From: BigBooster (fm1@amug.org)
Date: Tue Jul 10 2001 - 16:22:55 MDT
I've written Report #TL12A: Dinging and Dedinging
-- Subtle Suppression -- Self-Sabotage
<http://www.buildfreedom.com/tl/tl12a.shtml>
Some extracts:
DINGING IS LIKE A VERBAL SLAP IN THE FACE!
-- SOMETIMES BY AN INVISIBLE HAND!
A few years ago I heard of businessman Kingsley Wimbush
who operated a company in California. He and his personnel
apparently became phenomenally successful, partly because
of his recognition of "dinging." Many of us, most days, experience
all kinds of little disappointments, verbal putdowns, negative
self-talk, and the general negative effects of Slavespeak. These
negative incidents constitute dinging. I suspect that some people
allow themselves to be gradually "dragged down" by dinging in
a cumulative manner...
"Dedinging" is a procedure whereby, every day, we recover from
all that day's dinging incidents... I suspect it's one of the greatest
"increasers of personal power."
...A great deal of dinging can occur on Internet mailing lists and
forums. Suppose you're a subscriber of "List X." You consider
most of the other subscribers to be educated and intelligent.
Some of the long-time subscribers form a kind of "insider clan"
or "in-group." You're not part of the in-group. You post something
you think important and of interest to the list. Your post is ignored
or ridiculed. Some members of the in-group seem to take turns
to come up with "clever" ways to ding you. For example, you could
post a message about this report. The only responses you get
are snide or sarcastic comments, while the essence of your post
is ignored. The list may have a "dinging culture" with a significant
portion of the posts including some dinging -- or a great deal of
dinging.
On the back cover of 'Metaphors We Live By' by George Lakoff and
Mark Johnson: Take the conceptual metaphor ARGUMENT IS WAR.
We say: "He attacked every weak point in my argument:; "Your
claims are indefensible"; "I demolished his argument." But as the
authors write, "It is important that to see that we don't just talk about
arguments in terms of war. We can actually win or lose arguments.
We see the person we are arguing with as an opponent. We attack
his positions and we defend our own... It is in this sense that the
ARGUMENT IS WAR metaphor is one we live by in this culture; it
structures the actions we perform in arguing."
*** End of extracts
Maybe if we extropians become more mutually supportive and
gradually reduce our dinging, we'll become much more effective
at spreading our philosophy and ideas.
The complete report is at <http://www.buildfreedom.com/tl/tl12a.shtml>.
Frederick Mann
At 01:54 PM 07/10/2001 -0700, "E. Shaun Russell" <e_shaun@extropy.org> wrote:
>You wrote:
>
>>I hadn't realized I would cause so much trouble and I
>>apologize, sincerely and profusely. I will do as asked
>>and leave. I am, again, very sorry and hope I haven't
>>hurt or offended anyone. I am sorry to go, and have
>>enjoyed the intelligent and witty people you all are.
>>I am sure there is a list out there for me.
>
>Congratulations to those of you who just chased another person off of the
>extropians list. Perhaps, if you're lucky, we'll wind up with only a few
>dozen with exact same ideas on everything. That would be wonderful,
>wouldn't it?
>
>Frankly, I'm tired of seeing this happen. True, it isn't often as
>explicit as this case, but I have been privy to seeing plenty of
>unsubscriptions after unnecessary verbal attacks. And why is it...just
>because someone has a few disagreements with one aspect of your worldview?
>
>Personally, I have an opinion on virtually every thread on this list, but
>I try not to share those opinions unless I feel they add something to the
>discussion as a whole --usually they do not. Unfortunately, I don't have
>a lot of workable ideas on changing the format of this list, or solutions
>to out and out rudeness. I will mention, like many before me however,
>that I find such behavior juvenile, unwarranted and disgusting, and most
>of all, unnecessary. This isn't the kind of behavior that will win us
>credibility on a public scale. Please keep that in mind before you start
>posting vehemence.
>
>
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