The spirit I am up against

[fpb]

http://fpb.livejournal.com/308946.html?replyto=2370258
You will notice that this person is shocked that someone does not agree with her politics and doubly shocked that a Catholic calls a non-Catholic a "heretic". Such a sheltered life she must have had.

PS: you have all the space you want to whine about me in your LJ or in fandom_wank and the like, but you are not from now on welcome to waste my space to do so. The warning is on record, and your charges against me are so wrong as to be in bad faith. End of story.

Comments

[fpb.livejournal.com]

It's not. If it had not been this, it would have been something else. As she said, she had already defriended me; and as I told her, I had warned her when she originally asked if she could friend me, that this blog is not called "reflections of a stormy petrel" for no reason. I think she has a higher idea of her tolerance for argument than the facts warrant. And it is not the first time this sort of thing happens. There is ABSOLUTELY no need for you to blame yourself.

(I know that some of her friends are on my f-list as well, and the one thing I hope is that the trouble does not spread.)

[dustthouart.livejournal.com]

fpb, I really think you need to let this issue go for a while. It is becoming a constant rehash of the same arguments on both sides, and I think it's not doing your temper any good at all. This is clearly an issue that is very emotional for you. You are putting up a big sign that says "This is my button, please push it to make me angry."

Your habit of posting new entries with regards to comments elsewhere also gets you into trouble, I think. It just feels very "name and shame" to me. For one thing, I don't think it's very charitable. In how it affects you, I also think it does you harm, both in making you look petty, and in pointing people straight to trouble. Dwelling on it is not helping. Remember St. Paul's advice to the Philippians: "Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever modest, whatsoever just, whatsoever holy, whatsoever lovely, whatsoever of good fame, if there be any virtue, if any praise of discipline, think on these things."

Just some friendly advice. *hugs*

[fpb.livejournal.com]

You have a point. On the other hand, since I can certainly count on this person's enmity from now on, I might as well make my part of it public.

[dustthouart.livejournal.com]

But can you always "count" on a person's enmity, or should you? I don't mean this person in particular. Even when you have a falling out with someone, is it not better to hope that things can someday be put right? Making these sorts of posts seems to be a kind of "We are officially enemies" statement, which definitely puts constructive discussion at an end, and perhaps even encourages outright hostility.

You replied to carlanime that you hoped the trouble will not spread. Doesn't this sort of post inspire trouble? Won't people who have you both friended feel uncomfortable?

[fpb.livejournal.com]

She said that she had defriended me long ago. Her post was as unfriendly as it is possible to be without actually pulling a gun on someone. I very much doubt that any rapprochement is possible in the next twenty years or so.

[dustthouart.livejournal.com]

Just to be clear, this is something I have been thinking about mentioning to you for a little while, not something with regards to this particular person. I am speaking generally, not specifically, when I say that I think that your making of new posts regarding trouble in your comments is harmful, not least to you.

Even if there is zero chance of reconciliation with this particular person, is it not better to be magnanimous and not call attention to her faults as you see them?

Now I have said my piece.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I started commenting on people's attacks on me because these things always end up - at least, any time there is a chance to make me look bad - in f_w or the like, where they are read by people who know nothing about me except what they read there. Then they become ortodoxy. I wanted my point of view to be on record, because if I do not record it, no-one else will, and, as long as wankers wank, the opposition viewpoint will go by default.

[redcoast.livejournal.com]

Seriously, you could go friends-only if you wanted to avoid Fandom_Wank.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

But if I do, how do I allow people I don't already know to read my work?

[redcoast.livejournal.com]

Perhaps you could just lock the sorts of things that cause arguments. Wank fodder, I call it, though the metaphor makes no sense.

It does make sense....

[fpb.livejournal.com]

...if you agree that the activity carried out in places like f_w is essentially cannibalistic. In that case, to extend the concept to say that wank is something greedy and that demands to be fed is quite meaningful.

I don't think I will. I have already compromised my beliefs enough by closing my LJ to anonymous commments.

[redcoast.livejournal.com]

I'm an atheist Lutheran. What sort of heresy is that?

[fpb.livejournal.com]

TWofold. But not unheard of.

[redcoast.livejournal.com]

Aww. I was hoping for a cool name, like Gnosticism or Antinomianismism.

[rfachir.livejournal.com]

I'd call it Antinomianismism for you if I could pronounce it in the first place. (But only because I think your comments are first rate and I trust you not to make me look foolish.)

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Well, both Lutheranism and agnosticism have decided antinomian tinges. One would imagine that a person who claimed both would be quite aggressively antinomian. However, redcoast herself is anything but. Perhaps she has just picked up all the rest and left the antinomianism behind.

[headnoises.livejournal.com]

*snort* I do always find it strangely amusing when folks get upset about religious groups with the guts to NOT meal-mouth the differences.

Kind of like my Protestant cousins who go pale at the mention of some Church policy, and say "THAT is not in the Bible!"

...

Ah well.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

My impression is that she does not even know what "heretic" really means, any more than what being Jewish (which is what she is, ethnically speaking) implies. She just found the word "hebraizing" used in a negative connotation, and blew up. All the more reason to improve school teaching, wouldn't you say?

[headnoises.livejournal.com]

I'd suggest the niggardly time spent towards such an effort needs to be increased, indeed. ;^p