[ExI] Avoiding Coarseness in our Dialogs

[Randall Randall]

On May 3, 2007, at 11:16 AM, Lee Corbin wrote:
> John Clark wrote
>> Ask him. I'm the one who first brought up that point but I never  
>> got a
>> coherent response from him over it.
>>
>>> Who, besides you, gives a ---- about your subjective experience?
>>
>> Nobody, but you care about your subjective experience and want it to
>> continue, that's why you jump out of the way when a car is coming  
>> toward
>> you. And I believe the missing word is "fuck".
>
> I am starting to be more and more affected by what I am reading
> lately about history and sociology (e.g. Fukuyama's "Trust", essays
> on "social capital"), and even what John C. Wright had to say and
> the way he said it.
>
> Why are we allowing the level of our discourse to continue to  
> degenerate?
> All for the sake of our not-so-new idol "plain talk", that came in  
> in the
> 1950's?  Can it really be true that there are no deleterious  
> consequences?

How one writes is, in part, a measure of the level of respect
one has for readers.  It's often quite clear from one's
writing how one views the reader, but I think it used to be
more common for familiarity to be interpreted as contempt.

> Isn't the logical end to such a progression "rap"?

Well, as entertainment, rap can be great. :)  It's just not
usually best for persuasion.

--
Randall Randall <randall at randallsquared.com>
"Is it asking too much to be given time [...]
  I'll watch the stars go out." -- Dubstar, Stars