From: Sarah Marr (skm4@dial.pipex.com)
Date: Wed Aug 12 1998 - 02:28:09 MDT
At 10:42 11/08/98 -0700, Mark wrote:
>Sarah Marr [skm4@dial.pipex.com] wrote:
>>>I have always thought that men are more attracted, and women less so,
>>>to radical ideas.
>>Oh, I don't know. Apparently there are washing-up liquids available today
>>that can be soft on one's hands as well as hard on stuck-on grease. Could
>>anything be more radical? And yet, as a woman, it's devastatingly
>>attractive to me.
>
>I have to say I'm somewhat surprised and puzzled by this kind of reaction
>to what seems like a perfectly valid and justifiable statement...
Whilst there is no doubt a good deal of 'mileage', psychological,
sociological and anthropological, in an analysis of my reply, I should
perhaps minimize the concomitant 'list noise' of such a debate by saying at
this point that my post was intended merely to reflect the facts that
generalizations always have their exceptions, and description without an
expression of accompanying curiosity as to cause can entrench societal
norms. It is not within my purview to question the validity of your
statement, since it's a statement of your 'thought' and who am I to say
what you think? As to justifiability, at one level it is entirely
justifiable, since I'm more-or-less sure that you do think as claimed. Why
would you lie? At a deeper level, whilst that which you think may itself be
justifiable, it was the lack of justification which caused me to reply: and
since subsequent posts, including your own, have looked for such
justification through a more stringent analysis, I seemed to have achieved
my purpose.
Irony, as a method of addressing issues and consciousness-raising, seems to
be more predominant in the UK than in the US, and given the demographics of
this list's members, my choice of sarcasm as a communicative style may have
been misplaced. (And yes, yes, I'm aware that I'm the one making a
generalization in this case. So I follow my own argument and say unto thee,
"Ask thyself why irony doth not appeare more greatly in the US, and if it
be a thynge which the people of America should accept unto themselves, or
if those acrosse the wide ocean should seeke to reduce their reliance
upon't." Grin.)
Sarah
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