Emotions on FM
rutt
Registered Users Posts: 6,511 Major grins
I cross posted my piece about the protesters in Newton Center on FM, and generated a lot of heat. Take a look here:
http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/191374
Frankly, I was happy about this; the piece was meant to be provocative and I guess it succeeded.
But it's also an interesting object lesson. On the surface, you might say that we are just more polite here than they are there. Usually, the FM crowd is pretty taciturn. It's kind of a fine art to get replies there. Either you need a fantastic image or you need to ask some very specific technical questions (which usually get high quality answers very quickly.) But when they do comment, it can be pretty terse and negative. No, "Nice shot, but ...", just "would have been better if...".
But what's really going on in this case is that the political heat is coming from lurkers not contributers. Timiator states that he has never posted a picture and the really big heat on the other side is also coming from people with low numbers of posts. On the other hand, the big poster who contributed to this thread is ent2b and he keeps trying pretty hard to steer the thread back to photography pers se.
So, it seems that really this was just an outgrowth of the size of FM. I suppose this sort of thing might be comming soon to a theater near us. How do we want to deal with it when it happens?
Personally, I enjoyed this particular interchange. It never actually got personal (well maybe it stepped over the line once), just off the track. But it could have gotten personal and that has happened even here. That's where I'd like to see us draw the line. Heat and off track is OK. Nobody says you have to read the thread. But rude is bad.
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http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/191374
Frankly, I was happy about this; the piece was meant to be provocative and I guess it succeeded.
But it's also an interesting object lesson. On the surface, you might say that we are just more polite here than they are there. Usually, the FM crowd is pretty taciturn. It's kind of a fine art to get replies there. Either you need a fantastic image or you need to ask some very specific technical questions (which usually get high quality answers very quickly.) But when they do comment, it can be pretty terse and negative. No, "Nice shot, but ...", just "would have been better if...".
But what's really going on in this case is that the political heat is coming from lurkers not contributers. Timiator states that he has never posted a picture and the really big heat on the other side is also coming from people with low numbers of posts. On the other hand, the big poster who contributed to this thread is ent2b and he keeps trying pretty hard to steer the thread back to photography pers se.
So, it seems that really this was just an outgrowth of the size of FM. I suppose this sort of thing might be comming soon to a theater near us. How do we want to deal with it when it happens?
Personally, I enjoyed this particular interchange. It never actually got personal (well maybe it stepped over the line once), just off the track. But it could have gotten personal and that has happened even here. That's where I'd like to see us draw the line. Heat and off track is OK. Nobody says you have to read the thread. But rude is bad.
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If not now, when?
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Comments
Our photographs will on occasion will capture a moment that will lead to some non-photographic discussion. I think that can be positive because it shows like with your pics that they suceeded and evoked a response from their viewers. The moment the discussion stops being a courteous exchange of ideas and evolves like they often do into personal attacks it should be stopped and removed like a malignant tumor.
http://behret.smugmug.com/ NANPA member
How many photographers does it take to change a light bulb? 50. One to change the bulb, and forty-nine to say, "I could have done that better!"
The funny thing is that I immediately saw those protestors as political, I felt foolish when others critiqued the photography.
I really wanted to talk the political but I was afraid to on that thread. Here I feel I can.
Photographically, I thought that close up thing was better, the shot you pulled in on. I would like to see that interspersed in a series like that.
Politically, I agree, the faster we are out of that war, the happier I would be. Am I right? I don't know.
Sociologically, I thought it was interesting the age group that was protesting.
Why there is not the outrage, etc, of the sixties, I have no idea. I do know from another list that people who are smart enough not to associate 9/11 with Iraq, still, down deep, like to see someone pay.
Personally, I would like to quit paying with bodies and money, particularly money, in my case. But the bodies are outrageous, too, and that is just my opinion. Anyone else can have theirs. But why it is not more vocal is an interesting subject in itself, to which I have no answer. Those shots of protest looked almost pathetic to me in their lack of power.
ginger
The thing I find most frustrating about the current political climate is that there seems to be absolutely no room for positions that don't fit cleanly into the for/against buckets. People say, "hey, my friend was killed on 9/11." And this means it's impolite to question whether the US intervention in Iraq was actually a logical step in reacting to 9/11. It seems there is no room for reasonable people to differ.
Looking back on Vietnam, it might not have felt like it at the time, but I think there was really quite a lot of dialogue about the war. He never allowed it to become public at the time, but LBJ was extermely conflicted about the war. His White House tapes have been made public and I've actually heard him talking about it to Mcgeorge Bundy (his national security advisor) and agonizing about the descision.
Now it seems that there is a confusion of critical thought and deliberation with weakness and/or lack of patriotism.
For what it's worth, I've found I can sometimes open the door to constructive dialogue by bringing up history. By now WWII history is uncontroversial and quite a bit of cold war history is also uncontroversial. I try to compare the current situation to those situaitons and ask what worked then and whether it is appropriate now. This approach often works with thinking people, but of course, nothing works with people who don't like to think. I don't think I ever really change any minds, but I sometimes come away thinking that I've convinced someone that there are people he or she doesn't agree with who are worth listening to. Sometimes I even think that I've made someone want to think things through a little better themselves (and sometimes I feel that I have to as well.) These days, that's quite an accomplishment of political dialogue.
Catapultam habeo. Nisi pecuniam omnem mihi dabis, ad caput tuum saxum immane mittam
http://www.mcneel.com/users/jb/foghorn/ill_shut_up.au