Theos-Talk Archives (January 2005 Message tt00298)

Hello John,

That is an interesting and bizarre experience you had with that mensa 
member. It sounds like she was attempting to control the rhetoric by 
assuming a position of final authority of its sense. If I were present, 
I would have refused to debate her interpretation and instead confront 
her by asking her why she has such deeply seated control issues where 
she needed to do that. Most likely, she would have responded with 
denials. But, by my simple confrontation, I would have made my point 
anyway, whether she was willing to hear it or not. Perhaps your 
advisory had some kind of perverted interpretation of postmodernism, or 
was trying to pervert this approach to her advantage. In reality, a 
postmodern approach creates a level playing field. While she has every 
right to interpret what you say in any way she pleases, she does not 
have the right to force her interpretation upon you or anyone else. 
And, of course, you also have every right to your own views. My point 
is that there is no authority and no hierarchy outside of one's 
acceptance of these ideas. 
--j 

john, webmaster, www.GodLovesEveryone.org wrote:

> << Even when the writer is satisfied that the sentence or paragraph 
> carries its intended meaning, that is no guarantee that the sentence 
> will not have a very different meaning to the reader. >>
>
> This statement reminds me of why I dropped out of participation in a 
> particular Mensa discussion list years ago. (Yes, I used to be a member, 
> am no longer, no activities in rural Arkansas.)
>
> In this particular group was a lady who insisted an telling us exactly 
> what we meant by our words. It did us NO GOOD to tell her what we meant 
> by those words. She knew, 100%, what we meant, even when we didn't mean 
> it (and even if everyone else in that group understood our meaning).
>
> It just got so frustrating to get into arguments based on her knowing 
> she was 100% right. She was the type of person who even KNEW that it was 
> wrong to shout, even one word. She had learned, years ago, that if you 
> wanted to emphasize one word, that you were to do it with extra 
> characters. She would *emphasize* a word like that, and insisted that 
> was the *only* way to do it. But as you can see with my prior sentences, 
> paragraphs, I prefer to EMPHASIZE a word by capitalizing it. She called 
> that shouting. It did us no good to point out that "Netiquette" 
> tutorials defined shouting as capitalizing entire sentences or entire 
> messages. She knew she was right.
>
> Anyway, mhy point is that there will ALWAYS be people who will interpret 
> someone's words the wrong way, and KNOW that they are right, even if 
> everyone else has a different point of view.