Re: Leica R 90mm: Elmarit or Summicron?

[Gary J Toop <gtoop@uoguelph.ca>]

On Sat, 8 Jun 1996 adl@sirius.com wrote:

SNIP

Eric wrote:

> >I don't mean this as a flame of the person who made the comment above, just
> >pointing out there's a lot more to portraits than the "salon style." We do
> >sometimes want to have a soft image in a romatic type portrait. But let's
> >not choose our lenses thinking this way. And besides, if you think the 90
> >Summicron is going to give you soft photos for that style of portraiture,
> >that will only happen if you smear the filter with vaseline, or throw the
> >focus out of whack. They are way too sharp for the fuzzy wuzzys.
> >
> >==========================
> >Eric Welch
> >Grants Pass Daily Courier
> 

A. Dean Lee wrote
 
> We all just got past this the FLAMING war between a few of the other Leica
> users here on this user group. And yet some poeple still haven't learn a
> thing about coummunication with others.   It seems that a few Leica users
> here people take a self righteous attitude and bash people when all they
> have to do is write comments in the neutral sense.
> 
> I truly believe that if those who want to write on this user group should
> take a politically correct position and really think about what you intent
> to say so as to not continue to FLAME people who offer an opinion.  Either
> that OR TAKE 25 DEEP BREATHS AND RE-READ YOUR COMMENTS BEFORE YOU POST IT.
> Maybe then your comments will lack the emotion and contain more substance.
> You can still get your point across without causing another FLAME WAR!!!

	Gads, is it just me, or is this much more of a flame than Eric's 
posting?  For what it's worth, I would rather hear people's real opinions 
about equipment than some "politically correct", sanitized version riddled 
with qualifications.  Eric made it clear that he was NOT attacking the 
people who posted the opinion but simply expressing another view on the 
equipment issue:  there is a big difference between attacking people and 
disagreeing with their opinions and in this case, as usual for Eric, he 
seemed to be in the latter camp.  Your posting, on the other hand, does at 
least sound personal - how else should we take "maybe then your comments 
will lack the emotion and contain more substance" in response to Eric's 
view?  Perhaps I have misread it, but your posting really reads like a flame 
trying to pass itself off as an anti-flame.

	I too am tired of the flame wars that we have had, but I am also 
tired of hearing people told to supress any strong opinions that they 
might have about gear, shooting, etc as a way of avoiding the problems.  
I for one have no problem reading people who are opinionated and 
expressive so long as they take them time to make it clear that they are 
are not making a personal attack on the people with whom they disagree.  
And I think that people have just as much of an obligation to try to 
avoid misintpretting what they have read as those posting have to not be 
offensive, something that is sometimes lost sight of. 

	There is a very big difference between emphatically telling other 
people that you do not in any way share their opinions, expressing your 
own in the process, and telling that that they are stupid for having those 
opinions.  The latter is fine by me and by most people I know and the 
former is not fine by almost anyone that I have encountered. 

	My own suggestion as to how to cope with our problems - and 
others are free to take it, leave it, or explain to me expressively and 
in great detail why I am wrong - is simply that we employ a version of 
what is often called the "Principle of Charity" in critical thinking 
classes. There it is primarily used as a way of avoiding criticizing our 
misinterpretation of an argument rather than the argument that the person 
put forward.  In our case it would amount to trying to read the postings 
of others in as favourable a light as possible before we criticize them, 
giving them the benefit of the doubt until we are sure that they really 
intended to be rude.  We do after all have obligations as readers as well 
as writer to be fair and here on the mailing list we can always ask for 
clarifications and retractions before we decide to criticize, can't we?   
	For example, in the case of Eric's posting, I am sure that if Mr  
Lee had written to him personally asking  him what he meant by his 
posting, he would have found the answer that he received more than 
satisfactory.  If he did not or if Eric had clearly made a point of 
insulting the people with whom he disagreed - when in fact he clearly 
stated that that was not his intention - then Mr Lee would have been 
quite entitled to take him to task for his rudeness. 


With a plea for tolerance and charity in the place of political 
correctness! 

Gary Toop