Can I get into a top History PhD program?

[qbtacoma]

You are assuming that your inferences and interpretation accurately reflect my intentions and my tone. I am addressing members of this BB with the types of questions I've asked classmates and professors and in the same tone. And, as it happens, the types of questions I've been asked as well.

It is your prerogative to interpret direct questions about why someone wrote something as a "personal attack." However, your doing so is putting words in my mouth.

For you to conclude that my post is "rude and unacceptable" is nothing more than an overt attempt at censorship. Do you think this approach will work when you don't care for what is being said and how it is being said in a seminar? Or when a classmate asks you "What's the point?" Or when you get back a draft for an essay that a reader has thoroughly dismantled? Or when a professor drolly asks "So what?"

Oh, come on. Asking a "so what?" question isn't the same as telling someone they aren't qualified to participate in the discussion, which is what you did to Zeemore and which is the thing that I called rude and unacceptable. That, my friend, is censorship. Calling you out for bad behavior isn't. You may also note that in the same post of mine you quoted I complimented you by calling your argument "interesting and worthwhile" - does this sound like I don't value your opinion? The manner in which you argue, however, could be improved. But, fine. I'm thin-skinned and doomed to suffer in from the intense heat of grad school, and you are rude. We're all agreed now.

As you say, however, I may have read more into your statement than you intended (re: personal attack), but that is probably partially a function of this being the internet (and not real life with its nonverbal cues) and also the brusque way you have often responded in the thread.

Edited August 14, 2011 by qbtacoma