When criticisms become insults --

As someone who has participated in and helped moderate numerous social
science listservs, and who founded and currently manages/edits one of
several hundred members, I just wanted to comment on the issue o
criticisms versus insults.

We are often debating life and death issues. While in one sense, many of
us are supposedly "intellectuals" in the U.S. or other wealthy
countries, many of us actually are involved with or have close ties with
people whose well-being and even lives are often in jeopardy because of
their political economic situation, fascist regimes, etc. And in any
case, all these discussions do deal with these issues that are very
important to many of us.

If one believes that another's ideas are lending support to oppression,
or are promoting tolerance to oppression, we can expect that tempers
might get got. But how to determine "who started it" is not as easy as
it looks. In the last exchange, Mine used the term "stupid" to critique
Elson. For many people, it might SEEM that Mine was the first one to go
over the line. But it should be understood that Elson's prior language,
particularly,

"With the exception of a few orthodox Marxists with blinders on,
>people will not rally around any organization that takes violence >or
>revolution, or violent revolution, as a guiding principle"

Calling someone an "orthodox Marxist with blinders on" may not seem as
nasty an insult as calling someone "stupid", but in fact it is. It just
is using softer sounding words. Furthermore, the statement that "people
will not rally around...etc." doesn't answer the question of "which
people?"   The working class and peasants of Vietnam certainly rallied
around their rebel movement that drove the various fascist regimes from
power and eventually defeated the U.S. military itself.  They had pretty
good aim, considering that they had blinders on! The "blinders" comment,
then, can be construed not only as an insult to Mine and others on the
list, but more importantly, to those who are risking their lives against
fascism. Were the partisans of World War II wearing blinders? Is the
situation in Colombia today so different from the situation in France in
1943?

The "blinders" comment does take it past a criticism of the ideas and
into the realm of the personal. That is not necessary bad. But when
someone opens the door to those types of comments, he/she should not be
surprised if someone else responds similarly. In any case, it's not so
bad to have some sharp exchanges that might "go over the line"; it's
impossible to land exactly on the line all the time. But it's important
not to see those exchanges in a one-sided way either.

Alan Spector