Barbelith Underground > Policy & Help

My view's that mocking/shaming kind of responses have a negative, 'shutting down', effect on discussion in general. I've got an example: I'm personally feeling unwilling to continue posting in the 'Meditation - Let's Talk Shop' thread right now because

1) My life is waay too short to spend time talking to people who think it's a good idea to "goad" rather than making enquiries in a grown-up manner. I do realise the post I've linked to was stated as an apology, but it reads to me as defensive and patronising. I realise the poster Doc Checkmate is quite new to the board and basically has just (in my view) misjudged their response twice in a row. However, I think it's a good example, because if I'd had fewer encouraging PMs or no other good threads in the last week I might be thinking that Temple as a whole had that tone.

2) My second attempt to join in the thread seems to have been labelled as bickering, much to my surprise. I guess the guy is doing his name and attempting to heal me by putting me in double-binds (thanks for this hint, you know who you are), as Haus describes just upthread. (I guess there's a whole level of questioning of iatrogenic sickness and the problems with professionalisation/medicalisation that's so far passed our good doctor by?)

I have PM'd Doc Checkmate to indicate my state of mind, and I will PM him now to alert him of this post in case he is not following this thread. I'm feeling a bit sad and frustrated about the exchange because I realise I had wrongly assumed when I first posted that respectful communication would be the intention. I wanted it to be the intention. I'm finding something positive from the scratch this time because it's helping me find motivation to think about how I criticise and whether I can do it more constructively, and I have learned not to write about meaningful stuff in Temple without due caution.

I like what Julia Cameron has to say about criticism:

"Pointed criticism, if accurate, often gives ... an inner sense of relief: "Ah, hah! So that's what was wrong with it." Useful criticism ultimately leaves us with one more puzzle piece for our work.

Useless criticism, on the other hand, leaves us with a feeling of being bludgeoned. As a rule, it is withering and shaming in tone; ambiguous in content; personal, inaccurate, or blanket in its condemnations. There is nothing to be gleaned from irresponsible criticism."

I too have been very frustrated reading some threads in the temple, and likely to post off sharp criticisms of what I see as idiotic statements. I thought GL's recent contribution to the Gek thread was a stroke of creative genius. I realise others see it differently, but I saw the sharpness in that post as a product of long frustration, and it made me laugh. It seemed constructive because GL detailed exactly what to me as well made that thread seem shallow and boring, and modelled a way forward from the situation which would address GL's own criticisms.

How much is it a general intention for discussion in Temple to be constructive? I like to imagine that I have the intention of constructive engagement whenever I post, but clearly that's a personal preference. I think there's a big difference in tone between 'enquiring in a constructive manner how the person would justify having written X given e.g. that Y has been previously written by someone else and it seems contradictory', and clumsy responses which mock, ridicule or otherwise intend to silence. I can see that the waters get muddy when people are exasperated after long engagement, but that's not always the case when an intemperate response is posted.

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