# I am against this war. I am not an idiot. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [March 28, 2003, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-against-this-war-i-am-not-an-idiot/164863 "2003-03-28T19:50:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![clayton\_e](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c57346/32.png) [@clayton\_e](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clayton_e)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2003, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-against-this-war-i-am-not-an-idiot/164863/41 "2003-03-29T04:18:58Z")
**black455** , **World Eater** , can we all agree that _both_ sides have assholes? Really, a few isolated incidents _hardly_ make up the collective actions of a group. Sure, the isolated incidents are bad, but thats exactly what they are, ISOLATED INCIDENTS. Take a look at the big picture, not at the little details. I personally would NEVER do anything physical against someone pro-war (I have been to many anti-war protests and thankfully have never seen anything that could be considered out of taste or physically harmful). When someone does do something stupid if anything it’ll only pick up people like **Black445** and **World Eater** who spread these stories like the flu. Just don’t do it. ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2003, 11:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-against-this-war-i-am-not-an-idiot/164863/42 "2003-03-29T11:25:58Z")
> [@](#): > > Moreover, I don’t think Even Sven is a moron as much as she is a sweet, naive, and terribly earnest college student who has much to learn about the world. Gobear, didn’t you learn after pulling that on me? ---
**Author:** ![Tristan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tristan/32/18058_2.png) [@Tristan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tristan)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2003, 11:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-against-this-war-i-am-not-an-idiot/164863/43 "2003-03-29T11:59:48Z")
[SDMB Hisotorical hijack] “But can Sampras win on clay?” [/SDMB Historical hijack] ---
**Author:** ![gobear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8dc957/32.png) [@gobear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gobear)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2003, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-against-this-war-i-am-not-an-idiot/164863/44 "2003-03-29T12:07:11Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by matt\_mcl \* > \*\*Gobear, didn’t you learn after pulling that on me? \*\* Bite me, **Matt**. I will be goddamned if I am going to have you or any one else tell me what opinions I may have. I base my opinion on a long period of reading her posts, and you don’t get to vote. Hell, read the OP > [@](#): > > Most Americans wouldn’t touch a newspaper with a ten foot pole. Most Americans knowledge of the Middle East comes from watching Not Without my Daughter and Lawrence of Arabia. Most Americans will not be able to come up with a coherent and brilliant explaination for why they feel the way they do- drawing upon a detailed historical knowledge of the area and a deep analysis of policy- whenever a reporter shoves a mic in their face. Yeah, that sounds like a wise, considered post. Now fuck off. ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2003, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-against-this-war-i-am-not-an-idiot/164863/45 "2003-03-29T12:20:01Z")
> [@](#): > > Bite me, Matt. You only wish, girlfriend. > [@](#): > > I will be goddamned if I am going to have you or any one else tell me what opinions I may have. I base my opinion on a long period of reading her posts, and you don’t get to vote. You are not so important that I have any interest in trying to tell you what opinions you may have. Please disabuse yourself. I just recall a number of occasions of your casting aspersions on my presumed naïveté as well, and coming to recant. I don’t like it when it’s applied to me, and I don’t like it when it’s applied to others. It’s a facile cop-out of a way to dismiss someone’s argument, and if you or others do it I’m going to complain. And I’m likewise going to be goddamned, as you say, if I’m not going to say so. You may have noticed I’m not in the habit of keeping my mouth shut when I don’t like something. Believe me, I have no illusions as to my ability to alter your biases about young people’s opinions. ---
**Author:** ![gobear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8dc957/32.png) [@gobear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gobear)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2003, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-against-this-war-i-am-not-an-idiot/164863/46 "2003-03-29T12:23:00Z")
Here’s a representative sample of her posting style > [@](#): > > There are plenty of reasons to be looking at porn besides jacking off. I’ve written more than one paper about porn, and I had to do my research somewhere. Slash fiction is a pretty complex genre with some really really interesting social implications. I’ve known transgendered people who look at transgendered porn not to become aroused, but because it is one of the few ways that their life is even acknowledged. The book Bound and Gagged by Laura Kipnis provides an interesting look at the social and artistic implications of pornography. It managed to convince even the stanchest anti-porn people in my “women in the culture of violence” class that pornography is at least more complex then simply being pure evil. I don’t wish to pick on her because I think she is a good person, but her opinions are drawn almost entirely from theory she read in a book or from something the professor in her latest class told her. If that’s not not naivete, what is? There’s nothing wrong with being innocent-- part of growing up is to learn about the world. ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2003, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-against-this-war-i-am-not-an-idiot/164863/47 "2003-03-29T12:25:36Z")
And what the hell is that quotation supposed to prove about whether she’s naive or not? ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2003, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-against-this-war-i-am-not-an-idiot/164863/48 "2003-03-29T12:30:11Z")
I think it’s incredibly patronizing to say “her opinions are almost entirely drawn from the latest book she’s read.” That completely abnegates any critical faculties she has to agree or disagree with the book she’s read. If she’s read a book she believes to be convincing and to have a good argument, why on earth shouldn’t she refer to it? Why do you believe that’s the last book she’s read rather than one of many books she’s read? I could cite that book because I agreed with it after I read it, too - in 2000. So exactly why do you offer that quotation as a “representative sample” that’s meant to demonstrate that she is naive? Is it because you disagree with it? That’s a pretty piss-poor reason and it’s exactly the kind of cop-out I’m talking about. ---
**Author:** ![gobear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8dc957/32.png) [@gobear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gobear)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2003, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-against-this-war-i-am-not-an-idiot/164863/49 "2003-03-29T12:36:42Z")
> [@](#): > > Believe me, I have no illusions as to my ability to alter your biases about young people’s opinions. Hate to break it to you, there’s a lot that you have not yet experienced in the world. You _are_ idealistic and also have a lot of ideas that you drew only from books and not from actual experience. A quote from _Good Will Hunting_ says it better than I can: [quote] So, if I asked you about art you could give me the skinny on every art book ever written…Michelangelo? You know a lot about him I bet. Life’s work, political aspirations, the Pope, sexual orientation, the whole works, right? But you can’t tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel. You’ve never actually stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling. I’ve seen that. If I asked you about women, you’ll probably give me a syllabus of your personal favorites, and you’ve been laid a few times. But you can’t tell me how it feels to wake up next to a woman and feel truly happy. You’re a tough kid. If I asked you about war, you’d probably throw a sonnet right at me, right? Once more, until the bridge, dear friends. But you’ve never been near one. You’ve never held your best friend’s head in your lap and watched him gasp his last breath, looking to you for help. And if I asked you about love you’d quote me a sonnet, but you’ve never looked at a woman and be totally vulnerable. Known that someone can level you with her eyes. Feeling that God had put an angel on earth just for you. [quote] Put it this way–did reading up on queer theory and gay relationships tell you how to live with **Potter** , his likes and dislikes, what he sounds like when he sleeps, or did you have to learn that through experience? ---
**Author:** ![gobear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8dc957/32.png) [@gobear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gobear)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2003, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-against-this-war-i-am-not-an-idiot/164863/50 "2003-03-29T12:39:25Z")
> [@](#): > > I think it’s incredibly patronizing to say “her opinions are almost entirely drawn from the latest book she’s read.” That completely abnegates any critical faculties she has to agree or disagree with the book she’s read. If she’s read a book she believes to be convincing and to have a good argument, why on earth shouldn’t she refer to it? Read the quote again. She quotes the book uncritically and approaches porn from a purely intellectual perspective which totally ignores the visceral impact of lust and arousal. That’s the kind of thing I’m talking about. ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2003, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-against-this-war-i-am-not-an-idiot/164863/51 "2003-03-29T12:41:03Z")
> [@](#): > > You are idealistic and also have a lot of ideas that you drew only from books and not from actual experience. And how do you know that?! Do you know the provenance of the ideas I hold?! The last time you assumed that of me, it was in regard to homeless people, and when I blew up at you and told you very specifically where my ideas in that regard come, you apologized humbly to me. Why do you insist on making the same mistake again? You don’t know why I think what I think, and you don’t know why **even sven** thinks what she thinks. You assume that since you disagree with our opinions, they must be from a source you regard as invalid. ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2003, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-against-this-war-i-am-not-an-idiot/164863/52 "2003-03-29T12:43:26Z")
> [@](#): > > Read the quote again. She quotes the book uncritically and approaches porn from a purely intellectual perspective which totally ignores the visceral impact of lust and arousal. That’s the kind of thing I’m talking about. That’s ridiculous. She’s adding to a conversation, not writing an essay. Why shouldn’t she jump directly into what she wants to add without repeating the default position about the thing in question? Why shouldn’t she quote a source she agrees with? How do you assume she hasn’t already thought critically about the book and decides she agrees with it? ---
**Author:** ![Desmostylus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c57346/32.png) [@Desmostylus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Desmostylus)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2003, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-against-this-war-i-am-not-an-idiot/164863/53 "2003-03-29T12:45:53Z")
Well, check it out. **gobear** , while complaining that “her opinions are drawn almost entirely from theory she read in a book”, has to quote from a _film_ to explain. ---
**Author:** ![gobear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8dc957/32.png) [@gobear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gobear)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2003, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-against-this-war-i-am-not-an-idiot/164863/54 "2003-03-29T12:55:14Z")
> [@](#): > > You don’t know why I think what I think, and you don’t know why even sven thinks what she thinks. You assume that since you disagree with our opinions, they must be from a source you regard as invalid. Not necessarily. The source might be perfectly valid, but it’s the uncritical quoting of academic thinking over actual experience that gets me. Being young in no way invalidates an opinion–you are universally regarded as being one of the best posters here–but it does tend to elevate theory over experience. **Sven** is well-read and intelligwbtm but her posts usually reflect only her reading. One of her posts that impressed me was when she shared her experiences as a child growing up on welfare in a thread about welfare reform. She put a first-person stamp on what had been an impersonal discussion. ---
**Author:** ![gobear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8dc957/32.png) [@gobear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gobear)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2003, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-against-this-war-i-am-not-an-idiot/164863/55 "2003-03-29T12:56:30Z")
> [@](#): > > Well, check it out. gobear, while complaining that “her opinions are drawn almost entirely from theory she read in a book”, has to quote from a film to explain \ it says my point better than I can. There’s a reason why the screenplay won an Oscar. ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2003, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-against-this-war-i-am-not-an-idiot/164863/56 "2003-03-29T12:58:16Z")
> [@](#): > > it’s the uncritical quoting of academic thinking over actual experience that gets me. How on earth do you assume that that is what she was doing? Maybe she read the book, noted it agreed with her experience, _exactly the way it worked for me when I read it_, and quoted it as a way of restating her argument and as a way to cite it for those who might like to read more. ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2003, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-against-this-war-i-am-not-an-idiot/164863/57 "2003-03-29T13:02:25Z")
Or, in other words, it said her point better than she could. Maybe that’s why it was able to turn the heads of the people in her class. ---
**Author:** ![gobear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8dc957/32.png) [@gobear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gobear)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2003, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-against-this-war-i-am-not-an-idiot/164863/58 "2003-03-29T13:12:46Z")
> [@](#): > > How on earth do you assume that that is what she was doing? Maybe she read the book, noted it agreed with her experience, exactly the way it worked for me when I read it, and quoted it as a way of restating her argument and as a way to cite it for those who might like to read more. And how do you know she did? It’s one thing to refer to an author that bolsters one’s position in a debate, but viewing any subject from a purely theoretical perspective omits some avenues of learning, IMO. An academic can discuss the benefits and drawbacks of welfare payments, but he cannot tell what it’s like to have to depend on welfare payments to buy food. **Even Sven** can. ---
**Author:** ![gobear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8dc957/32.png) [@gobear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gobear)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2003, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-against-this-war-i-am-not-an-idiot/164863/59 "2003-03-29T13:15:38Z")
> [@](#): > > Or, in other words, it said her point better than she could. Maybe that’s why it was able to turn the heads of the people in her class. That’s what she said in her quote, and I have no issue with that. My point is that discussing pro only\*\* in an academic, theoretical sense misses the visceral impact of pornography. Anyonebody who thinks that jacking off is not the most important aspect of porn is missing the point. There may be other uses, but they aren’t the reason the industry exists. ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2003, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-against-this-war-i-am-not-an-idiot/164863/60 "2003-03-29T13:19:04Z")
> [@](#): > > And how do you know she did? I don’t. But I don’t assume (on what basis would I do so?!) that she is a naive ivory-tower denizen who doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Why do you assume she views the subject in a purely theoretical perspective because she _adds_ one theoretical perspective to the debate? What I see is someone who wants to think of **even sven** as naive because he disagrees with her or because she’s young or both, and is making all kinds of uncharitable and unwarranted assumptions to be able to do so. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-against-this-war-i-am-not-an-idiot/164863.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-against-this-war-i-am-not-an-idiot/164863.md?page=4)