There's nothing wrong with using words well. However, words can also hide meaning, twist logic and confuse issues, a fact known by some very experienced speakers... and politicians, and con men, and ad executives, and writers. Effective communication can exist
without words... they are only one tool in our communications toolbox, and there are so many others we ignore when we use words exclusively, as the web prompts us to do.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TGS
Whilst the dynamics of face-to-face dialogue avoid some of the problems that Steve speaks of in his essay, those very dynamics raise other problems to do with gender, ethnicity, age, disability and what one might be bundled under the heading of "personality", and the impact that they bring have on the nature of discussion. Whilst the anonymity provided by the internet might be abused by some, for others it is liberating and facilitates their participation. So, whilst I acknowledge the problem that Steve speaks of, I'm not sure the solution necessarily lies in the direction he indicates.
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It sounds like you're (very politely) saying that people have prejudices, and anonymity removes the possibility of prejudice. If that's so, maintaining that anonymity would only serve to prolong those prejudices, when we ought to be working toward eliminating them... which successful cooperation often does.