Klarinet Archive - Posting 000640.txt from 2000/08

From: Tony@-----.uk (Tony Pay)
Subj: [kl] Saving face (was, correcting each other)
Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2000 16:26:50 -0400

On Mon, 21 Aug 2000 18:15:31 -0500, rgarrett@-----.edu said:

> At 11:40 PM 08/21/2000 +0100, you wrote:

> > It's not for you to apologise for not having addressed the point,
> > Bill. Obviously, having been the first one to make a howling
> > mistake, I can't blame you for having been mistaken in responding to
> > it.
> >
> > What I nevertheless want to make clear is that now, you can't say
> > that *you* understood the situation, either. (You still seem to me
> > to want to claim that you and perhaps others did, above.)
>
> Well, so much for anyone saving face.
>
> For Pete's Sake guys, let's get on with something else other than
> bantering about what someone might have meant or what someone
> obviously didn't know.......(puff, puff, puff......*BOOM*).
>
> *sheesh*

You raise an important point here, Roger, and one worth bringing out, I
think. It is indeed always tempting to 'save face', and there are
cultures in which for someone to lose face is felt to be damaging to
that person's honour.

But there is a very different culture that many of us here share to some
extent. It is the culture of science, or the culture of academic
enquiry.

In the culture of science, or academic enquiry -- but above all in the
culture of science -- it is the *attempt to save face* that is the thing
you have to try to avoid. This is because any attempt to save face
inevitably involves covering up the truth to some extent; and what
science is above all committed to is the pursuit of truth.

Thus, it is a mark of honour to admit you are wrong when it turns out
you are wrong; and even more a matter of honour to try to find out in
the first place where you may be mistaken. (Everyone knows that this is
difficult to do, after all.)

It is also a mark of respect for someone to confront them with the
truth, *not* a mark of disrespect for them. In confronting them with
the truth, you're saying something important about what level of
commitment you think they're up to.

That's why both Don Mayer and you were ill-advised to leap in to the
discussion I was having with Bill Hausmann, and why, when I said in my
reply to Don that I had the greatest respect for Bill's posts, I was
simply stating the truth.

Tony
--
_________ Tony Pay
|ony:-) 79 Southmoor Rd Tony@-----.uk
| |ay Oxford OX2 6RE GMN family artist: www.gmn.com
tel/fax 01865 553339

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