Being annoyed or offended by something is actually a gift. It is an indication that there may be a chink in our understanding of the world.
Indeed.
One of my pet ideas, oft repeated here, is the idea of the "Crap Detector" as an essential component of problem solving, and an essential product of real education. Who said "education should make minds, not tools"?
That crap detector is never more valuable than when it alarms at our own bullshit. That anger- that urge to attack the person and not the proposition is the alarm. Capitalism searches out the darkest corners of human potential, and mainlines them.
IOW, we cope with the low bandwidth of this medium by building mental models of the people that we encounter the most frequently. That mental model informs our readings when a more and less generous reading of comments may be made. And a mental model that dictates making the less generous reading will be self-reinforcing, since at least sometimes the more generous reading is correct.
The marker for this that is often found fairly early in a flame war is, "No, I didn't mean it that way", "I know you meant it that way because, before, you said this".
Of course, building mental models on the most generous reading will also yield a biased model, but its a happier mistake to be making. I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.
