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Subject:Meta-Topic On Discussions (delete as appropriate) From:Tom Murrell <trmurrell -at- yahoo -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Fri, 28 Feb 2003 10:43:28 -0800 (PST)
I've been following the various discussions about how much of what kind of knowledge
and/or education a Technical Writer needs to be
effective/efficient/employable/good/kind/virtuous/etc. And this browsing leads me to
ask a serious question. (Well, I'm serious; I don't know about the rest of you.)
Has anyone engaged in these discussions ever had their minds changed by someone
else's arguments/evidence/presentation? Have you entered into one of these
discussions saying, "I believe X is true," and come out at the end of the thread
saying, "Now I see the error of my ways. Now I believe either X is not true or Y is
better than (or as good as) X."
If your mind was changed, did you communicate that to the list, or did you keep it
to yourself to spare yourself the humiliation of acknowledging the error of your
ways?
You see, while the discussions of the week were going on, I have been engaged in
dialogs of a different sort altogether, and what I'm noticing is that once people
"know" what is right or what truth is or how something should be or be done, there
is only debate and the regurgitation of evidence to bolster one's position and/or
denigrate the opposing position. In other words, dialog becomes a debate, the object
of which is to score points.
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