Posted by Bartholomew (63.214.75.15) on April 28, 2002 at 10:56:01:
In Reply to: Perhaps we don't see your non verbals posted by Sharlee (203.45.206.21) on April 28, 2002 at 08:12:41:
: Bart, some feedback. Unless you are very skilled at using the written medium, it is very easy to create the wrong impression. I take your word that you are not attacking but when all you see is the written word and you make statements that something is "valueless" and telling them that it "hurts their (professional) practice", to the vast majority of people reading that, that suggests that you do not respect their opinion.
Well, I DON'T respect his opinion on this matter. If someone said that two plus two equals five, I wouldn't respect his opinion on that.
It's not an attack on him, or upon his opinion in general. It's just an attack on that one belief of his.
: It also suggests a superiority which you say in another post you do not feel.
Could you point that post out? I don't think I would have said that I don't feel superior to anyone. More likely, it was part of my criticism of 4's. I don't feel that I have superior abilities to feel grief or pain than anyone else; I consider humans (including 4's) pretty much equal on that level, and even if they're not equal, they're incomparable because we can never know exactly how strongly someone else feels something. But we CAN compare cognitive abilities, and I can objectively say that in certain ways, I am smarter than most people.
: A robust disagreement is fine but it needs to be robust on facts not on emotive words such as "valueless".
I was not using it as an "emotive word." I supported it carefully. I said first that Enneatyping public figures is not accurate. Jan agreed on that. Then I said that it reinforces stereotyping behavior instead of thoughtful consideration. If it's inaccurate and it forms bad habits, I think it's safe to call it valueless.
: You have many interesting perspectives on things to contribute to enneagram discussion. However, a possible outcome if you do not become sensitive to the effects of your subjective comments on other people may be that they will decline to dialogue with you and that will be a loss to everyone, both yourself and us. Sharlee
My comments were not unsubstantiated, as I explained. Subjective? Well, maybe they were a little. All comments are subjective to some degree, simply because we can't say anything without it being ourselves saying it. But I think that those particular comments were fairly objective, because they were substantiated.