"Learning to Listen" This Friday at Fordham - UPDATED

Ha,ha,ha,  I like your comment, David.  Your sense of humor is very refreshing.  I agree we should find something else to obsess about.

Learning to Listen?  In other words passively accept the latest political fads derived from the collective ideaology of the all-wise and knowing faculty and elite academics?   Make the faculty's  job of indocrination of their narrow and rigid point of veiw more automatic and effortless , without fuss or expalination  Support with your tuition automatic  impersonal learning of every type of subjective content the fauclty is in the mood to present as something one should listen to.

What new important value will the faculty annunciate that we must all hear, and appreciate ?  For this type of abusive arrogance many students will be in debt for a significant part of their lives.  How very one-sided and unfair.  Academics and the power of their unions have reshaped the content and academic environment to their own political purposes and  their own maximum advantage to the detriment of students and society. Who really benefits from this this one-sided, heavy-handed "Learning to Listen" approach?  Whose interest are being served here?  Certainly not the intersts of the student or society.  How  long can such an abuse of power exist?

Does a "vigorous, honest, and open debate" = a "one-sided, heavy handed approach"?! I wish Tom had provided more explanation for his characterization of these well-planned and thoughtful events.

I didn't understand David's "bisexual parish" joke either.

It'd be nice to come away from an LBGTQ affirmation post on this blog with the sense of welcome intact, but the comments are usually more than enough to both undo the welcome and reinforce the sense of exclusion.

It is depressing to keep seeing the same negative comments to every post that tries to inspire inclusion and acceptance.

David, please tone down the snark. it is getting tiresome.

David S.   -    Note that children, after rejecting their parents' obsessions, commonly retrieve them a while later, especially wrt sexuality.   If they hadn't done that over eons, where would we be today?   The Catholic Church merely helps magnify attention on the subject through emphasizing the sinful nature of the many types of thought and deed that occur or might possibly occur or could be imagined.    If you think Americans are bad, you ought to check out what went on in ancient Greece and Pompeii.   Those were wild times.   
 

Crystal, please don't give up.  I sense that there are a growing number of us who are trying to do what we can to raise the level of discourse, free of sarcasm and vitriol. At the ripe old age of 64 perhaps I've become naive, but I'm beginning to think I'm welcome more or less wherever I see myself as welcome.  I didn't become a Catholic because any priest or bishop invited me.  I became a Catholic because I discerned an invitation; it was an affair of the heart.  If I need to be explicit, I'll be explicit: You are welcome here because you have as much or more to offer as anyone else on these blogs (me included), and I, for one, am glad you came and shared your thinking and feelings.

Thanks Kent.

Perhaps what's sad is that I'm a heterosexual who just trys to put in a good word for full acceptance and  inclusion of LBGT folks   -  I can only imagine how those who are the subjects of negative comments must feel.

David - "Sexuality ... is a very personal thing, not something to be jabbered about constantly in the media".  If only the Vatican shared your view.  It's because the church has made it such an issue that people feel they need to address it.

Thanks, David.  It will help me to know that you have a great deal of respect for the church and America and its writers the next time I read one of your comments. It's ok to have a dry sense of humor; unfortunately, without the body language or the facial expression, mere text can come off looking snarky when you may have only intended irony or gentle sarcasm.

One of the things I keep reminding myself is that most of us prefer about ten pieces of positive affirmation to every piece of criticism, even if it's negative.  We tend to drown out higher proportions of criticism as noise.  Without wanting to come off like Dr. Pangloss, I'd love to see us all increase our positive contributions.

peace,

Steve

Sorry, I meant especially if it's negative...

I wish we can all lighten up a bit.   I grew up in a family (and clan) where teasing was/is so common place, everyone took it in stride.  It's really weird but often this teasing was/is taken as a form of endearment, a demonstration of care and love!   I guess we're just strange/weird people!!!  Just to let you know we have both gay and lesbian members of our extended family (clan).  I suppose outsiders would conclude we were/are the most cruel human beings on the planet,  if they were/are around us when these teasing occur. 

Well Norma, the next time we all gather in the Nunag backyard for a BBQ we can all enjoy your homophobic humor with your gay & lesbian family members. 

Teasing can be a way of saying mean things without having to take responsibility for doing so. While we tease here, I've read that Iran has recently hung some people for being gay ...... http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/13/gay-rights-world-of-inequality

"I suppose outsiders would conclude we were/are the most cruel human beings on the planet,  if they were/are around us when these teasing occur."

Thank you, Ms. Nunag. Your response suggests a clearer distinction in what I was trying (ineffectively) to say earlier. This is, of course, not a family circle; it's a public forum populated by people who are strangers to one another, and I was campaigning for a gentler tone so as not to offend those we aren't on such personal terms with.

Voltaire offered a thought that might apply.  ''Not only is it extremely cruel to persecute in this brief life those who do not think the way we do, but I do not know if it might be too presumptuous to declare their eternal damnation.'' (Treatise on Toleration - 1763)
 
Kent D.  #20  -  Every commenter is here completely voluntarily and is free to leave at any time and stay away.   The default reaction to a comment that an individual might find offensive, stupid, or irrelevant is to ignore it.   There is no obligation to do anything, including pay any attention to commenters that one judges to deserve none.    I am puzzled by the suggestion that, for some reason, family deserve less consideration than passing strangers.   Don't they deserve at least equal gentleness, difficult though that might be at times considering who they are?

Actually, David, why single out Amreicans? Few organizations hold a candle to the Catholic church itself in its obsession with sex and sexuality.