| | Erica,
My aversion to candy-striping goes a long ways back. Basically it is a lazy way to discuss something. You copy an entire post (preferably a long one) and paste it into a message box. Then you go straight down the post making comments and deletions at will. It is not an integrative process - it dilutes thinking. As it is only reactive, a whole lot of garbage gets included simply because the person ends up saying something about what popped up that he would not mention otherwise - and he doesn't really have anything important to say about that point.
You see a lot of "I agree," or "Where did you get that idea?" and so forth with nothing else added. It is also very boring to reread what you just read in the preceding post without any new substance added. As the norm for these posts is to make a long post longer, this gets really really boring.
I usually go into a coma reading candy-stripes. When I come out, most of the time I don't even finish reading the post.
I have recently started responding in kind to candy-stripes at times out of a wish to show the candy-striper the intellectual impression he is making in what could otherwise be an intelligent and stimulating discussion.
Normally though, I try to limit my own discussions to one or two (maximum) sizable quotes from a post I am responding to and put the rest of my thoughts or small quotes in normal discussion form. Sometimes I go over, but only when the issue gets really deep - enough to warrant that. Even so, I kick myself later for not being better.
As to Ed and me, you simply haven't got it yet. He is always wrong and I am always right. That is a metaphysical absolute and axiomatic.
Any more doubts?
Michael
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