From: Alex Ferguson (alex@dcs.gla.ac.uk)
Date: Wed 31 Aug 1994 - 06:12:43 EEST
Peter Metcalfe writes on (and occasionally in):
> Personal Attacks and Invective:
> ===============================
> What really irked me about Nick's posting was not that he disagreed with me but
> chose to treat my posting in a dismissive matter. When I pressed him for a
> clarification, he disliked my work because I do not follow his preconcieved
> notions of how myths should be interpreted rather then offer any constructive
> criticsm or alternative opinion like Pam Carlson does in X 5903.
Neatly ducking the issue of whether Peter or Nick is being the more obnoxious, either to each other or in general, I feel pressed to point out that Nick's certainly not the only one with preconceived, or at least fixed, ideas about myths. Without going into the details of Peter's case, it's based on the premise that you can establish "Object Identity" between two gods, in some meaningful, and objective sense. This is what Nick is (I think, prinicipally) objecting to as "God Learnerism", though to some extent, all Gloranthans do this. ("Ah, your sun god must be our Emperor. Sorry, I have to kill you now.")
What to do, what to do. Well, save the overtly overt flamage for email, one and all. And more generally, perhaps it would help forestall future backdrafts if we were to acknowledge our assumptions somewhat more explicitly, so our posts look less like flat assertion. Helpful hints: "From a point of view internal to Lunar/Pelandan/other mythology, I think that..."; "From an objective/God Learner/other stance, it seems to me that..." Currently, your respective assumptions seem sufficiently different that I'm not sure you're even debating the same thing in any real sense.
> in which case Sandy should hand over the crown of most obnoxious pendant.
I must (pedantically) note that he already has, to me. (I think he added a rider that Joerg was the next challenger, so I may not be the title-holder for long.)
> I know more when I read the Entekosiad.
Don't hold your breath: was classed as "No plans to publish in the forseeable future", last I heard. (Boo, hiss.) I'm not sure whether to praise Nick for his selective leaks, or vilify him as a Big Tease. (Clue in the subject line, though.)
Alex.
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