantly, get to know who argues what kinds of
positions, and from what starting points.  Whose opinions do you respect?
Who else has hunches that are sometimes interesting, even if not superbly
well grounded at times?  Who are the activists, for whom I'm sure we all
share a *great* deal of admiration, and who are the thinkers?  After all,
"it takes all kinds."  Like the song goes:

All God's critters got a place in the choir,
Some sing low, some sing out higher,
Some sing out loud on the telephone wire,
And some just clap their hands, or paws, or anything they got now.

Seems to me like we've got an awfully nice choir here--and one that doesn't
tolerate preaching too all that well, and I mean that in a GOOD sense, in
other words there's no "preaching to the choir" here.  Most people on this
list (I find) are fair, open-minded people, and yes, that goes for J.F. and
C.L. too (I can't believe I just wrote that!) :-)  So I wouldn't worry
about "snide remarks" so much.  If peoples' skins were wrapped so tight as
you might imagine, then my guess is that they wouldn't be posting here.
And I think that for the very *many* people who lurk here (and note there
are over two hundred subscribers to this list, so we must be doing
something right), watching all the antics of the animals in the choir is a
form of pure recreation that just can't be beat!  As well as educationally
informing, too!

Which leads me to a final point here in this somewhat extended digression:
an economic point, which I gather you will appreciate, Ray.  I'm a great
believer in the "First Principle of Email Lists," which is "You get what
you pay for."  In other words, you "get the list you pay for," or more
precisely, "you get the list you contribute to."  If Maria-Stella wants the
title to a thread changed because it bothers her, then she should just go
ahead and change it.  If she wants to talk about something other than the
anti-environmental corporate propaganda that I, Jim Tantillo, usually want
to talk about, then she has to figure out a way of firing people up to get
people discussing the issues *she's* interested in talking about.  And I'm
not bashful about naming names.  If you, Ray, want the discussion to get
back around to discussing the Minteer article, then dammit Ray,  :-) do
something about it--just don't sit there complaining.   <big grin--I'm
teasing you Ray, I hope you get the "joke">

As for the rest of you big time eco-slackers . . .  GET BACK TO WORK.  Dig
us up some more stuff to talk about other than Mark Sagoff's status as a
"philosopher."  Who the heck cares?  Listen to what Sagoff is actually
saying, and forget the boundary work.

<MAJOR DIGRESSION MODE OFF>  which means there's actually at least one more
substantive point in response to Ray's email somewhere below . . . .  :-)


>
>--------------
[snip]
>
>Just for fun, Jim.  To me, "to dare" is a conscious act.  Imho, Sagoff acts
>in his way *without conscious purpose*; it is just in his nature to be open,
>engaged, to listen to the other and then to respond with a very fundamental
>honesty and respect even for the least of us.  He does not just "dare", he
>*is* authentically.  Imho.

Jim again:  Ray, I "dare" you ("just for fun, Ray") to think of the word
"dare" in the sense that I described.  I know this sounds like a pretty
trivial point for me to want to make after all that B.S. and baloney above
:-) but try the word on for size.  I will fully grant you the fact that
Sagoff acts courageously in a wholly *unselfconscious* manner--but does
this point make his act of integrity any less courageous, any less brave,
or any less admirable?  Let's think about the example given in the
dictionary explanation: "the actress dared a new interpretation of this
classic role."  Does this sample usage *necessitate* that the actress
consciously decided, "Gee, I think I'll go out on a limb here and stretch
myself artistically today."  Or could it also mean that this actress

 "acts in this way *without conscious purpose*; it is just in her nature to
be open, engaged, to listen to the dramatic script and then to respond to
the role with a very fundamental artistic honesty and respect even for the
truth as she sees it in that role.  She does not just "dare", she *is*
authentically.  Imho."

Just a question for fun, Ray.  :-)  IMHO and FWIW.  YMMV. and TGIF.
ROFLOL. (I always wondered what that last one meant, until I had someone
spell it out for me.  FYI.)  :-)

have a good weekend, everybody.

Jim T.

**footnote to the above discussion of the concept, "snide": There is at
least one more dictionary definition of "snide," which in the interests of
full disclosure, I provide here.  "3 : slyly disparaging: INSINUATING " . .
. .  okay, okay.  I admit to sometimes engaging in slyly disparaging
remarks, and in the occasionally insinuating innuendo as well.  So sue me.
<grin>

>
>Now, I wish you experts would get back to Minteer, McDowell,
>foundationalism, etc.  Steven B. has put the cap on the exotic species
>issue, imho. :-)
>
>Ray
>
>>
>> He was just operating with his native honesty &
>> >integrity.  I would be amazed if
>> >he acted otherwise.
>> >
>> >As you can see I have a very high regard for him.
>>
>> As do I, Ray, as do I.
>>
>> Jim T.
>>
>>
>>
>> >
>> >Ray
>>