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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: epicure who wrote (65428)	11/3/2002 10:06:20 AM
From: Solon	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 82486

"While my waiter is not irrelevant as a person (no people are, imo) he is irrelevant for the most part to my life" So? "the identity of the author of something is not important to me" So? "I don't care about the author behind a work" So? "Is it the interactive aspect of SI that makes the authors of the posts so important to you?" You said yourself that people were not irrelevant, so I don't understand why you think that others could view them as such. Clearly, they are entirely relevant to the words which you find so important, because...without them...no words (SURPRISE!). People may also be important for other things such as cashing cheques, sharing meals, skating with, conversing with, defending you in court, or kissing. Can you imagine little children being taught by words streaming out of a blackboard? No teacher there to affirm their existence, to personalise their experience? "What really interests me are the words" What really interests me is the people behind words. I cannot interact with words. I am not a letter of the alphabet. It just would not be the same if the elephant man had screamed: "I AM A WOOOOOORDDDDD"!

To: epicure who wrote (65428)	11/4/2002 10:43:18 AM
From: The Philosopher	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

I've always said that, long before the CH thing. I don't care about the author behind a work, whether it is a post, or a book, or a newspaper article. What really interests me are the words. Do you feel the authors of books that you read are also relevant to your life? That's an excellent point.

To: epicure who wrote (65428)	11/4/2002 1:19:47 PM
From: one_less	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

"I don't care about the author behind a work, whether it is a post, or a book, or a newspaper article. What really interests me are the words. Do you feel the authors of books that you read are also relevant to your life? Do you feel that way about newspaper columnists? And if not, why not?" If I read a single work, I may also find the "about the author" text inside the cover of miner interest. A book is closed and one way. It has a beginning middle and end that I have only a passive ability to engage in. So I may or may not have any interest in what drove the author to write to me (the audience). It would kind of depend on the substance and level of impact the book has on me. If I were a participant in a writer's group and the author of a book were interacting with the group in a way that impacted the writing process, that would be another matter. If this were taking place in a forum where, as it sometimes happens, the author's personal life became somewhat known and of interest to me, that would add another level of concern. If I chose to take a personal interest in some of the struggles related to the author's life, then obviously I would "care;" especially if this was reflected in the published content. That is about what it would take for me. For some people it takes much less to empathise with the struggles of others. For some people much more. The persons posting as aliases or otherwise on this thread for the past couple of years qualify somewhat like participants in a writer's group. I admit that it would raise the issue for me somewhat, if we were gathering at one another's homes for pot luck dinners as we write this stuff. "I don't care about the author behind a work, whether it is a post, or a book, or a newspaper article." This fell short of explaining much about your level of concern, IMO.