RE: Checkers-Backgammon Etiquette

["Bill Strand" <strand@pacsim.com>]

Doug Jones wrote:

 

“May I make a plea that we step back from the discussion for just a second and watch what is happening? Talking to people across paradigms is a very tricky business, and I don’t think anyone on this list to date, including myself, is really any good at it.”

 

Personally, I keep hoping that people would step back from this entire discussion. After so many reminders from this forum in recent weeks on what constitutes morality, I wanted to remind myself of what is/was the purpose of this forum. I copied this from the Vision 2020 web page:

 

Moscow Vision 2020 is an informal, multi-partisan group of Moscow residents formed in 1993 to encourage more public information and debate about the future of Moscow and Latah County. Specifically, its goals are:

 

1. To ensure that all parts of our community have an opportunity to take part in visualizing and planning for the community's future.
2. To strengthen citizens' sense of community by promoting awareness, ownership and investment in Moscow's future.
3. To foster cooperation among (and public involvement with) the agencies and organizations that plan for and make decisions about the future of Moscow and Latah County.
4. To raise awareness on the part of citizens and public officials that:
5. uncontrolled and unplanned growth may have negative effects.
6. short-term decisions have long-term consequences.
7. To inform ourselves about growth and development issues.
8. To have fun thinking critically and creatively.

 

OUR ACTIVITIES INCLUDE, BUT ARE NOT LIMITED TO:

 

1. Promoting community dialogue on planning and growth issues through such diverse channels of communication as a discussion list on the Internet.
2. Increasing knowledge of community-based planning techniques through study groups, workshops and guest speakers.
3. Providing technical expertise and volunteer assistance to community groups and local agencies interested in applying community-based planning, such as the Latah County Planning and Zoning Commissions and the Shared Facilities Task Force.
4. Involving the community, especially young people, in planning through such activities as tours, contests, simulation games and exhibits.
5. Recruiting volunteers to monitor and report on meetings of public agencies as a way of increasing public knowledge of the decision-making process.

 

I guess this could be considered “To have fun thinking critically and creatively” but I haven’t seen a lot of “fun” going on here - just a lot of labels and mud slinging. I am not what anyone would consider an active member of this forum. I subscribed to this forum because, as I travel as a part of my work, this forum keeps me up to date as to issues that may not make the front page of the Daily News. But these days I can’t seem to find the wheat for all the chaff.

 

So am I alone in my thinking here? If this is just my own personal preference, I’ll be happy to go elsewhere for to find my information and discussion regarding growth in Moscow and Latah County. However, if others feel the way that I do, then what is the role of this forum and how do we fulfill it?

 

B.C. Strand

Technical Operations Manager

 

Invensys Performance Solutions

Pacific Simulation

1187 Alturas Drive

Moscow, Idaho 83843

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Doug Jones [mailto:credenda@moscow.com]
Sent: Monday, June 24, 2002 10:22 AM
To: 'Vision 20/20'
Subject: Checkers-Backgammon Etiquette

 

Visionaries,

 

May I make a plea that we step back from the discussion for just a second and watch what is happening? Talking to people across paradigms is a very tricky business, and I don’t think anyone on this list to date, including myself, is really any good at it.

 

Imagine our discussions to be *like* a debate between the rules of checkers and the rules of backgammon. From the perspective of the checkers’ paradigm, backgammon is just stupid and circular. >From the perspective of backgammon, checkers can’t possibly operate without dice and triangles. When the checkers side is challenged by a backgammon norm, all they see is arrogance, authoritarianism, dogmatism: “Who are these people to suggest that other rules exists; no rule in checkers allows for that” To themselves, checkers seems to be an obvious, natural, and a reasonable description of how the world works. To rebut the backgammon objections, all they have to do is cite more rules of checkers. And to find horrors in the other game, all you have to do is cite your own rules again: “Those evil backgammoners actually deny the morality of ‘kinging’ and ‘jumping;’ but the rules of checkers are so clear on those points.”

 

The biggest problem seems to be those folks who insist that we’re only playing one game. For them, when someone tries to suggest something backgammonish, they will immediately assume their opponent is crazy, insincere, and manipulative, since “we all know the rules of checkers.” All the demonizing, motive-guessing, and name-calling occurs when we insist that we’re all playing checkers and that the rules of checkers are the ultimate reality.

 

So back in our world, Joan O. accuses Doug W. and I of a “pattern” of defining, curtailing, and putting words into our opponent’s mouths and that that “isn’t dialog.” And Debi S. insists that we’re not schizophrenic but we act that way with “circular and self-referencing ‘logical thought’ similar in kind if not degree.” The first thing that comes to mind on my game board is: are they serious? They’ve got to be joking. That’s exactly what they’ve been doing. 

 

But in the end, all this blind checkers-backgammon discussion is pretty boring and fruitless. What if we said to ourselves, the next time we think someone we disagree with on the list is cheating, manipulating, crazy, etc., we’ll stop and ask if we’re just pulling a “judge-checkers-by backgammon-mistake.” That would really raise the level of discussion.

 

Won’t progress come when, instead of just using “our” game’s rules to veto another, we can ask if the game in question really lives up to its own rules: a checkers game that sneaks in moves from Monopoly flunks.  Then we can politely observe among ourselves that “that” game fails to live up to its own rules or that “that” game claims to want “hotels” but the rules of checkers won’t allow for it. Why not just assume that each person is sincere but is talking from a different paradigm? That way we could get beyond demonizing anyone who disagrees with us. Is that too crazy?

 

Sincerely,

Doug Jones