RE: MEMES: Pigeon-holing your opponent

From: Barbara Lamar (altamiratexas@earthlink.net)
Date: Fri Jan 26 2001 - 10:36:45 MST


At 01:53 PM 01/25/2001, Denis Bider wrote:
>Barbara Lamar writes:
>
> > When you must disagree with someone, he says, preface your
> > statement with: "Nine times outta ten I'd agree with you.
> > And, really, I agree with you now. But there's just one
> > thing..."

>This is a good idea. There is a slight problem though - such introductions
>have to be meant

That's true. Otherwise it's nothing more than hypocrisy. This is the
problem I was having in discussing child rearing with Chris Russo. Our
ideas seemed to be so far apart that I couldn't find any common ground.

And yet there actually were some areas of common ground with me and Chris:
we both love our kids and want the best for them; we both believe in
letting the kids do things for themselves to the limits of what they're
able to handle; we both believe that immunization is good; we both believe
in early breast feeding; we both believe it's more pleasant to be around
polite, well behaved children than kids who run around yelling and breaking
things. I could probably find more common ground if I went back through the
posts and searched, but I don't know if it would have helped in this case.
Child rearing is such an emotional subject among people who have children,
and my ideas are somewhat radical in the context of our culture.

  It was a challenge I wish I'd tried harder to meet. Even in retrospect,
though, I can't think of a more tactful but still honest way I could have
responded. Maybe by focusing on the libertarian ideal that one human
should not initiate force against another? That may have been another bit
of common ground.

Barbara



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