The Observation Deck

Shawn, can you be a little more specific?

OR

are you engaging the very baiting of which you accuse JOB?

Doug

Disclaimer: I am neither a critic nor a fanboy of JOB.

Shawn Juris posed a question in another thread, but called out the Advisory Board for an answer. As this is a true civic source project, I thought it would be better to ask all.

Shawn Juris wrote:At what point does Jim's baiting and reckless misrepresentation of other's comments become a legal, moral, or integrity issue for this project?

An interesting question.


.

The struggle for dominance within the art of constructive dialogue is inseparable from the phanton civic personality that haunts each person who posts on the LO Deck.

First - to be truthful I would like you to say more about the phantom civic personality becuase I dont think I quite understand what you are trying to say. As a result, please understand that my lack of understanding may have caused some misunderstanding of your posts overall message.

That being said my first thoughts here are...

Is not the desire to be seen, heard, understood, and respected as much of a driving force? I am trying to understand, but it seems to me as if you are stating that it simply a contest of who can "win" the civic discourse?

If we are all only trying to "win" then we shall surely lose.

Life is a contest, dude.

Perhaps to some it is - if so, that explains a great deal to me. For others (myself included) life is journey. Not something to be conquered, but something to be explored, shared, and treasured.

Often what I, and others, want to do is share our thoughts, ideas, passions, fears, etc. and explore them in this civic dialogue with others that may or may not share these feelings or have interest in these ideas. We want someone to walk a while on our path.

So when we find that those that have been invited view the world differently (as a contest for example) and they want to see whose ideas win, whose passions are greater, whose fears will be found to be irrelevant, etc. it is so very very hard to understand.

Just as my words here are likely very very hard for those who world views differ to understand.

But I will say again, because I believe it with every fiber of my being,

If we are all only trying to "win" then we shall surely lose.

Flame wars are part and parcel of a disputatious free speech project occurring among civic personalities.

This is true; however, what I do not understand is why such a project as this needs to be argumentative to begin with. Do you believe that progress is made most effectively through hotly contested positions? Are flame wars, noted for their descent into personal attacks on an individual rather than the issue, truly part and parcel and a necessary evil?

Is it possible to have civic discourse with civility?

Just my unsolicited two cents
Charyn

DISCLAIMER: The views expressed above are those of a perfectly human and flawed individual who has herself become frustrated from time to time with any number of things. While I have always attempted to keep on point and away from personal attacks I promise you no perfection there and can only say that these standards are those that i aspire to.

Shawn,

Obviously something regarding Jim upset you.

That's too bad. No one wants to have their feelings hurt.

I do think however, that you might have better handled it, with a personal message to him.

You have to remember that this is virtually all opinionated interchange. People, including you and Jim, both have a right to express that opinion.

I think that all of us involved with the Observer are delighted with the free and open discussions that transpire in these threads.

Do we sometimes say more than we should?

Probably yes, yet who is to say?

But this is a forum for ideas, and not a community pillory. What say that we try to keep those personal confrontations private?

And as I discovered a long time ago, face-to-face discussions work so much better than do memos or e-mail.

I posted a response on that other thread, but to expand: The beauty of this forum is the the fact that those posting must take ownership of that which they posted. Those who follow the threads know who generally enters the discussion with rational arguments, reasonable approaches and thoughtful insights. We also recognize those who tend towards trolling, hyperbole and exaggerations. And we give the writer whatever consideration is due.

If Jim has an issue of reckless misrepresentation, then it is one which reflects upon his integrity and morality, and not on that of the Deck. And because we know who has ownership of the statement, as participants in the project, we can view the poster in light of the content of their posts.

Jeff

Bryan Schwegler wrote:Now sometimes have I seen Jim misquote or "misrepresent" others posts, absolutely. However, I think so have most other people including myself, and I doubt any of us have done it purposefully. Again, this is just a symptom of the Internet's written communication.

Bryan

I am staying out of this, it will be a question of the day next week. Just to make sure everyone has a chance to discuss this topic and my behavior. Then I will weigh in.

What I do not understand is the "misstatement" While I sometimes get my interpretation wrong. The poster's comments are saved, achieved and search-able by anyone.

Please return to topic and discussion.

.

In my experience with Internet communications, things often tend to get a little heated, especially when those involved care so deeply about what they are discussing.

Sometimes this is due to the fact that the Internet is anonymous, sometimes it's because you're not face to face so people are less careful about what they say, and often it's due to the fact that we're dealing with the purely written medium which lacks the inflection of voice or the implicit body language of in-person conversation.

There tends to be a few people on the Deck that seem to always butt heads, probably for any variety of reasons. However, the one thing I see demonstrated in those exchanges is the love and deep desire to see Lakewood succeed just from different directions.

Now sometimes have I seen Jim misquote or "misrepresent" others posts, absolutely. However, I think so have most other people including myself, and I doubt any of us have done it purposefully. Again, this is just a symptom of the Internet's written communication.

Maybe Jim has done it more, I have no idea. Look at the number of posts he has compared to the masses here, it's just amazing every time I look at it . I would bet that if you took a proportional count of the percentage of posts Jim may have "misquoted" it would be at no higher percentage than most other posters here that are involved in debates.

Trust me, misunderstandings and misperceptions happen. I've been a forum admin for over 4 years on a board with over 11,000 members. I've seen it time and time again. And if you think things get bad here, you should see of the flame wars that happen on a Mac-oriented forum. The Deck has nothing on that when it comes to Apple Zealots.

I'm sure I've formed perceptions of people on here that are totally wrong, and I'm sure others think things of me that are not true. I think the advantage of the Observer is that as neighbors, we can often meet in person and remove some of the misperceptions that can be built up. I hope one day to participate in that as well.

Jim O'Bryan wrote:What I do not understand is the "misstatement" While I sometimes get my interpretation wrong. The poster's comments are saved, achieved and search-able by anyone.

At least in my post, my definition of "misstatement" is interchangeable with "misinterpret" or "misquote". Basically, misunderstanding what someone's intended their post to mean. As may have just happened by my poor choice of words in my post.

I know I'm certainly guilty of it at times as I'm sure are most others. The Internets can be a confusing place.

Ms. Compeau:

I am glad you asked for an elaboration of the concept of the phantom civic personality in a post which so eloquently expresses your own idealism.

There is a link between the phantom and the realm of ideality, a link obscured further by the semantic connections that burst into flames around ‘post-al’ civic personalities.

Charles Stein reminds us in “Parimenides Project:â€Â￾ “Ideality is a mode appearance, of “seeming-to-be.â€Â￾ It is the mode of the phantom. It arises under a variety of conditions: sensuous, conceptual, intuitional, constructional, and so forth.â€Â￾

To be sure ideality, arises with the Lakewood Observer. With ideality comes, at least in my theorization of the experience, the phantom civic personality. For, in the course of dialogue with others a civic personality may experience ideality morphing problematically downward into a contested shape of interpretation or statement.

Thus a phantom civic personality is born into the dark age of total information awareness, which compels even more fright.

Roughly two years’ worth of phantom civic personalities - some velvety smooth and others nasty and brutish – may sometimes obscure the ordinary orientation to community building and political power.

But someting extraordinary is occurring. too. Indeed, “The Phantasmagoria of the Woodâ€Â￾ has been created on the LO Deck, watched intently for its primary and overwhelming effects by those who know but do not speak in the dark cubby holes of City Hall.

In the “The Phantasmagoria of the Woodâ€Â￾ dark selves (see Dante for Selva Oscura) shine high ideals that can sometimes blind us to a contest that is biology and culture at bottom. Both the contest and “The Phantasmagoria of the Woodâ€Â￾ are fundamental to the evolution of human consciousness and therefore immensely frightening to someone not fully conscious of their own will to power.

The renowned Jesuit scholar Walter J. Ong provides a useful account for the biological setting of metal activity – i.e. the contest – in “Fighting for Life: Contest, Sexuality, and Consciousness (Cornell University Press, 1981).

Kenneth Warren

...and I believe it was Basho who said, "a flute with no holes, is not a flute. And a donut with no hole, is a danish."

But lets not get too far off the real topic.

At what point does the Observation Deck start evicting people for such blatant use of logical fallacy?

Shawn, could you please do us the favor of first proving your case, before we get to the sentencing stage?

There are always unconscious dimensions to actions and ideals. By going onward in dialogue rather than away mad or to bed sad, “we 'obscure the ordinary orientation'â€Â￾ enough so that there is no evident winner or loser, and the play continues.

In this register we can achieve a more complex sense of our interdependencies in the community. I believe this can be achieved, even when one knows and says in a breach of civic etiquette another's ideas are off-the-wall. Incidentally, I believe there may be a link between the moralizing (class-based?) impulse that would impose the community's order of "civic etiquette" on a individual person and "historic district" on an individual house. Lakewood is, geographically and socially, an immensely interesting place for this tension to find articulation.

Though a civic personality may push with limited ability against the grain of the internalized agonistic drive (Life is a contest, dude) for the social settings that can produce and reproduce civility, solidarity and trust, there’s always the tension between the individual’s internalized agonistic drive and the ideality imagined as the rich associational network of civil society. This tension is productive of unintended consequences, and certainly worth recognizing rather than simply personalizing.

The landmines are hardwired, so to speak, in the neurophysiological groundwork that supports the mental process of the civic personality who posts. And the landmine of disenchantment always awaits the civic personality spellbound by the phantom of his/her own ideals.

That’s why I say “Life is a contest, dude,â€Â￾ to break the spell of ideals over unconscious agonistic drives, so that presumably a renewed social sense of the interdependencies might resume.

If the spell of ideals is broken, then the mutuality that is at the heart of trust might again begin to move. But as we know mutuality is a grand spirit best nurtured through face-time together rather than by watching those frightening cyber-reruns of “The Phantasmagoria of the Wood.â€Â￾

I really have no solution to problems you pose. I only possess the will to remain in the contest and wager on the heart of trust, which my velvety phantom will, no doubt, eclipse.

Kenneth Warren

Shawn,

The boards are moderated for nothing more than spam and vulgarity... the rest is up to you.

There are no experts(i.e. credentialed priests) here, let alone thought police.

Are you going to jab back with intelligence, or take one on the chin and call the referee? If the latter, you're out of luck. No refs here. It's cold outside.

As Gordon Brumm might say, it's about the Stream Of Consciousness Sandbox. If Jimmy kicks some sand in your eye, kick some back.

Don't be a tattle tale.

Dan Slife

I don't know what this is all about....but: A newspaper is an autocracy, not a democracy. It seems to apply to web sites, as well. I think it says a lot that Jim is putting the matter up for discussion.