[From Rick Marken (940414.1130)]
Warning: The surgeon general has determined that the following post may be
tactless. If you are not a control system (ie. if tactless stimuli can hurt
your feelings) then don't read on.
···
------
Greg Williams (940414) --
Lately, I've only seen Rick being tactless with regard to PCTers, _not_
"potential converts."
Let me try to explain this to you again. "Tact" means saying things in a way
that does not offend the person to whom you are speaking. In order not to
offend, one must know what will offend. You have not told me what I say that
offends or has offended you (or the other people you may know to have been
offended). Assuming that I want to be tactful (which I do -- at least, I
don't want to make other people feel bad) I must know what you are
controlling for; what have I said that is offensive (a distrubance) to you?
If I don't know, there is simply no way to be tactful except by guessing.
You seem to have singled me out as the "tactless" one, and that's fine; but
you might be surprised to find that I (and I am not alone on this) happen to
find you and Dag and Ed Ford (both of whom have also commented on my
tactlessness) to be quite tactless yourselves on occasion. I bet that you
will not consider my perception of your tactlessness to be as legitmate as
your perception of mine -- and that is one of the reasons I find you so
tactless. What I find tactless about you (and Dag and Ed) is the incredible
HYPOCRISY of your cries of tactlessness.
You and Ed and Dag are always talking about how important it is for people
to learn to respect existing standards. You (Greg) have talked about how
important it is for your kids to learn to live by the standards set by their
parents, Ed has talked about how important it is for people to learn to live
by the standards of society (know the consequences; if you don't want to be
in jail then realize that what you are doing --crime -- is not getting you
what you want). Just yesterday, Dag articulated this position in his
deliciously "tactful" post to me where he explained how important it is to
learn to live by the standards of management:
Dag Forssell (940412 2245)
You might have to adjust to limited degrees of freedom and make
agreements, living up to the standards of some boss, so you get the fat
paycheck you really want from an individual rather than a taxpayer subsidized
institution.
I never hear you or Ed or Dag saying that the people who enfore the standards
(the parents, the police, the management) are "tactless" for enforcing them;
nor do I hear you say that the appropriate response to the consequences of
violating the standards is to whine, moan and complain that the consequences
are "tactless". Nope, what I hear is a lot about people being reponsible for
themselves and dealing with standards and the consequences of violating them
realistically; you tell people "you know the standards so you can CHOOSE to
have the consequences of violating those standards or not; you are in
control". If you don't want to get punished by your parents then follow their
standards; if you don't want to get punished by society, then play by
society's rules, if you want to get the paycheck (I just got mine -- thank
you taxpayers) then follow the standards of the company.
Well, PCT has standards too; and they reside in the same place that
parental, social and business standards reside -- in the heads of the
people who enforce them. When you guys violate the standards of PCT
(you say things that are wrong about the PCT model -- at least from the
perspective of the person who enforces the standards -- ME) you get
corrected. (Whether or not what you say is REALLY wrong is irrelevant; is it
REALLY wrong to eat Cheerios with you fingers?) But what do you guys do when
you are corrected or "punished" or not rewarded for violating one of my
standards? What you should do (according to your own preachings) is learn
to play by the rules; to follow my standards (IF you want to avoid being
corrected or punished and get the rewards of being accepted by me as a person
who undertands PCT -- otherwise you should just avoid the whole thing). But,
instead, you do PRECISELY what you tell your kids, your patients, your
clients NOT to do -- you bitch and moan and call the people enforing the
standards (ME mainly) "tactless".
I really don't mind being called tactless. I'm sure I am sometimes. What I
hate (along with one of my personal heros, Jesus Christ) is the hypocrisy
of it all. Since you PRACTICE verbally attacking the people who enforce the
standards (saying they are tactless, fools, etc), then you should PREACH that
that is the way to deal with people who enforce standards TOO. Tell your kids
to call you "tactless" when you make them to go to bed at the "standard"
bedtime. Tell the prison youth to call you a "tactless mother f***er" when
you extend his sentence for violating teh standards about smuggling drugs
into jail. Tell the worker to call you a "tactless asshole" when you put him
on probabtion after he's come in late for the last three weeks in a row.
Or is there some god that says that people should respect YOUR standards and
suffer the consequences and not mine? War, anyone?
If you respected me as a control system, you would presume my "tactlessness"
was an accident, you would understand that I was trying to control for
standards that might be wrong from your perspective but are legitimate, and
you would deal with me by helping me understand the error of my ways.
Best
Rick
PS. I just noticed a nice post from Martin Taylor. Notice how, though I
disagree with Martin heartily about one thing (information), I do not
consider him hypocritical. Martin thinks I'm as misguided as I think
he is; and we are mutually infuriated about it. But Martin has always tried
to set me straight with argument, logic and sometimes even data; I've tried
to respond in kind. We have exchanged harsh words, even. But Martin has
always respected me as a person controlling a variable at a level he doesn't
think is "right". Martin may be wrong (and maybe not) but he's not
hypocritical.