There are two kinds of Kossacks:
1. Those… who divide Kossacks into two kinds,
and
2. Those… who don’t.
What are the implications of this variation on the old joke about
‘two kinds of people in the world’?
If we thought that the world was divided into two kinds of people, who were either:
• worthy and unworthy,
• educable and uneducable, or
• voters and non-voters,
… then would we be Kossacks, activists or Democrats?
So let’s apply this paradigm to more difficult questions, below the jump.
For example:
Is any one of us certain that we ourselves are 100% one or the other of:
• idealist or lesser-evilist?
• coalition-builder or line-drawer?
• conciliator or polemicist?
• patient or impatient?
• flexible or stubborn?
• moody or even-tempered?
• communitarian or libertarian?
• patriotic or internationalist?
• nuanced or crude?
• polite or rough?
• thick or thin skinned?
• observer of, or aspirer to observe, the ‘Golden Rule’?
• self-made or made by nature or nurture?
• racist or non-racist?
• sexist or non-sexist?
Taking this one step further,
if we straddle many of these categories by choice, and
if we straddle others because we are only human and lifelong works-in-progress, then
Why should we respond so emotionally (that a deep breath cannot calm our riposte) to an accusation of being, for example:
• racist or sexist? (Aren’t we all, in one way or another?)
• excessively idealist or lesser-evilist? (Aren’t we all, at one time or another?
• purity or concern troll? (Isn’t this “in the eye of the beholder"?)
…especially when the accusation
• is often from an anonymous username,
• could possibly be from a poster whose main purpose is to distract us from accomplishing our posting goals, and
• remains posted for third parties, slowly and calmly, to observe its fairness and persuasiveness, and to judge the poster more persuasively than you can in your role as target of the accusation.
Communicating in writing
suffers from lack of facial gestures, posture and voice tone, but
can benefit from making it easier to take the time for that deep breath, to help us remember the imperfections in:
• ourselves,
• our accusers,
• our audience, and
• the media available for our communications.