Author: vharlow

Fighting battles, carrying on arguments was never my forte.  I spent my childhood quietly listening, because I was sure if I opened my mouth in a heated discussion I would say something wrong.  I always know when I’ve said something wrong, and tend to run it through my head for days, kicking myself.

Yet the experiences I’ve had with Fidonet and also later on the internet, in forums, and facebook, I have learned that some of the best arguments are merely questions.  Properly done, a well worded question will cause someone to think.  They tend to stop their usual platitudes or ad hominins and think.

That is my goal.  I have no desire to dictate to anyone what to think.  But, making them do that difficult task is a worthy goal.  If someone adamantly does not agree with some ethic or high purpose, just telling them they are wrong, or stupid, or whatever will have no effect that you would want.

However, a well aimed question, guided by repeating some useful fact, and asking their thoughts on that may achieve that goal.

Make them think.  Make them look at their motivations, their intentions, etc., in the light of a set of facts different from those they visualize themselves.

Well, sometimes it works.  Sometimes you lose friends.  Thinking is hard, and most folks avoid that like the plague.  But, it’s worth a try if you know they need to reevaluate.

My mom always said you do no one a favor by allowing them to believe you agree with their bad decisions.

I learned from two Echomail conferences that were quite busy, and quite contentious to think about everything I thought I knew differently.  I read the arguments back and forth in Politics and the people arguing in there were not just democrats and republicans, but libertarians and socialists as well.  They would pick apart an issue, arguing back and forth.  I was very interested because on most issues of the day I had not been following or paying attention, as I was working and raising teens.  My daughter was not interested, and spent her time on the computer chatting with folks, or writing interactively with strangers, and discovering poetry.

I, on the other hand, learned what a logical fallacy is.  I then researched and discovered how many are constantly being used in these discussions.  I noticed, too, that while one side would argue facts and history, the other invariably seemed to twist, get emotional, or use ad hominem attacks to change the subject, or withdraw.  After a while, I was even able to discover that side was the left.  Libertarians came at everything from a much more even approach, and the right was very factual, and highly accurate, pointing out where language was being used to change a meaning of what was said, injecting adjectives where they were clearly leading.  Without those adjectives or adverbs, or without the inclusion of some phony motivation, “because” statements, things read completely differently.  I could read a clearly reported description on an event and form my own impression of what occurred, rather than having the writer tell me what to think about it.

Made a big impression on me.  I realized I wanted to know facts, and make up my own mind.  It was an eye opening experience, and I wish young folks had this chance today to wake up to how they are being manipulated by language.   We might all be happier as a result.

Controv was another conference in which flame wars were a constant daily occurrence.  Flame wars were interesting.  I could read for quite a while, get all sides of a hot issue or controversy, and sit back and make up my own mind who was making or forming the more sensible arguments.  It was an education.  Today, on places like twitter, everyone is so focused on having their say, they aren’t “listening.”  And following a discussion thread is close to impossible.

Yesterday, someone blocked me, and made a thread impossible to follow, as I had no idea what was being argued anymore.  And people jump in who weren’t involved, and you get lost.  Read a response, and have no idea what they are responding to, so why bother?

A real forum is a different story.  I like forums.  Freerepublic.com has been one of my favorite hangouts forever!

When I was young, and spending hours escaping into drawing, art to me was escape.  It was crafting my own version of what I wanted to be, what I wanted to see, how I wanted to look, and what I wanted to look at.  As I grew older, and raised a family, it all changed.  What I saw wasn’t anywhere near as important as the family.  What I wanted wasn’t important.  What I wanted to see wasn’t important.  What I was interested in didn’t seem to matter one bit.

There’s something about having a family, raising kids, that expands ones vision, makes the “I” so much smaller, makes the needs and wants of others so much more important.  It’s a growth experience for the parents, much more than even for the children.  You discover not just the word, humility, but the meaning.  You internalize it, and it becomes a part of you.

To truly care for others, to aid in their growth, to bring to others all the good you can find in you actually causes you to do just that, find good in you.  Create good in you.  Makes you realize how really unimportant things like fashion, and socializing, and all the assortment of extraneous activities we think are so important when we are young.  God is good.  And His creation and all the wonders of it are so much more important than “I” and anything I wanted or desired as a youngster.

Now, I am so grateful for the birds singing in the morning when my dog takes me out for a short walk.  The breeze in the trees, the shade they provide, and their incredible beauty I couldn’t even imagine capturing with paint.  The squirrels playing and working so hard for a bit of birdseed, the foxes that still come for breakfast!

The smell of coffee brewing, bacon cooking, the feeling of the comfy socks and shoes on my old achy feet, the cat I have to shoo off the keyboard and mouse…. these are the things of life that I have now.  The wonderful guy who has always provided for me for 60 years, and what do I feed him today!

You can draw pictures….or if a reader, like I am, you can find and see all sorts of magic and beauty in the written word.  There’s nothing like a good book that is so well crafted you can smell the setting, feel the breezes blowing, hear the birds all just because a great writer can paint much better pictures than I can, but with words that capture your very essence for a few days and take you from troubles to somewhere else.  Not just for an hour of someone else’s images, but for days of your very own.  Nothing like the inside of your own eyelids!  Really.

Writing, a greater art than drawing or painting, and music, now music is the ultimate.  Takes your soul and makes it dance, or float, or it can caress and soothe, depending on instrumentation, tempo, tune, rhythm.  Ah, yes.  So much better than just a drawing.

While perusing fidonet echomail conferences, I discovered something I though was of critical importance.  One side used primarily facts, history, and logic while the other side got all emotional, used feelings for arguments, and wound up calling names and ad hominem attacks as their technique for arguing politics.  Took me a while of reading to discover even what “ad hominem” meant, and I had to do research myself to see that the logic side was actually using facts and reason.  I found myself often on a side of a discussion I had no clue I would be on.  Who knew?

And someone posted a little test so you could find out just what your political ideology really was.  Where you really stood on political issues.

I wound up being conservative, leaning libertarian.  Who knew?

I didn’t even know what a libertarian was!  So, more research!

All told, it was a real learning experience.  What I learned besides the issues, was myself.  I learned about me.  I learned I wasn’t what I always thought I was.  It was an eye opener.  An education.  Well worth the time and effort.  Exploration!  We were on the cutting edge of online interaction, and all even before the internet!  Stunning.  Loved every minute!

 

So, someone mentioned on a BBS we visited, that we could download the software and install it, and set up our own Bulletin Board System, generally referred to as a BBS.  We found their file section, wherein they actually had files to share with others.  What a find!  We were excited!  There were files there that were incomprehensible to me, but I have this disease, curiosity, that just won’t quit, and apparently there is no cure.

Only a really good book will aid escape from curiosity disease.   There is no vaccine at all.

So, we downloaded and installed a simple Opus system.  And started it up, with the name, Scorpio Rising BBS, and the Sysop was my daughter, fictionally named Jennifer Juniper.  I was her Tech Support, Proud Mama.

So, conversation began.  Messages flew back and forth from anyone who called, and wrote something.  Some folks just “yelled” for someone to chat with, and JJ was usually available to chat for a while.  I oversaw this activity long enough to know she could and would conduct herself properly.  She made friends!  A few we still have today!  On facebook….   which didn’t exist back then.

After a bit, we got invited to join the FidoNet, and did so, gladly, although I cannot recall our node address.  It was just so long ago.

And we began to receive Echomail Conferences…..or whole lists of folks discussing any number of issues in depth, arguing and often getting quite contentious.

JJ and an online friend with a flair for poetry began writing poetry together, a few lines each, and were quite interested in the insights each brought to the topic, which constantly changed.  Fun years!

An adventure!  Something most folks just had no clue about, we were doing.  It was cutting edge stuff, and we were learning tons of stuff, often from 12 year old boys who used their computers for games.