Cohousing-L Mailing List: sticks & stones - name calling

[Fred H Olson (fholson]

From: "Laura Fitch, A.I.A." <lfitch [at] krausfitch.com>
is the author of the message below. 
It was posted by Fred the Cohousing-L list manager <fholson [at] cohousing.org> 
because the message included HTML ;      PLEASE do not post HTML, see
   http://csf.colorado.edu/cohousing/2001/msg01672.html
--------------------  FORWARDED MESSAGE FOLLOWS --------------------

What is with all this name calling (see below and following responses 
under the kids in meeting discussion)?  I have never seen it on this 
list before and I find it very distressing.  Our community asks folks in 
high emotional state to try rephrasing statements like the ones below in 
"I statements">  For example I feel annoyed (angry, hurt, sad) when I 
read your words because it makes me feel that you are judging me as a 
parent, and I would like you to try...

If  this man's discussion line is "a waste of (our) time" I would 
suggest just deleting it rather than responding.  It must have taken 
some time to say what I feel are very hurtful words in response.  Is he 
wasting (our) time, or are (we) choosing to waste (our) own?

I think it is too easy to respond with haste in e-mail form;  I have 
made this mistake more often than I care to admit.  I suggest that we 
try to think we are in a big consensus circle and that we are talking to 
our neighbors rather than to a stranger across the email lines.

-- 
Laura Fitch, A.I.A.
Principal Architect

KRAUS-FITCH ARCHITECTS, INC.
110 Pulpit Hill Rd.
Amherst, MA  01002
413-549-5799
413-549-7918 (fax)

lfitch [at] krausfitch.com




>  I'm not inclined to listen to someone who just wrote a
>completely irrelevant paragraph about how perfect his child is. And I have
>more news for you, it's not because you are a perfect parent. 
>

>What does your child being a
>gourmand have to do with the price of tea in China, anyway? Supremely
>popular? Gag me with a phrase, George. Spare me your snobby verbosity.
>
>
>you are coming to the list for validation of your victimhood,
>and this time I am not so inclined to be gentle. What is it that you are
>looking for? Do you want us to say, "Gosh George, your community is so
>awful, you are perfectly right in anything you decide to do about it"? This
>is a matter for your conflict resolution committee, or some such internal
>group. We haven't the tools to mediate disputes on this list, or to figure
>out why you want to keep posting manipulative treatises on how bad Songaia
>is. It is hurtful to them and boring to me.
>
>Stop wasting our time.
>





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