[Bit]

Originally Posted by apocalipstic

This is a great discussion and it helps to better understand that often your posts are about you....

I personally think this point can never be emphasized enough. It's not just Arwen, although that's who Jen was answering---it's US, all of us.

Our posts are ALWAYS about us. It doesn't matter what the subject is or to whom we're speaking; every post we make is a part of us--after all, it came from our minds, right?--and reflects our experiences, our worldview, our own emotional state.

For example, if I post a long rant aimed at XYZ because they said something which really pissed me off, when YOU read it, you aren't really reading anything at all about XYZ (even if you agree with my rant, lol)---what you're reading is actually about Cath, because it came from me.

Depending on the subject of the rant, you're reading maybe the results of the way I was treated in childhood, or maybe the results of an abusive marriage, or maybe the results *yanno I rant the most about the way Butches are treated in public* of my feeling helpless/embarrassed/humiliated/ANGRY/helpless/helpless/helpless when my first partner was humiliated by women in a public restroom who very snidely and loudly pretended in front of a large crowd that they couldn't tell she was a woman because she was wrapped in a man's coat to stay warm in her wheelchair.

Does my example make sense to y'all? I might say someone is acting in a misogynistic way, or a callous way, or any other way, and I might be right----but in the end, my post is actually about how their post ties into other things which have happened to me in the past, things which I might not ever speak about but which surely influence what I say anyway.

This is a natural human trait and I think it's the main reason that we (people who post) so often take someone else's post as if it were ridicule or disrespect. I think this tendency of ours to read everything through a strong filter of our own past experiences is one of the things that leads people to react with such strong emotion to other people's posts.

And to answer Adele's question *cuz I know it's coming! * I think what we can do to change is simply to acknowledge it. If we make it a point to remember that other people's posts are all about them and what has happened in their lives, and if we remember that our responses (especially our anger) come from what happened to us in our own lives, then I think maybe we'll be more inclined to cut each other some slack.

Your Mileage May Vary on this... and that's okay. *smiling*

Also, I never feel like someone answering just one point from another person's post is a form of silencing. I agree with TD's definition of silencing.