At 07:40 AM 24/10/2007, you wrote:
>It does seem to me that there is a basic difference
between
>discussing the death penalty (or any other topic) as
it appears in or
>relates to fiction and discussing it purely as an
issue in the real
>world. I'm not saying one's better or worse than the
other -- it's
>not -- but there are different places where each is
appropriate.
>
>If this were a mailing list about cooking, and people
used it to
>compare recipes, discuss cooking techniques, share
menus, review
>restaurants and chefs, etc., and someone started a
protracted
>diatribe about cruelty to animals, would that be
appropriate? It
>would be a perfectly reasonable topic to discuss --
but not in that
>location, since that's not the purpose of that
discussion group.
Unless I wanted to find recipes that, say, didn't involve
boiling animals to death, and others wanted to know why that
might be an issue and I said, well, the lobsters aren't crazy
for it, for one thing and even if they don't care I just
don't think it's morally right and others said, well, is
electrocuting or smashing them over the head any better and I
said it would at least be faster and others said it would
spoil the meat and so on. I accept that the topic might not
be of interest to the majority of recipe seekers, especially
those who don't care for seafood at all, but it might be
on-topic for some and I don't see why those that are
interested should be told to take their discussion elsewhere
when those who are disinterested might simply avoid the topic
of Boiling Lobster.
Also, I sometimes tolerate discussions more for where they
might lead than for the current content. In such cases,
discussion becomes boring to me when they reach the
is-so-is-not stage, as in, "The lobsters don't feel it," "do
to," "do not," which is about where our capital punishment
discussion is now, I think. But look at the stuff that has
come up at the tail end, like this one regarding cooking
techniques, and the one about fiction vs. "real" life.
Seems to me this issue is related to the success of the list.
More people, more topics, fewer people to be engaged by every
one of them. Nice problem to have. Be a shame to limit
discussion to hardboil or noir topics only a majority want to
discuss.
Hamburger, anyone? Kerry
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evil men do lives after them http://www.murderoutthere.com
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