<<< LEVVAX::ACC_USER:[NOTES$LIBRARY]LEV_SOCIETY.NOTE;1 >>> -< Unity, Coming Together, Lightening Up, and ... FUN! >- ================================================================================ Note 10.0 The Meaning of Prejudice 25 replies LEVVAX::ABL4290 "The one, the Prime." 15 lines 28-APR-1993 18:35 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I have been doing a LOT of thinking lately, what with the Take Back The Night Marches going on... and this kind of view is EXACTLY what LEV_SOCIETY tries to promote. What do you think about Prejudice? What is it? When is it justified? Is it EVER justified? Have you ever felt excluded because of who you were born or because of the people you hung out with? It's a very real problem for a lot of people. This Topic, in the name of harmony and unity of all people, is here to accomodate your views and opinions on this very important issue. Solenoid ================================================================================ Note 10.4 The Meaning of Prejudice 4 of 25 LEVVAX::ABL4290 "The one, the Prime." 105 lines 4-SEP-1993 10:16 -< Read This if you Care About Lev >- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This is Solenoid. LOOK AT WHAT I FOUND!! I was totally unaware of all this... I was very VERY distraught when I read this. I WANT to swear, even WITH asterisks, for otherwise, it barely seems possible that I can properly express the extent of my feelings. But that's not allowed now. Instead, we have taken a scandal like this, YES, SCANDAL and swept it under the rug. Un-Lev thoughts deleted. It's NOT ENOUGH! This was ner addressed, never acknowledged directly by LEV_SOCIETY. IT HAPPENED HERE! Appologies were extended by you, Sherm, on behalf of those involved, and that was good and necessary. (see previous post). But knowing now what I do, I cannot personally accept that as enough, as sufficient. The first thought that came to mind was WHAT HAPPENED? THAT WAS -MY- CONFERENCE! Yeah, I'm not MOD, yeah, I left, and yeah, I haven't been reading every note unerringly every day since my resignation, but LEV is IN ME. This conference is PART OF ME. And the one cannot go undamaged without scarring the other. WHAT THE HECK HAS THIS BECOME? This conference is Unity. Acceptance. Tolerance. And I have seen jokes about gays, about gay behavior, about specific individuals, subliminal jokes, inside pokes at other people behind their backs, all this. What -IS- this Conference? Look at the flippin' Second Law. No Personal Attacks, No Fun at the Expense of Another. Where have our holy laws gone? I have not seen them mentioned directly in months! That means ALL RIPS, ALL ASSAULTS. I tried to make you all see, but was it enough? People tried to "bend" the law... No Personal Attacks or Fun at the expense of another perversion 1 - UNLESS it is an inside joke that the MOD can't detect perversion 2 - UNLESS the MOD doesn't delete it perversion 3 - UNLESS I can get a laugh for it perversion 4 - UNLESS the person I am degrading doesn't read LEV_SOCIETY perversion 5 - UNLESS the person in question says it's OK to degrade them perversion 6 - UNLESS someone else did it first, showing me it's acceptable perversion 7 - UNLESS someone personally assaulted me first An Attack is an Attack. "Let's rip on hicks." Haha. "Let's post Irish Jokes." haha. "Let'make fun of the floor nerd." ha ha. Do you not understand? THIS HURTS. You are causing PAIN. This hurts me, too. It hurts all of us. You cannot degrade one individual or one group of individuals without scarring us all. If you say it is okay to attack another in any way, just because others find it appropriate, then you have opened this option for every human being everywhere. I think many of you post such attacks without thought. GIVE THOUGHT. Rips, personal jibes are habit. THAT DOESN'T MAKE IT RIGHT. You may not believe that, but you must abide by that at least here. THAT IS THE CORE OF LEV. If you post it, then -you- are out of order. You say, "One Rip... I didn't mean it badly. It was just a joke." Well, look one note back. See my point? One Rip, one seemingly harmless personal attack can explode into an entire disaster. Were people wrong to be angry? No! However harmless a single, simple personal attack may appear, each has the potential for great pain, hurt, and conflict. HOLY LAW 2 - NO PERSONAL ATTACKS - NO FUN AT THE EXPENSE OF OTHERS. So don't DO it! That's our whole philosophy here. We mus{ follow it. We must str{ve to be better than we are. It's okay to know that we can't always say the right thing, but we HAVE to TRY. We must, for if we don't, this whole conference, and all it represents, is for naught. Fun is fine. Have fun. But the First Holy Law is NOT "Have Fun no matter What." You are letting this over-riding desire to get a laugh out of your fellows CONTROL the direction of your posts. You can't. You have to Keep LEV with you. Do you understand that? All kinds of new rules have sprung up lately... but in the shuffle, we have begun to lose sight of those two most important, fundamental, and Most Holy Laws of Lev. This is why we are here. This is our purpose - to promote Unity, Acceptance, Harmony, and all that. That's the first part. Also, I must say I was dismayed to discover that all these notes were deleted from LEV in a great big cover-up. "We are in the wrong, so we shall pretend it has never been." No! Deleting the Un-Lev is a step, but not enough. That is using Make-Up to cure a skin tumor. We have to address the problem. We have to SHOW what we represent. We have to take responsibility when we are wrong... OPENLY if we are to make progress. Censorship. That is Anti-Lev. Against the Conference? A scar on our established rules? Do we just delete it and pretend it never existed? Does that make us shine brightly again as if the problem never happened? No. It makes us reek of falsity and distrust. Are we reading the uncensored whole? Or just what is deemed appropriate for us to read? When you read this, what guarantee do you have that THIS has not been altered? When I found the past notes (go back 1 note) I was appauled to realize that all of these were deleted right out from under my nose without my even knowing there was ever a problem. Unity is not hiding away the truth. Unity is banning together to FIX the wrongs and mend the truth of our wrong-actions. Sweeping it away and ignoring it does not mend what was broken. That's what I had to say. No one speaks on these things. But I can't just stand idly by. If we don't speak out against this, if we don't voice our minds, if we don't ban together on this, en we have become no better than we were before. Solenoid ================================================================================ Note 10.5 The Meaning of Prejudice 5 of 25 LEVVAX::JFO8808 "Jayce" 4 lines 4-SEP-1993 12:27 -< What you don't know never happened. >- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Welcome to RIT, bud. --- Jayce ================================================================================ Note 10.6 The Meaning of Prejudice 6 of 25 LEVVAX::CJW3890 "Run Brother! Run!" 4 lines 4-SEP-1993 16:34 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I have a whole slew of ideas to share with you Sol, but I have not the time right now. They will be forthcoming. Tas ================================================================================ Note 10.7 The Meaning of Prejudice 7 of 25 LEVVAX::DCR3177 "The SmoekDuster is not dead...." 12 lines 4-SEP-1993 19:33 -< rep to 10.5 >- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I believe that your apparent attitude is EXACTLY what Solenoid is trying to get the people who post in Lev Society to avoid having. I don't know if this shows your real attitude about this topic, or you meant it to be sinical. I hope that it is the second. If it is not you might want to try to "deal with the dirt" rather than just moving it around. (ie address this problem) I have not posted in this conference early last spring, when my academics forced me to not be able post, yet I did not simply ignore the activitied that occurred. Charlemagne ================================================================================ Note 10.8 The Meaning of Prejudice 8 of 25 LEVVAX::JED5264 "Look Mommy! It's the UPS man!!" 6 lines 5-SEP-1993 13:39 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- but its over, and fixed. why rehash it all now? It was brought up by people who weren't here when it happened, and should find other ways of figuring out what happened. j ================================================================================ Note 10.9 The Meaning of Prejudice 9 of 25 LEVVAX::CJW3890 "Run Brother! Run!" 14 lines 5-SEP-1993 16:51 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I'm in a bit of a dilemna. See, after reading Sol's posts about the holy laws and stuff and in VaxLandia, I found my self disagreeing with a lot of what he said. So I've been thinking up a response to his posts, but it isn't going well. Everytime I find a good reason against your ideas Sol, I find an equally good reason for them. In one moment I see the momentous weakness of your ways, but in the same moment I recognize the awesome strength of your veiws. So I decided to attack my own veiws and use that to rebut his thoughts, but I hit the same brick wall. I am at a loss. Let me think some more, I just didn't want you to think I forgot about it. Tas ================================================================================ Note 10.10 The Meaning of Prejudice 10 of 25 LEVVAX::CAS9353 "The Revealing Science of God." 35 lines 5-SEP-1993 17:01 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Concerning this matter... Everything is closed on what happened. What those posts are referring to were a private joke not directed to anyone. People got pissed and threats were issued. The person who was supposed to be offended saw nothing wrong with the posts, and saw it as a joke, and the person who started all this mess in the first place 1) NEVER said anything to me about what happened. Never mailed me with a complaint. How was I supposed to know someone was upset when noone said anything. 2) this person posted in LEV, but NEVER addressed this problem up front. What am I? A mindreader? I think not. When someone has a problem in LEV, they are supposed to inform the moderator. I am the moderator of this conference, and no problem was told to me. Some people are too sensitive and fly off the handle at inappropriate reasons. Some people take offense to things not directed at them; not directed at anyone at all. And that is exactly what this was--a misinterptation. Speaking of offensive posts, if I were the hard moderator everyone takes me to be, I would delete a number of disgusting notes posted by a certain member of this conference. Try to act mature sometimes... it works. I could take offense at things, at go on a deleting spree, but I don't, but if that is the case, I will do just that. This conference is not moderated by Tony anymore. He only had 2 rules. This (or any other conference) cannot survive on those two rules. There is change going on in LEV. If you want to know how I feel on this, read Official Stuff! and find out. Enough for now..... Sherm Lev_Society Moderator ================================================================================ Note 10.11 The Meaning of Prejudice 11 of 25 LEVVAX::CAS9140 "coed naked vax" 8 lines 6-SEP-1993 11:22 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- in a nutshell, Tony, I totally disagree with you. my friends rip on me...in person as well as on the vax. they are having fun at my expense. do I care? yes. does it bother me? no. basically, if we don't talk about people (not necessarily malicious), then we have nothing to say to each other. if we can't find humor in differences, then we don't really understand what it is to be different. Pookie ================================================================================ Note 10.12 The Meaning of Prejudice 12 of 25 LEVVAX::BXG5360 "O' Captain! my Captain!" 8 lines 6-SEP-1993 11:30 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- that's right Pook. Madonna stinks. ;) heh heh heh. humor in differnces...cool. :) -skip ================================================================================ Note 10.13 The Meaning of Prejudice 13 of 25 LEVVAX::ABL4290 "The one, the Prime." 37 lines 6-SEP-1993 16:57 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Well, folks, I have had that big heart-to-heart with Doc... (inevitable) and according to the official word, the original posts were NOT in violation of Law 2... only interpreted that way. My own interpretation saw it as a rip. But, well, it wasn't. In light of this new evidence, I think it's only appropriate that I retract my previous statements outlining the "scandal," which I so unthinkingly attacked, before I had all the angles. I guess that's what we're trying to avoid here, too. Jumping to conclusions is also not very productive. I've heard it takes a big man to admit his mistakes. Well, I don't feel too big right now. I am still learning, and will continue to learn... Doc is my friend, and I believe in his abilities. I complained of too many rules - well, that's a difference in philosophy. But truth to tell, the conference didn't run much differently under me, anyway. People made the same jibes. People made the same slurs from time to time. I had my share of bad relations with other conferences from time to time. Doc is a good Mod. He cares about how other people view the conference, and its image, and how it runs. And most importantly, he had an objective talk with me... and talked some more reason into the Sol. I believe in an ideal world - that's the soil from which the tree of LEV sprung. I'm protective of that dream... and would do a lot to further it. But to forfeit the benefit of the doubt in your fellow human beings prematurely is no better an attitude than those demagogues of past times who sought to categorize and subjugate to a single idea in place of every other. Absolute Good, Absolute Unity is a difficult path to walk if one does not allow the luxury of an open mind. Attacking does not bring peace. Only Understanding. The line between Confidence and Arrogance is sometimes thin, and I sometimes struggle on the edge of that line. Forgive me, my friends. That's really it. I still believe what I said, but if the original premise (That holy laws were being violated) was wrong, then so falls the argument. My thanks for hearing me... Sol ================================================================================ Note 10.14 The Meaning of Prejudice 14 of 25 LEVVAX::TLR8799 "Whadya mean, Doc? Not insane?" 7 lines 10-SEP-1993 15:45 -< Gotta be sane for this one, LEV'ers >- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I understand what Sol and Sherm are saying. If a note got deleted (which does happen with or without my knowledge), then it was un-LEV. I live and breathe LEV and I cannot imagine where I would have been if I had not learned about LEV SOCIETY. Humor and insanity are my only means of escaping from harsh realities. I hope that we all will remain LEV and "LEV" each other. The Joker ================================================================================ Note 10.17 The Meaning of Prejudice 17 of 25 LEVVAX::AXP4796 "The Ewok from the Bronx" 9 lines 10-SEP-1993 19:37 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I find that it's hard to not be prejudice sometimes...especially when some people just annoy you so much. It's hard to remember that we are all humans and that we can go at anytime. Ewokie ================================================================================ Note 10.18 The Meaning of Prejudice 18 of 25 LEVVAX::JED5264 "Q-Tips are better than sex" 8 lines 10-SEP-1993 21:44 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yes, but just remember the real reason you hate that person. It's because he's an annoying little sob, not because he's black or red or green or .. you get the point... If you keep that in mind you might be more tolerant of other people of his "group".... which, by the way, is a big social stereotype in my opinion.. it shouldn't really matter. J ================================================================================ Note 10.19 The Meaning of Prejudice 19 of 25 LEVVAX::ABL4290 "The one, the Prime." 10 lines 11-SEP-1993 10:33 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- We are all learning... We can learn to accept the annoying people even if we do not hang with them... if they mean you no ill will, why should we be the ones to give it? We are all human, and even if we have slipped on our judgement from time to time in the past does not mean it will always be so. Continue to learn, continue to grow, continue to LEV. Sol ================================================================================ Note 10.20 The Meaning of Prejudice 20 of 25 LEVVAX::AXP4796 "The Ewok from the Bronx" 4 lines 13-SEP-1993 09:17 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- That's true. Ewokie ================================================================================ Note 10.21 The Meaning of Prejudice 21 of 25 LEVVAX::MSA7064 "The light bringer" 13 lines 16-SEP-1993 14:25 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prejudices can always be justified. Ignorance, for example, is a damn good excuse for prejudices. I don't understand them though. I am open minded about basically everything and cannot see how any can let a superstitious fear get in the way of rational judgement. Unless of course they don't have any. Which could be the case. Hope I cleared that up for ya' -- Sceadeau ================================================================================ Note 10.22 The Meaning of Prejudice 22 of 25 LEVVAX::GAK4178 11 lines 18-SEP-1993 23:52 -< Justification >- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prejudices are simply generalizations. For example, if someone meets a LOT of people that are black(or mexican, or some other race) that all act the same way, and they don't like it, then they will generalize that people of that race are ALL that way, therefore becoming prejudice against them. However, this then stands in the way of someone proving them otherwise (there are ALWAYS lots of exceptions to everything). Therefore, prejudices can be justified based on their experience, but yet, in a few seconds can also be strucken down by showing an excetion (usually one of the many). Black Amethyst ================================================================================ Note 10.23 The Meaning of Prejudice 23 of 25 LEVVAX::JDD9642 "Not Guilty" 5 lines 25-SEP-1993 21:18 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If it's based on experience, it can't really be prejudice. Let's break down the word - pre - judge - I would guess means judging someone, anyone, with no previous experience. -jd ================================================================================ Note 10.24 The Meaning of Prejudice 24 of 25 LEVVAX::GAK4178 "Black Amethyst" 6 lines 26-SEP-1993 00:40 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yes, but based on experience doesn't actually mean experience with THAT person. Pre-judging someone just cuz of their ethnic background is usually based on experience, but is DEFINITELY prejudice. Gerrit ================================================================================ Note 10.25 The Meaning of Prejudice 25 of 25 LEVVAX::VPM0500 "DarkShadow" 8 lines 27-SEP-1993 13:14 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prejudice...a simple word...but extremely dangerous in this world. We are just souls with layers of complex emotions. If we bare ourselves away from these layers, what is left of us? Souls with love. Love is simple, not complex. To fight prejudice, we use love, not violence which is just a brother to prejudice. -Darky