Reply #126: I hear you

[salin]

and have watched this dynamic grow (always has been here since I showed up - but not quite so prevalent as it has been since the primaries). Periodically some discourse can happen - but it takes work. The nice thing - is that a few places on this very thread there are little mini evidences of discourse - so it can happen... but we allow ourselves to get sucked into cycles of dividing along some line in the sand ... and its sorts wierd... one side or the other (often alternating as we tend to get "rabbit threads" where a gazillion spin off threads will grow when we get into this cycle) will get a bit hyperbolic - and two discussions will follow -

1) the echo chamber around the hyperbolic statement (in this example - I don't think the criticism of Obama was the lightening rod as much as the then leaping to the comparison of Obamma to Zell Miller)

2) a tit for tat response around a dividing line that gets drawn that goes into the "you are crazy" (with other obligatory statements like the ones to which you refer... "Grow a skin... politics is a contact sport, etc.")... which gets flowing a defensive... no YOU are crazy (or you are a sell out, etc. etc.)

Lost is the discussions about our collective frustration levels that lead to the hyperbolic statements in the first place... or any other discourse around the issue.

Then five more response threads will start... from both directions... following the same unproductive pattern.

Then everynow and again salin will pipe up and try to help us get back to discourse... followed (if I stay at it long enough) with inevitable calls of salin being a jackbooted netnanny (hasn't happened today - but just reflecting how well I know this sad dynamic - by projecting the next phase that would suck me in...) ;-)

Thanks for responding Kanary - I recognize and empathize with your frustration. Sadly, as you suggest, the dynamics themselves really have a poisonous effect not just on the nature of the discourse on various topics... but also on we who participate - as we get conditioned to participate in a way that is at least functional during the dysfunctional dynamics when the rev up and kick in. *sigh*

Wish I could figure out other ways to try to squeeze discoursive lemonade out of threads that get sucked into the crazy tit for tat mentality... Am open to ideas.