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Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!umcp-cs!tove!israel
From: israel@tove.UUCP (Bruce Israel)
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: Re: Responsibility and blame
Message-ID: <302@tove.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 3-Aug-85 17:36:20 EDT
Article-I.D.: tove.302
Posted: Sat Aug  3 17:36:20 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 4-Aug-85 20:18:49 EDT
References: <882@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP> <287@tove.UUCP> <909@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP>
Reply-To: israel@tove.UUCP (Bruce israel)
Organization: U of Maryland, Laboratory for Parallel Computation, C.P., MD
Lines: 53

In article <909@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP> mmar@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP (Mitchell Marks) writes:
>Bruce Israel asks why I introduce an idea like blame into the discussion
>of the "I choose my emotions" question(s), and then blasts me severely
>for it.  Hmppph.

Sorry, didn't mean to blast you too hard.

>	Actually, I would rather maintain the responsibility/blame 
>distinction just as Bruce would.  I didn't think I was introducing it,
>I taking it as already implicit in Gypsy's original posting and some of
>the followups.

*sight* (one more time).  Yeah, that is my whole point.  You took it as
implicit because you associate responsibility with blame.  Since I
don't, blame wasn't an implicit part of Julie's posting, or of any of
the followups.  That seems to be the major problem with this
discussion; We are trying to say one thing about responsibility for
emotions, and people keep on reading their own personal biases into it
and attacking the ideas on that basis.  (Come to think of it, I think
that that might be a problem with most discussions on the net.  1/2 :-)
) We all do this; we can't help but read things according to the
meanings that we put on the words in it (Thanks to Bill for the
lecturette on Semantics).  What I try to do, and would suggest that
others try is this:  When I'm replying, I take a look at my reply and
examine it for implicit assumptions.  I then examine the original to
see if maybe he or she said that directly, or might have meant
something else beside the point that I'm attributing to them.

I've speant a lot of time phrasing my postings appropriately so that
there ware no hint of implied blame or anything like that.  I hadn't
noticed any implicit blame in any other postings from the pro-choice
camp, but I'm not as sure about that.

You know, if we could separate out these implicit linkages (like
between responsibility and blame), I think that we would mostly (but
not entirely) agree on the majority of points raised.

>	The connection between "I can choose my emotions" and blaming
>has already been explicated by Pooh, better than I could do offhand
>right now.  In brief, it seems to provide a rationale for withholding
>comfort and sympathy from someone who has ``chosen'' to have emotions
>you don't want to deal with.

True, it can provide that rationale.  But if you care for this person
(or for people in general), you won't withhold comfort and sympathy.
ANd if you don't care for people, then you won't give them sympathy
anyway unless you feel that you 'did it to them', and then you are
comforting them out of guilt.

-- 

Bruce Israel   
seismo!umcp-cs!israel (Usenet)    israel@Maryland (Arpanet)