I haven’t been spending much time here lately, favoring instead a certain walled garden spun off from the Well. Don’t know what 2009 brings blog wise either, as I should be spending all my discretionary time on school. But I wanted to drop in and say hi and happy new year (a few hours early, true) to any and all. May peace be on us all.
04:04 local. Cold as hell. Coffee and Christian Brothers in lieu of other entheogens, Pastor Simpson’s preferred pre-preaching drink, which I some years ago dubbed a “Holy Ghost” (’cause if you ask a bartender for an Irish Coffee you’ll get some sissified gunk full of sugar and whipped cream).
Snobbery appears to persist. Happy holidays anyway.
linda, karen, chris
you’ve all known me as long as you have
so long
and yet i hardly know myself
how can it be
that the one community
from which i can never be bounced
is one i don’t even recognize
the community of me
JackJohnson’s take on the old “Rudolph” song is the most encouraging thing I’ve heard since Lennon’s “War is Over”. Props and long life to Mr. Johnson.
Well, it looks like I’ve chased away the chap in the post below. He says he’s leaving that particular item in the larger conference and maybe the whole community. I feel kind of like the scene in “Fight Club” when Ed Norton beats Jared Leto into a bloody pulp. Not the line afterward, just the wild swinging, that “I’ve won, but I’m not done” feeling.
Guilt. I feel guilty. Should I be good enough to not only stand up to his insults and insinuations but do so in a manner where he sees the error of his ways and comes around to some approximation of agreement in the middle and we all live happily ever after?
Maybe I should, but I’m not. There are people with whom rapprochement is not possible, or at least not terribly probable. And, to my eye, the greatest failing of liberals today is thinking that we can somehow overcome the mindless entrenched positions of folks who have become accustomed to not being challenged on their mindless entrenched positions. It will have to suffice that I learn to tell the difference between those with whom I can fruitfully engage and those whom I can only beat.
Sorry I can’t give particulars about the context. Suffice to say a Mormon in an online community to which I belong has been quite vocal about “liberals” failing to show adequate outrage at violent acts committed against his church in the wake of Prop 8 passing. He also claimed that while liberals worry about how the Mormon’s raised $20 million to support 8, liberals are not concerned about the funding of the Obama campaign.
I’ve only now realized that perhaps the single best indicator you are dealing with unhinged right-wing thought is this use of the word “liberal” as a synonym for [nigger|Nazi|hateworthy-other].
Mormons in fact did buy the Prop 8 election. But for the $20 million raised by Mormons, 8 would have lost. It wasn’t money alone, but the effective use of money, and it wasn’t the bigot [Redacted] and his co-religionists alone, other churches raised money too. But your church raised on its own about as much as everyone else combined.
And then pissed and moaned when people got angry at you.
Your anger at violence directed toward your religion and co-religionists is valid. But the rest of your irresponsible cant is really pathetic, including your “I’m civil but free to insult liberals ad naseum” attitude.
Perhaps the most interesting facet of your cowardice is this Through-the-Looking-Glass argument that the folks raising money to strip queers of their rights, you Mormons and the rest, are the oppressed group, the victim, the martyrs. That stance deserves nothing short of howling derisive laughter. It is you Mormons and fellow travelers persecuting the queers, as did the Nazis if you really want to get all Godwin on us (but do recall who went Godwin first). Despite being a member of the church that raised $20 million to persecute queers you twist and spin and dare to call yourself “civil”.
Lest you missed the implication, every single progressive and liberal with whom I am personally acquainted is worried about the effects of money in campaigns. Even folks who are glad McSame and his extremist Christian running mate were euchred out of the game worry that Obama’s ability to raise that kind of war chest bodes ill both for the system in general and his administration in particular. But you don’t actually want to hear that, it might require you to talk reason instead of breast-beating about how your prejudice pissed off a whole lot of good folk.
constitutional models
display constructing principles
global
geodesic
geometric
geological
gravitational
gyroscopic
can’t you imagine the delight in constructing
such an alliterative list
tasting of Watson (or was it Crick?)
“I knew it was true because it was beautiful”
but that kind of stuff has gone out of style
and there’s no more respect for smarts
(Source here)
27 miles last week.
16 so far this week, including a 59m20s 10k on the treadmill this morning.
Turns out stretching and a little upper body work are not optional. Good idea to stay away from the keyboard, too, at least until the cool down process is truly complete.
A recent thread at Balkinization has me reconsidering the whole blog-comments pastime. Shouldn’t I have better things to do than argue with trolls?
What makes them so tempting? What makes it seem so worthwhile, until you wake up and realize the time you’ve wasted? Why are they so damned engaging?
It is easy to say, “Oh, I’ll read the posts and skim the comments and just respond to the folks who are worth the bother.” But that’s kind of like going window shopping with a wallet full of cash: It’s just too easy, and likely, that you’re going to find something you want to take home with you. In the same way, reading blog comments at a place like Balkinization, you will of necessity be reading the inflammatory posts of trolls. Even if you use a filter to excise the trolls posts, there is no credible way of filtering all posts that interact with the troll. And so you get sucked in.
I’m not a big believer in abstinence programs. Sure, it’s fine to lay off of this or that temporarily, tied to a goal. (As in, “I’m off coffee and alcohol until I hit 160″.) But vows of lifelong abstinence? Nah. Moderation does, however, take more work. Moderation requires more frequent and nuanced assessments of appropriateness, where abstinence only requires recognition as a prohibited item.
At the conclusion of his essay, “The Art of Controversy“, Schopenhauer writes:
As a sharpening of wits, controversy is often, indeed, of mutual advantage, in order to correct one’s thoughts and awaken new views. But in learning and in mental power both disputants must be tolerably equal: If one of them lacks learning, he will fail to understand the other, as he is not on the same level with his antagonist. If he lacks mental power, he will be embittered, and led into dishonest tricks, and end by being rude.
The only safe rule, therefore, is that which Aristotle mentions in the last chapter of his Topica: not to dispute with the first person you meet, but only with those of your acquaintance of whom you know that they possess sufficient intelligence and self-respect not to advance absurdities; to appeal to reason and not to authority, and to listen to reason and yield to it; and, finally, to cherish truth, to be willing to accept reason even from an opponent, and to be just enough to bear being proved to be in the wrong, should truth lie with him. From this it follows that scarcely one man in a hundred is worth your disputing with him. You may let the remainder say what they please, for every one is at liberty to be a fool - desipere est jus gentium. Remember what Voltaire says: La paix vaut encore mieux que la verite. Remember also an Arabian proverb which tells us that on the tree of silence there hangs its fruit, which is peace.(emphasis altered)
What can be done to counter the right-wing troll in its various guises, the willing if dim-witted parrot for the right-wing polititainment industry? Is there any point refuting them, engaging them? Probably not. Probably the best thing is to have better things to do, and better people to those things with and wherever possible foster a culture in which the market for hate radio is ever dwindling.
And while we’re at it, let’s end terrorism by ending the underlying injustices from which such tactics bloom. This is me, not holding my breath. As for tussling with the trolls, well, sometimes it’s fun to knock down the punching clown. Just don’t let it turn into punching the clown.
