Re: On debian lists, we cc if asked
On Sun, Aug 15, 2004 at 10:45:42AM +0100, MJ Ray wrote:
>
> Why is pointing something out automatically "patronizing" to this
> list? debian-women is the most rude and hostile list I've encountered
> for years.
It's the tone. Probably the same thing that made you infer from my
reply (and other posts, maybe) that debian-women is rude and hostile.
For us human beings, communication is more than just getting the
factual content across. A rather well-known model to describe human
communication has been developed by the psychologist F. Schulz von Thun.
He has written a couple of books on that subject which are a worthwhile
(and entertaining) read -- but I'm not sure whether there are english
translations available. Googling might turn up something...
If not, the basic idea is that there are several communication channels
or modes when we say something, i.e. factual, command, relationship and
self-revelation. The following example is taken from one of his books:
A woman and her husband are going by car. She's driving. Soon, they
have to stop at a red light. When it switches to green, the woman does
not recognize it at once.
The man says:
(factual content) "The lights are green".
implicitly also sending the messages:
(command) "Go!"
(relationship) "You're a bad driver, and therefore you get on
my nerves."
(self-revelation) "I'm a better driver than you are. I always see
at once, when the light switches."
The woman now also has four different possibilities to understand the
message, depending on the ear, she's listening on... So, there are a
variety of ways to understand or misunderstand each other :)
It sometimes helps to be aware of the latter more subtle communication
channels (except if one deliberately wants to troll and start a
flamewar -- I'm not accusing you of doing this, BTW ;)
Have a nice day,
Almut
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