Theos-Talk Archives (December 2002 Message tt00095)

Happy New Year,

Some reflections on theos-talk and its implications as I await the arrival of my holiday guests (an old friend from my TS branch and her husband.)

There is an intricate relationship between disrespect and disagreement. Just in terms of the folks here, there are those with whom I've always (or almost) been on terms of mutual respect, e.g. Bart, Bill, BAG. Any disagreement can be negotiated without any disrespect entering into the dialogue. Then there are those where some tensions of misunderstanding have occurred but the overall communication patterns have been mutually respectful, e.g. Steve and Eldon. Then there are those who have communicated a fairly strong message of disrespect, "your disagreement with me is symptomatic of something deeply flawed about you," e.g. Adelasie and Terrie, but where the message was mixed enough to motivate me to try to respond constructively. That is to disagree but show respect, and de-escalate the mutual disrespect engendered by disagreement. With good will on both sides this seems to have worked.

Then there are some folks with whom I've repeatedly tried showing respect in response to disrespect, and all it does is attract more disrespect, so I've given up. And finally there are those who are so deeply and irretrievably disrespectful (e.g. Frank, Dallas) that there has never been the slightest hope of a mutually respectful exchange.

My "real life" environment is one of steady high levels of respect. Lotsa pleasant interaction, little conflict. But also no opportunities to discuss the esoteric topics of my private interests. And it seems that the cost of finding online opportunities to discuss these topics, and debate them, and disagree about them, is getting big doses of disrespect.

Why is this the case? Presumably it has to do with the Gurdjieffian notion of identification. Disagreement will be perceived as, and reacted to as, disrespect to the precise degree that someone is personally identified with the subject of disagreement. My disagreement as to the character or writings of Baha'u'llah, or HPB, or Cayce, will evoke disrespectful reactions in direct proportion to how much the other person is identified with those authority figures.

Observing my own mechanical reactions in online fora reveals an unexpected (semi conscious) form of identification. People can say awful nasty things about "all Americans" or "all men" or 'all Scorpios" or "all librarians" and there is barely a blip in my reaction. And of course, no stress reaction to "all Theosophists" or "all ARE members." But every time I have encountered someone expressing vigorous disrespect for "all Southerners"-- the machine's heart races, muscles tighten, stress hormones flow like Niagara. So, Tony, Dallas, Frank, et al... if you *really* want to smack me down, try "you only think that about HPB because you're an ignorant redneck from a long line of ignorant rednecks."

Respectfully,

Paul