I admit that sometimes I see a lot of useless bickering on here.
I'm sure, being human, that I have inadvertently added to a thread or two a comment that may have helped keep the thread off-target.
I'm not talking about controversial threads. Things like the Falklands/Malvinas debate, or global warming are different animals. People should always be at least reasonably polite (I do believe in the use of biting sarcasm or hyperbole in certain situations, for example!) when discussing anything in public. But these kinds of threads are by their very nature bound to produced some bruised feelings from time to time.
My (relatively small) issue is that I, as an ex-pat living in a foreign country, like to have a place where I can blow off steam about having to deal with life here without having to worry about someone local hearing what I'm saying and taking it the wrong way.
I don't mean to disparage our Argentine brethren by things I've said in the past, nor what I'm saying now - but with such a large percentage of Argentines on the forum actively posting (and reading, of course) I sometimes feel self-concious about some of my postings - ones that I believe have real merit regarding the truth as I see it about certain things, ideas which may help someone understand what they are doing when contemplating moving to Argentina without ever having been here before, for example.
I have been accused of hating Argentina before - a strong word at the very least. I have been told maybe I should live in another place if I don't like it here. Etc, etc.
I don't hate Argentina. At all. I wouldn't live in a place I hated unless I had no other choice. Frustration does not equal hate nor intolerance even.
The BIG problem I have is that the people who have made the above comments were actually expats themselves! Not the locals who I often worry about as to whether or not I have offended them with comments I've made, but the very people that it should be safe to blow off steam with!
There seems to be two separate groups of these people.
One group are the long-term tourists who come here for anywhere from, say, one month to even a year, plus some. But they are not going to move here and commit the next five to ten years living here. They are just "enjoying life" and when they get bored or frustrated, they will move on. In many cases, they haven't been here long enough to understand exactly why it could be that someone even had any frustrations (it took me almost a year before I started to get frustrated with life here - about the time I began to settle in permanently in BA).
Another are the people who have lived here a long time or are planning to live here for at least an undetermined length of long time - basically immigrating, whether they get citizenship or not. They love it here, aren't bothered by just about anything they see here, and see it as a near paradise, or at least a real world close enough to paradise that they can ignore the uglier parts that don't live up to that standard.
(I'm not going to mention the Argentine posters, because I don't think it germaine to this part of the discussion. I don't think Argentine posters are antagonistic by virtue of the fact that they are Argentine, there are the same mix of Argentine posters as I describe in the following paragraph, both reasoned and antagonistic.)
Now, there are many people that fall into these two groups on this forum, but not all people who fall into those two groups are as antagonistic about people who complain or tell what they consider to be the naked truth about Buenos Aires. Many may not agree with a statement someone is making, but they will be somewhat understanding that that person is an expat and is blowing off steam about something that frustrated him or her.
However, there is a sub-group of people who are just plain antagonistic when someone says something derogatory about their beloved, adopted, city.
I think that's despicable, actually. It seems to me that the purpose of this forum is to help expats survive, and maybe even thrive, in a foreign place. Expats telling other expats to "enjoy or leave" is just adding salt to the wounds, it seems to me, and is uncalled for.
Of course, then there are those who will just pipe in with a comment in just about any thread that strikes their fancy and add some irrelevant comment that does nothing but fuel a fire. Not much you can do about people like that but just ignore them.
I never say anything in a forum that I woldn't say in public, to someone else's face. I was raised to be polite, but honest and firm when I was confronted with something I didn't agree with. Open to other possibilities, but only after examinng things from all sides.
Debate is extremely healthy for the mind, and animated debate is good for the soul. It stirs passion.
But animated debate doesn't have to turn into defamation of character. Blowing off steam doesn't have to turn into "be like us, happy, or get out."
