On Thu, May 03, 2018 at 12:01:53AM +0200, Antoine Pitrou wrote:
On Wed, 2 May 2018 22:54:04 +0100 Paul Moore <p.f.moore@gmail.com> wrote:
Nor do I think the tone of his message here is acceptable - regardless of how annoyed he is, posting insults ("no-one gives a damn") about volunteer contributors in a public mailing list isn't reasonable or constructive. Call that "playing speech police" if you want, but I think that being offended or annoyed and saying so is perfectly reasonable.
Will all due respect, it's sometimes unpredictable what kind of wording Anglo-Saxons will take as an insult, as there's lot of obsequiosity there that doesn't exist in other cultures. To me, "not give a damn" reads like a familiar version of "not care about something", but apparently it can be offensive.
I'm Anglo-Saxon[1], and honestly I believe that it is thin-skinned to the point of ludicrousness to say that "no-one gives a damn" is an insult. This isn't 1939 when Clark Gable's famous line "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn" was considered shocking. Its 2018 and to not give a damn is a more forceful way of saying that people don't care, that they are indifferent. It is a truism on the internet that nobody gets to decide for anyone else what they do or don't find offensive, but I think that the respectful and kind response is to interpret Ivan's statement as a cry of anguish and pain, to read it with at least a modicum of sympathy, rather than to read it as an insult and offensive accusation of indifference. (And why should being accused of indifference be offensive? The world is full of things I have neither the time nor inclination to give a damn about. I deny that I ought to feel guilty or ashamed by that fact.) I think Guido's response was great: acknowledge Ivan's pain (apparently he lost a job or some income) without attacking him, neither dismissing Ivan's feelings nor validating them as a tactic for getting his way. Thank you Guido for leading by example. With respect to Paul, I literally cannot imagine why he thinks that *anyone*, not even the tkinter maintainers or developers themselves, ought to feel *offended* by Ivan's words. But I think a clue might be his subsequent use of the word *annoyed*. Is it annoying to be told that "no-one cares" when in fact you care? Of course it can be. It is a perfectly reasonable to feel annoyed. But it isn't reasonable to lash out at every little annoyance. All interpersonal interactions can involve annoyances. And none of us are purely on the receiving end, we all also cause them. None of us are so perfect that we can afford to lash out each time somebody causes some tiny little annoyance. We ought to gloss over the little ones, just as we hope others will swallow *their* annoyance at the things we do. If we're going to be open, respectful and considerate, we have a duty not to have a hair-trigger "I'm offended" response at tiny annoyances. "That's offensive!", in this day and age, is the nuclear weapon of interpersonal conflict, and nothing Ivan said was so terrible that it deserved such an attack. Not if we are to be open, considerate and respectful. We ought to start by respecting the clear emotional pain in his email and not responding by going on the attack. "A soft answer turns away wrath". [1] By culture, not genetics. -- Steve