Your point about emotion and honesty is well taken. Still, I think that this seems more appropriate in private settings or at least in public settings where a level of affection and sympathy can be assumed between the conversants. In more anonymous kinds of public settings, it still seems counterproductive, however. This is because, I think, that public discourse is usually better served by appeals to reasoned persuasion rather than emotion. Of course, some people are more comfortable communicating via emotion. many times, it is effective in getting what you want, but it rarely convinces anyone. Like the discussion of manners in an earlier thread, it seems to me that it is incumbent upon the speaker to communicate in a way that makes their audience receptive and comfortable. Unless, that is, the object is to get what you want by making people feel intimidated or irritated.

I heard an interesting discussion between two women about 20 years ago. One was a professor whose vocabulary and sentence structure demonstrated that she had spent most of her life reading voraciously (I also knew her parents, and they also possessed huge spoken usage vocabularies and a penchant to speak in periods). The other was an high school dropout who was so busy trying to survive that she had almost no time to engage in the sort of activities that develop a comfort in using a large vocabulary.

After about 10 minutes of increasing frustration, the less-educated woman said, “You know, I can’t understand half of what you say. If you want this to work, you will need to tone down the fancy words.” After another 10 minutes, the more educated woman said, “Wow. This is hard for me. I don’t really know what vocabulary is appropriate, and thinking about it is tying me up in knots.” Which I understood to be her admission that outside her comfort zone of communication parameters, she felt less able to say what she really meant.

I wonder if something like that is going on here, too. People whose culture/gender/whatever have combined to train them to be comfortable with a low-affect mode of discourse can’t see any advantage to emoting during a discussion. Those whose experience has trained them to emote as part of discussions may be silenced when people say things like “I can’t see any use for that behavior, so please stop it” (which I know is not what the quotation above says).

Which is along way of saying that it may not be about “advantage”. It may be about “this is the way in which I am able to converse most effectively in most circumstances”.

I’ve learned over the years to be reasonably comfortable with a wider range of discourse styles than I was originally socialized to display (in my family, neither men nor women were expected to verbalize or demonstrate anger — EVER). What helped me the most was realizing that when I am cool, calm, collected during a discussion, I am often being dishonest. That is, if I feel strongly and I don’t communicate that clearly, then I have not been entirely forthcoming.

The other thing that helped was recognizing my valuing of calm discourse (and the tendency to think of emoters as “doing it wrong” or “being out of control”) actually covered up fear — fear that this would get out of hand and I would not know how to handle it.

I think it’s possible to be cordial while being honest about my feelings and (sometimes) even displaying those feelings during the conversation.

No, little boys and girls are both trained to admit to only particular emotions. It’s OK for little boys to be angry, not so for little girls; it’s OK for little girls to be sad, but not little boys.

I am in whole-hearted agreement with SorchaRei; that not all people who are emotive are unwilling to listen, and that assuming such is projection. I also think that our more calm, cool and collected brothers and sisters are sometimes given to taking things a bit too personally in that regard; true, the emoter may be getting heated, but that doesn’t necessarily have to do with you, or the discussion at hand. A whole ‘nother life is still going on in the background, and if your compadre in a discussion is upset, it could have to do with something completely unrelated to the discussion at hand. Some people are better at “compartmentalizing” than others, and that’s cultural too!

Also, more blog-specific: the printed word is a much colder medium than the spoken word, especially the spoken word up-close-and-personal. True to stereotype, I rely heavily on nonverbal communication, and find myself somewhat straitjacketed in this format. Modulating nonverbal cues are nonexistant here, and that can easily lead to miscommunication. I think I “sound” much “harder” in print than I do in public. That’s also an adjustment some folks, ’specially us emotive types, have to hurdle over.

Meantime, like Hugo, I try to remind myself to bound over those cultural barriers too; that not all nonemotive people are cold, unfeeling cyborgs, nor are all of them passive-aggressive headhunters with a backstabbing agenda. ;-) (see? we can see “the other side” as being the “lesser evolved” also!)

Your frequent discussions and various works show your commitment to the issues you believe in. I have never considered you less passionate because you don’t personalize the issues and resort to insults. In fact, it is one of the things that I most respect about you.
I’ve given Conflict Resolution Seminars to young adults and one of the key points is that being emotional about an issue isn’t a problem, but attacking another person is. Attacking the person diverts attention away from the issue so very little (if anything) truly gets resolved.

Both emoting and refusing to emote in discussion can be used to shut other people down or out. And lacking affect in the discussion doesn’t actually mean that there may not be sufficient emotion going on inside to cloud the ability of the non-emoter to hear, either.

And although he may take offense at the notion that women are less sexual or aggressive than men, he is also happy to insist that any sexual disagreement is automatically a man’s responsibility.

I love this guy. Without a hint of favoritism, he’ll always know exactly who to blame… no matter how many times he may contradicts himself in other areas. (^_^)

Also, there are many different motives for entering a discussion in the first place, and the motive makes a difference in how one engages. For example, one may post on a blog for personal amusement, to sharpen ones rhetorical skills, to promote a cherished viewpoint, to attack a detested viewpoint, or combinations of different things. All of these factors come into play, weaving various subtleties into the the fabric of the discussion. There is no “right” way to be, though the moderator may decide that the fabric itself is being harmed by some contributions, and decide to act to protect it.

I personally feel that I am an ambassador for a viewpoint that is widely discredited today, and often clumsily defended. I feel a responsibility to represent this viewpoint with integrity and graciousness - and I know that I often fail in this. Thus, my demeanor is vitally important to what I am trying to accomplish.

And Hugo, I understand that you were self-criticizing here, but from my point of view, very few “mea culpas” are needed from you in this regard - if any.