I thought (here via metafandom) that bearing in mind the discussion was being framed in terms of nice vs mean, that people were asserting the benefits of being mean when they did mean honest (but that term had been denied them).
People who espouse the need to be nice can do so in a hypocritical manner that means being nice to your face and bitchy behind your back and against that 'mean' does have some moral advantage. I would rather know where I stood with someone than have our interactions being conducted in a false and hypocritical manner.
I've seen many a promising conversation peter out in a yahoo group because others, not involved, jump in from the sidelines saying that One person is being Mean and Hurting the Others feelings. If you can't say anything nice, say nothing at all is a phrase that, to me, leads to a stultifying and bland world in which no one says anything more controversial than "nice weather we're having here".
And someone is bound to manage to start wank about that.
Given the choice of being courteous or rude, I'd prefer courtesy but then we move on to another discussion about what is courteous because people's preferences on that vary hugely as well.
People who espouse the need to be nice can do so in a hypocritical manner that means being nice to your face and bitchy behind your back
This is most certainly true. I have not, however, seen any of the people who publicly espouse either niceness or kindness do so. The kind of people who I have personally seen behaving like that are exactly the ones who seem to take a certain pleasure in petty, spiteful behavior (that is, in being mean according to comon definition) all the time.
And so we're back to my point that everyone who is involved needs to define their terms. If anyone suggests that "nice" means "viciously misrepresenting oneself" then that person needs to be called on their attempt to shelter bad behavior behind a socially acceptable word. Similarly, though, embracing the word "mean" when what one really means is "honest" (and leaving aside, for now, the question of whether honesty in that situation was/is expressed courteously or meanly) is not doing the people who favor integrity and genuineness any good in the eyes of the community at large--who may well be going by common definitions and be deeply confused as to what's good about being mean.
*grins* And certainly, I agree there should be different standards for debate than for, say, commenting on art. That's why I favor courtesy, rather than a blanket policy of either niceness or kindness, myself.
I do think it's worth pointing out to everyone that the definition of "honest" includes "equitable and fair". That, I would say, is where honesty meets courtesy, and might give all of us a place to start.
Ah, the original post (http://www.livejournal.com/users/campfollower/947.html) that I saw on the topic, does make reference to nice girls confining their snarkiness to private places, which does carry a certain inference of a lack of honesty.
And I have seen some of the people commenting on the posts supporting the need for LJ to be a nicer / more polite place, and thought that they have been on occasion quite rude to and about others so I'm not entirely convinced of their bona fides.
Perhaps they are all going to turn over a new leaf and I am being overly cynical.
I also think, after several years on LJ, that there are some people for whom any disagreement from their opinion / tastes / views is threatening, no matter how courteously that dissent is phrased. The mere lack of agreement is enough to threaten their sense of themselves and their place in the world.
When I first started on LJ I thought of it as more of a diary as so few people were reading. Now, with a larger flist, I have to be more courteous not just to my flist but with an awareness of the flist of my flist.
*wry* I hear you on that one. Even when you sprinkle "personal opinion" and "private individual" all though a post, some people just can't deal with any gray shade between word/amen/etc. and 'you worthless idiot with no right to live'. Then, too, private versus public is a very strange thing on LJ.
*thoughtful* Though it might actually be one of the core issues in this whole ball of yarn. I do think there's merit in the idea that private behavior should have different standards for courtesy and... well, advisability, than public behavior. So I'm not in complete disagreement with the notion of keeping one's snarking private, nor do I think that automatically equates to backstabbing dishonesty. But when one never knows just how many people read a public personal journal, or who might be browsing their friends-friends list and find it, or who might have been unwisely included in, say, a private rant filter... then the question of what is private becomes pretty darn pointed.
*makes face* What I'd reall love to see is everyone exercising a little more basic judgement. As opposed to judgementalism. I expect I'm doomed to disappointment, but every sane, reasonable conversation makes me hope again. So thank you. ^_-
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
branchandroot) wrote2006-01-07 02:43 pm
no subject
People who espouse the need to be nice can do so in a hypocritical manner that means being nice to your face and bitchy behind your back and against that 'mean' does have some moral advantage. I would rather know where I stood with someone than have our interactions being conducted in a false and hypocritical manner.
I've seen many a promising conversation peter out in a yahoo group because others, not involved, jump in from the sidelines saying that One person is being Mean and Hurting the Others feelings. If you can't say anything nice, say nothing at all is a phrase that, to me, leads to a stultifying and bland world in which no one says anything more controversial than "nice weather we're having here".
And someone is bound to manage to start wank about that.
Given the choice of being courteous or rude, I'd prefer courtesy but then we move on to another discussion about what is courteous because people's preferences on that vary hugely as well.
no subject
This is most certainly true. I have not, however, seen any of the people who publicly espouse either niceness or kindness do so. The kind of people who I have personally seen behaving like that are exactly the ones who seem to take a certain pleasure in petty, spiteful behavior (that is, in being mean according to comon definition) all the time.
And so we're back to my point that everyone who is involved needs to define their terms. If anyone suggests that "nice" means "viciously misrepresenting oneself" then that person needs to be called on their attempt to shelter bad behavior behind a socially acceptable word. Similarly, though, embracing the word "mean" when what one really means is "honest" (and leaving aside, for now, the question of whether honesty in that situation was/is expressed courteously or meanly) is not doing the people who favor integrity and genuineness any good in the eyes of the community at large--who may well be going by common definitions and be deeply confused as to what's good about being mean.
*grins* And certainly, I agree there should be different standards for debate than for, say, commenting on art. That's why I favor courtesy, rather than a blanket policy of either niceness or kindness, myself.
I do think it's worth pointing out to everyone that the definition of "honest" includes "equitable and fair". That, I would say, is where honesty meets courtesy, and might give all of us a place to start.
no subject
And I have seen some of the people commenting on the posts supporting the need for LJ to be a nicer / more polite place, and thought that they have been on occasion quite rude to and about others so I'm not entirely convinced of their bona fides.
Perhaps they are all going to turn over a new leaf and I am being overly cynical.
I also think, after several years on LJ, that there are some people for whom any disagreement from their opinion / tastes / views is threatening, no matter how courteously that dissent is phrased. The mere lack of agreement is enough to threaten their sense of themselves and their place in the world.
When I first started on LJ I thought of it as more of a diary as so few people were reading. Now, with a larger flist, I have to be more courteous not just to my flist but with an awareness of the flist of my flist.
no subject
*thoughtful* Though it might actually be one of the core issues in this whole ball of yarn. I do think there's merit in the idea that private behavior should have different standards for courtesy and... well, advisability, than public behavior. So I'm not in complete disagreement with the notion of keeping one's snarking private, nor do I think that automatically equates to backstabbing dishonesty. But when one never knows just how many people read a public personal journal, or who might be browsing their friends-friends list and find it, or who might have been unwisely included in, say, a private rant filter... then the question of what is private becomes pretty darn pointed.
*makes face* What I'd reall love to see is everyone exercising a little more basic judgement. As opposed to judgementalism. I expect I'm doomed to disappointment, but every sane, reasonable conversation makes me hope again. So thank you. ^_-
no subject