Talk:RWBY: After the Fall/@comment-24018437-20190929221518/@comment-35434444-20191001162134

This has nothing to do with meanness or bullying. It's not about opinions. It isn't even about right and wrong.

I say it right now -- no opinion you've ever expressed to me from the very beginning, whether it's epithets, or the merit of qualifications, or the quality of your writing -- has ever been wrong. I take back every last shred of it.

This isn't about that and it never has been.

It's about -- you guessed it! -- 陰 and 陽. The Light Brother and The Dark Brother.

I am not trying to criticize your for anything you've done or make some kind of flex to show that I'm better than anyone else. I'm trying to show you something that, were it possible to put it into words, would make the both of us extremely relived and happy.

The problem is that the words that I'm forced to use in order to communicate this idea to you are the very thing that obscures what I'm trying to say. It's like trying to draw awhite circle with charcoal. If you look at it the wrong way you'll ignore the circle and only look at the charcoal I've used to section off a circular area of the paper.

I can't show you the concept by giving you a concept because it isn't a concept. I can only show it to you by removing concepts.

You think that saying this book is mediocre is more accurate than saying it's particularly good or bad. Whether or not you concede that this is subjective makes no difference.

How do you know you and EmBellem had a civil conversation? Because you've experienced other conversations that were not civil.

How do you arrive at the conclusion that After The Fall was mediocre? Because you've seen other books that were better or worse.

Language necessarily sections things off. I can't make out one thing to be good without making another appear bad by contrast. Therefore, anytime anyone makes a judgement about anything, they necessarily say, "I've got a better way than these other people. I'm one up."

Sure you could preface every conversation with, "I'm not trying to tread on anyone's toes but..." but eventually it's going to ring hollow.

To act in the world at all is to be in a state of competition. Only you don't see that because you don't know anything else. The moment I showed up you assumed I was trying to talk down to you, not realizing that that's the only way anyone can talk and all efforts to be impartial are even more dishonest -- just another kind of one-upmanship: instead of competing to be right you're competing to be kind and civil. So you can make a scapegoat of anyone else by labelling them mean and uncivil the same way that people labeled others witches back in Salem.

There is no way out of that situation. If you try not to desire you're desiring not to desire. If you try to be non-competitive that is already   a competition of non-competitiveness.

No one gets off the hook. '' Ever. ''

Now I restate it: This is not me saying, "Ha ha you're in a trap and are wrong no matter what you do" (although you are) so that I can be one up.

<p class="MsoNormal">What I'm trying to get you to see is that the whole thing is a hoax. Nothing is better than anything else. Even you being in this "trap" isn't really a bad thing. I just felt like getting you out of it because I thought you'd be able to make use of knowing it's a trap in a way that would help others and be just glorious.

<p class="MsoNormal">Because if you can get to that point where all the concepts are blown out, you can rearrange them again any way you like.

<p class="MsoNormal">I apologize for giving you the wrong impression. But if I had tried to be more up front and less rude, you'd have regarded me as a kook and never paid any heed.

<p class="MsoNormal">As things are, I'm still a kook to you, but at least I've got your attention.

<p class="MsoNormal">Please don't take this the wrong way. I'm not a teacher and you're not a student. No one here is a bully or a victim.

<p class="MsoNormal">I'm just having to play a little trick on you to try and get you un-tricked.

<p class="MsoNormal">I don't even this will do anything, but if we have to part ways with everything left unresolved, at least I can put this much deceit behind me.

<p class="MsoNormal">I'm sorry to have typed such a long message. Forget everything I said.