From: utzoo!decvax!wivax!linus!genradbo!mitccc!svw Newsgroups: net.flame Title: The Importance Of... Article-I.D.: mitccc.322 Posted: Tue Feb 15 00:01:18 1983 Received: Thu Feb 17 06:35:29 1983 I'll tell you what bothers me. A discussion of "The Winds of War" in net.tv or somewhere concentrated for some time on Ali McGraw's acting ability or lack therof. Then somebody comes on and says something along the lines of "Oh come on, who cares how she acts? The REAL important question is how the movie portrayed the horrors of war, etc. etc." Something about this attitude bothers me; that one person can see only what he deems important in any issue and totally refuse to talk about any other aspect of the issue. Okay, maybe the war aspect is more important. But why put down a discussion of acting ability? I knew a girl once who was concerned with nothing else but how much she hated capitalists, white people, and other people who have traditionally held most of the power. When I told her once that I was interested in the space program, she would ask me: "How come there are no black astronauts?" (There are.) There is a public forum here at MIT in the form of a graffiti poster. A question will appear on it each week ("Are MIT admittance programs reasonable?") and people will scribble their thought on the subject. Once the question had to do with the tv premiere of Battlestar Galactica; someone flamed on the poster that such a question was distracting us away from important topics. Of course it was! That was the point! Does this attitude strike anyone else as rude, self-centered, single-minded? Royal Flash