You can't expect discussion about weighty topics that are important facets and cornerstones in people's lives to not come with emotional baggage. I'm thinking that the admins decided that is was favoritism and if people want to debate or share opinions there is a debate section with rules for that. If you need civil discourse with stricter rules then debate is probably a good section for that. I was on this forum some time ago and wasn't liked at all by a lot of people, but I don't think I would have ever thought of asking for a separate place. I'm not familiar with a lot of the heated poop that's apparently been flying lately, so maybe it's gotten terribly worse. I seriously doubt it though.

I wouldn't mind giving the debate section a go one of these days. Just for practice.

(November 19, 2018 at 12:52 am)Belaqua Wrote:

(November 19, 2018 at 12:36 am)Fireball Wrote: Not addressed to you, sorry. This was addressed to "a theist's" post. I should have been more clear about that. Timing had a bit to do with it. We good?

Understood! 

I was really looking forward to those doughnuts though.

Maybe an internet cookie? I've really been avoiding the doughnuts if I can.

I don't think civility on the forum is necessary but it would be an interesting way to talk. 

Especially if you just want to get straight to the point of the discussion rather than have a theatrical display of emotions, jokes, mocking and so on. 

I don't understand the uproar.

It's not difficult to say what you're saying without adding insults and sarcasm.

I don't mind dealing with insults and sarcasm but in situations where I do just want to deal with an argument it's like you need to sort out all this person's sarcasm, subtract the insults, then reply back.  

So really it just takes away the need for editing the post in your own mind before replying.

Unless you want to just call people names and make jokes then you still have the rest of the forum to work on.

(November 19, 2018 at 1:23 am)Fireball Wrote: Maybe an internet cookie? I've really been avoiding the doughnuts if I can.

Wise choice. 

🍩🍩🍩🍩🍩

Do these show up on other people's screens? They make me feel fat just looking.

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Here is another reason why I think it's good to be polite in these discussions.

Incivility shows pride, in a bad way. To justify incivility, I have to judge not only that I am right and you are wrong, but that you are so wrong you deserve to be made to feel bad. As if it is my right to change your mind not through reasons but through sheer verbal force. It gushes out the emotion of my rightness without demonstrating it.

Pride, force, and display without demonstration are usually bad. Humility is good.

(November 18, 2018 at 8:49 pm)Catholic_Lady Wrote: Theres a lot of talk now about how we shouldn't have suggested a section like this because we aren't always civil. I wanted to address that here in this thread. I think we've all had our moments of not being 100% respectful and mature in discussions here, and that goes for probably every single person. No one is perfect. But I think there is still plenty of merit in wanting a section like this where we can hold ourselves to higher standards and try to be better than we have been in the past.

Why do you need a section for that? Just do it.

(November 19, 2018 at 6:57 am)Belaqua Wrote:

(November 19, 2018 at 1:23 am)Fireball Wrote: Maybe an internet cookie? I've really been avoiding the doughnuts if I can.

Wise choice. 

🍩🍩🍩🍩🍩

Do these show up on other people's screens? They make me feel fat just looking.

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Here is another reason why I think it's good to be polite in these discussions.

Incivility shows pride, in a bad way. To justify incivility, I have to judge not only that I am right and you are wrong, but that you are so wrong you deserve to be made to feel bad. As if it is my right to change your mind not through reasons but through sheer verbal force. It gushes out the emotion of my rightness without demonstrating it.

Pride, force, and display without demonstration are usually bad. Humility is good.

I think you're overlooking the obvious social function that disapproval and emotionally loaded language has. We evolved as a social species and many of these behaviors are likely geared toward encouraging or discouraging certain behaviors in the interest of the group. I think you're overthinking it, like a Freudian trying to explain an organic brain defect in terms of penis envy or whatever. You seem to be applying motives and intents in an attempt to explain it because you are overlooking the obvious. We recognize something bad, we react. It's largely instinctual. It provokes emotions. We act on those emotions. People who are arrogant and egotistical do it. But so do people who aren't arrogant and egotistical. I think you're trying to explain something in terms of surface motives that both is not composed of surface motives, likely lying deeper, and is better explained as a more general trait of human nature that isn't dependent upon or correlated with these surface features. And I think you need to realize that you've probably got the looking glass the wrong way around. Incivility, which is something of a misnomer, is the original natural state. It is a base feature of human nature. It is civility that actually needs the explanation as it is the behavior that is layered on top of our baser selves and interferes with them. Not that explaining the motives for civility is difficult, but it seems wrong headed to approach 'incivility' as some kind of aberration in need of explanation and civility as not.

(November 19, 2018 at 12:23 am)Belaqua Wrote:

(November 18, 2018 at 11:40 pm)Fireball Wrote: I'll bother, for once. "Number 3" coming from a guy who self-admittedly indulges in it at work about politics, with no malice aforethought with his co-workers. FFS, this is a total example of how the religious act, but just about politics in your workplace. I'll bet a ton of doughnuts to one nickel that not one of your co-workers has a different religious bent. Shee-it.

I wonder if you have me confused with someone else...? 

I don't have co-workers. People pay me to teach private lessons at a community center. I go there, they hand me money, I go home. That's my job. The students are nearly all (nominally) Buddhists. The town is about 90% True Pure Land Buddhist. Since I'm not Buddhist, I guess I win the doughnuts. That's good; I like doughnuts. 

We don't talk politics a lot. The classes are art history, philosophy, and literature. My doctorate was in the philosophy of art, and my dissertation was on how the theological views of two artists affected their means of expression. 

We could PM later about delivering the doughnuts.

Bummer. I was going make a thread about Kandinsky in the civil discussion area.

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(November 19, 2018 at 12:45 am)Jörmungandr Wrote: It's something of a paradox. Civility gives incivility its power. Without the restraints imposed by civility, the things that would be shocking become inert and harmless. So in a sense civility creates incivility. I'm sure there's a Taoist lesson in there somewhere, but I'm not up to it tonight. When you allow words to hurt you, then people will hurt you with words.

A very Hegelian approach more like it.

I am still mad at Tibs for not giving me my own personal ABBA section. And he wont disqualify Rubber Ducky from the NFL thread. All that bribe money for nothing.

I DEMAND A RECOUNT! (Note to Self: Did I think this, or type it?) Nothing to see here, we now return you to your regularly scheduled post, already in progress.

(November 19, 2018 at 9:10 am)Jörmungandr Wrote: Incivility, which is something of a misnomer, is the original natural state.  It is a base feature of human nature.  It is civility that actually needs the explanation as it is the behavior that is layered on top of our baser selves and interferes with them.  Not that explaining the motives for civility is difficult, but it seems wrong headed to approach 'incivility' as some kind of aberration in need of explanation and civility as not.

Well, I don't think that "natural" necessarily equals "good." I agree that lashing out when we hear something we don't like is a natural instinct. But maybe we should control it. If there are good reasons not to do a natural thing, then we shouldn't do it. 

As for the utility of socializing people, yes, of course, that's important. But we have to think about what we're teaching. The medium is the message, and we often learn more from the form than the content. So if your kid is acting out, and you try to socialize him by calling him a worthless piece of scum who shouldn't have been born and he should go die, then the proximate bad behavior may stop, but he has learned that this is the way to make things happen. It's a power relation based on giving bad feelings, not a lesson in good behavior.