What's fairness (or the factual/fictional divide) got to do with it?

[Amy Z <lupinesque@yahoo.com>]

No: HPFGUIDX 50482

Wow, I am *so* interested in this whole question.  It really gets 
into a lot of great issues.  Unfortunately, I'll be away for a few 
days and will probably miss the whole thing, which may be just as 
well since whatever I say at this point is going to be hopelessly 
loaded.

Re: our hurting each other's feelings, it's clear reading Elkins's 
history of these ideas that we are in this room in very different 
ways.  For Elkins, who, like the conscientious Mod she is, reads all 
the posts, it is a seminar room, where all of us can reasonably be 
expected to have heard what everyone else said and are thus 
accountable for how our words sound in context.  For me, dipping in 
now and then and unable to read more than 30% of the posts, this is 
the proverbial cocktail party.  I haven't heard most of the 
conversations and may well respond blithely in the living room to 
what was a very touchy subject, unbeknownst to me, out on the deck. 
For example, I did not read most of last summer's Twins thread, nor 
any of the recent Cho Chang thread, and I think I missed many of the 
posts this week that Elkins alluded to as being relevant to this 
question.  It's inevitable that this difference in our contexts will 
cause friction now and then.  I think the friction can be eased if we 
remember that we *don't* have the same context.

Amy