Making the move...

[Marielle Lange]

Hi Judy,

I was away for about a forthnight....

> I believe this response to Chipp is a unfair.
> The post you cite regarding Jerry was apologized for almost  
> immediately
> after he realized that he sent it to the list and not to Jerry  
> personally.
> And I seem to recall Jerry being nearly abusive in the posts sent  
> around
> that time.  I don't have the time at present to go google pipermail to
> cite each and every post, but you might wish to do so to revisit  
> the issue
> in its larger context.

Thanks for reminding me of this. I agree. I haven't been totally  
fair. As you mention, Chipp email was published by error on the list.  
My apologizes to Chipp.

The reason for this email was the following. Chipp accused me of  
having a feud with runrev. The situation was rather that I didn't  
want to come to have a feud against revolution (the non english  
speaker I am has to use the web to know that a feud is defined as "A  
bitter, often prolonged quarrel or state of enmity, especially such a  
state of hostilities between two families or clans"). But I could see  
the very many ways in which I was encouraged to end up developing one.

But these things are difficult to discuss of that in a context where  
people are prone to erect their defense. I am afraid that this got me  
fall in the trap myself and express things in ways that were not fair.

I never had a feud against runrev. Some persons have come to believe  
that I had a feud because I have decided to express a few things so  
to try to make persons aware of the fact that the situation had been,  
over the last months, escalating in ways that were highly  
undesirable, with bitter feuds that started to occur repeatedly  
between persons I knew to be of high personal and professional  
quality. In reality, I have the highest opinion of Kevin, Ken, Dan,  
Chipp, Richard, Jacque and others... but yes, I have been made to  
feel very uneasy about what they allowed themselves to express about  
Richmond, Alain, Xavier, or, more recently, me. Things were said in a  
register that is a very dangerous one. They are probably not aware of  
that, they would probably find difficult to accept this is the case  
as they had no intention to do anything of this nature, but the fact  
is that some of what was said was uncomfortably close from what is  
denounced as mobbing (http://www.mobbing-usa.com/): "Ganging up" by  
co-workers, subordinates or superiors to force someone out of the  
workplace through rumor, innuendo, intimidation, humiliation,  
discrediting, and isolation. The psychologist I am had a chance to  
learn, both out of professional and personal experience, how, as soon  
as you authorize yourself to enter this register, things can rapidly  
start to escalate out of control, with the development of feuds  
between persons or clans who in other contexts would be seen as the  
most supportive and honorable persons. Partly because the only way to  
denounce what is happening is to attack persons in the same register,  
innuendo, rumor, discrediting.

My understanding was that we had been in a "dangerous", highly  
emotional, zone at least 3 times over the last 3-4 months and that  
they would have continued to happen if this didn't get discussed in a  
way that made people aware of the fact their words and actions had an  
impact less innocent that they were ready to acknowledge.

That said, I had in the recent weeks very satisfactory interactions  
with Lynn Fredericks, the new runrev executive. If I have a feud  
against him, then I would gladly have feuds of this nature with any  
of you. Similarly, the recent rewording of their license in 2.7.1  
removes the reasons I had to explore other alternatives to avoid  
potential problems with the development of my projects. At the same  
time, the readings and explorations I had on java, ajax, ruby could  
easily be put to good use to better serve the runrev community ;-).

After all, Szun Tzu said "If you know your enemy and yourself, you  
will not be at risk in a hundred battles. If you know the enemy but  
not yourself, you will sometimes win and sometimes lose. If you know  
neither the enemy nor yourself, you will be at risk in every battle."

In all situations, our most dangerous enemy is ourself.

Marielle

------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
--------
Marielle Lange (PhD),  Psycholinguist

Alternative emails: mlange at blueyonder.co.uk,

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