Date: 02/02/96
Subject: re: Philosophical Debates
From: Rich
[Dick writes:]
>...I feel strongly against the use of dorm email, specifically the rinc list, in order to direct personal >attacks against one opinion. If you feel the need of an audience, try White Plaza.... PS. I always feel >that face to face discussions are much more productive.
Like Gregory, I didn't perceive these as personal attacks at all, but rather as very civilized and substantive discussion about interesting issues. White Plaza's fine, but I think the dorm e-mail list is a great place ... for these kinds of philosophical, social, political, and other discussions....
The disadvantages of f2f discussions include that only one person can talk at a time, that men tend to dominate the discussion and interrupt more than women, that members of cultural groups socialized not to participate aggressively in verbal discussion (and, simply, shy people) tend not to participate...
The potential advantages of electronic discussions include more widespread and more democratic participation; ideas being emphasized more than appearances; expression of more complex thoughts since they must be written out; and the collaborative nature of the discussion (no central authority)...
...Finally, as an RF, I think it's great that the dorm offers a safe, supportive place for people to test out, synthesize, debate, etc. their ideas and arguments, in informal writing (e-mail) as well as f2f.
Rich
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