As a ten-year immigrant in US, I have been many times John's, Naoki's,
Luiz's, and Yrio's shoes and here is what I've learned so far.
1) I called what happened as "a misunderstanding with adversarial spin-off."
2) There is no way to avoid them.
3) There is nobody's fault.
4) There is better way to handle it is better than it has been handle.
5) There is no other lesson or moral can be learned from that except this
lesson.
John asks,
> Please, be so kind as to inform me of the etiquette I breached when I
> remarked on the advent of (admittedly, only US) Memorial Day.
There is a break of etiquette in my view. But indeed a misunderstanding
with a potential adversarial spin-off was running through your posting (not
your fault -- it was a transpersonal process and event). Let try to give
you sense of how misunderstanding emerges.
Imagine that you are getting though a public form the following message from
a person unknown to you. It starts with a quote from your message, then it
goes through what you may say misinterpretation of your message (which is OK
with you -- not the first time), you also disagree with the points the
message makes. By it suddenly ends with the sentence, "By the way, beware
of white rabbits, although they are cowards, they DO run fast!"
I guess you may start thinking that either the author is completely crazy or
tries to offense you. The sentence has some peculiar "language game" (e.g.,
beware, rabbit, cowards, DO, fast) and has moralistic, command psychological
syntax (i.e., by the way, beware, although, DO).
Let me show that without knowing what is Memorial Day is about in US (I've
learned myself about Memorial Day only on third year staying in the US) this
is how the ending of your message can be read, "Enjoy Memorial Day--but DO
remember, please!".
Language game: I try to construct my perception of reading John's message
without knowing about Memorial Day. It sounds something like like that,
"Enjoy Death, but be serious."
Psychological syntax of the message: "Enjoy... but DO" In my view, this is
syntax of command and didactic (consider a possible reply, "Who are you to
tell me what and how I should do?").
All together, make the whole message offensive.
I understand Luis saying, "By the way, Naoki, you have nothing to be sorry,"
because in my view, many people may feel to be offended in Naoki's place.
However, I think Naoki's apology for reading John's message as offensive
without actual author's offensive intent is very good one. It breaks the
cycle of misunderstanding and adversary.
Another issue is that XMCA is dominantly an American forum. It is carried
on a American server, it is conducted in American English, American members
are the largest group on the list, American journals dominate many fields of
the participants, a lot of research money coming from US, US contexts
dominate XMCA, and so on. However, in my observation, XMCA forum has become
more diverse in many different dimensions (e.g., nationality, gender,
field). On one hand, I think the more diverse we are, the more
possibilities for misunderstanding. On the other hand, the more diverse we
are, the more tolerant and skillful we are in managing emerging
misunderstandings. A negative adversarial spin-off of misunderstandings is
silence in not only participants but in bystanders. It takes time to
recover. I think we learn to overcome it as soon as possible.
What do you think?
Eugene
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Eugene Matusov
Willard Hall#206G
Department of Educational Studies
University of Delaware
Newark, DE 19716
Office: 302-831-1266
Fax: 302-831-4445
email: ematusov who-is-at udel.edu
website: http://www.ematusov.com
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