These are old questions. But I have never heard satisfactory
answers to them. At this point I would even be happy with some
discomforting answers. JAY.
Addendum.
Just read a later posting by Judy Diamondstone in this thread,
which offers at least a middle ground between a notion of
civility that is mono-affective (i.e. hyper-rational) and so
false to lived experience and the full communicative and
experiential repertory available to (and presumably useful for)
us social humans, on the one hand, and my darker musing about
force and violence in the community on the other.
Judy offers us, as in a way Angel did, too, a revalorization of
the other emotional stances in interaction (i.e. other than cool,
calm, objectifying, somewhat uninvolved -- or passionate for
itself -- ... rationality). Let _all_ the emotional stances in as
valid and useful participations in the work of making the
community work. Including especially those that have been tabooed
out (anger, hate, grief, fear, ...). It would be very interesting
to think more about which stances have been accepted, which
rejected, and what the consequences/function may have been.
------------
JAY LEMKE.
City University of New York.
BITNET: JLLBC who-is-at CUNYVM
INTERNET: JLLBC who-is-at CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU