From: Mistral mistral@centurytel.net

Fiona Moore wrote:

...

The reverse equivalent might be me going into a thread on red leather trousers and saying "That's intriguing. Have you considered deconstructing these trousers as a

signifier

...

of Lacanian potency, with regard to Derrida's belief that deconstruction cannot exist outside of the text?" A lot of people would flame me, and

for

...

good reason.

<g> Are you _sure_ a lot of people would flame you? 'Cause I can't imagine that.

Neither can I, actually. I would expect a remark to go ignored. You might get more mileage out of starting a new thread, along the lines of "All this talk about red leather trousers makes me wonder...", though I doubt it.

Tossing a bit of whimsy into a serious thread strikes me as a perfectly natural thing to do - I am never more serious than when I'm joking. Humour can be both a way to make a point, and to defuse tension; it's long been a technique in both debate and education for those reasons.

As I hope I've made clear enough by now, I can't argue with this. It's turning the thread *into* whimsy that gets me heated.

Neil