[disclaimer: this post was too friggin long to proofread. please don’t hesitate to ask for clarification.]
I realize that what I’m really doing here is slathering honey all over my head and jamming it in a killer-bee hive. This cannot end well. I know that the majority of responses to this will be negative. I wish we could just take those for granted and not have to go there, but I know that’s not how this is gonna play out. But I hope some of you will understand that my need to address this—even knowing what I’m setting myself up for—is some indication of how strongly I feel about this, and how sincere I am in my attempt to address this.
To a very real degree, I’m defending my very existence here. I know; it’s that sense of melodrama that can tend to get me in trouble. Still, there it is. That’s how it feels. My communication here is only as valuable as my credibility, and with every single thing I post here I labor under the frustrating feeling that my credibility has been stolen from me. Now I’m the first (well, among the first) to point out that I’m pretty easily rankled. I get defensive. I have what I melodramatically think of as an overdeveloped sense of justice. It’s just not in my nature to take an unjustified accusation lying down. Now, I realize that I’m not always very good at taking a JUSTIFIED accusation lying down either, but I do sincerely try to remain aware of the difference and to acknowledge fault where justified. This of course allows me to rationalize to myself my right to be tenacious when defending against accusations that I feel are unjustified.
(A partial history is that I have often, in the past, defended myself vigorously when I felt I was under attack. This has been mischaracterized as a tendency to attack people merely for disagreeing with me. I vehemently deny this. In fact I see it as a projection of the accusers who float that mischaracterization, in that this unjust accusation seems to me to be an attack on my character based solely on the fact that they have disagreed with me, on subjects as diverse as Paul Verhoeven and dog behavior. I have repeatedly asked for cites of where I have attacked someone for disagreeing with me, and no one has ever been able to provide one. Mostly, I get no response for such a demand; twice I’ve actually gotten apologies when the accuser searched for a cite and found that this “viral factoid” was not, in fact, true. I say again that I have apologies in escrow for anyone who can justify, with cites, the meme that lissener launches personal attacks on others merely for disagreeing. When I have gotten personal, and “attacky,” has only been (cites to the contrary awaited) when I feel that I have been personally attacked merely for disagreeing—man, this is sounding childisher and childisher—when I’ve been called pretentious or dishonest for defending Verhoeven, e.g.; my overzealous response to that has been a result of those insulting accusations about me personally, and not a defense of Verhoeven or his movies.)
So, this “meme” hijack of this thread. I’d calmly and happily discuss the usage of a word like “meme” all day long, without ever getting angry or defensive. But when Left Hand of Dorkness characterized my mere use of the word as “cowardly” and “dishonest,” he made it feel very personal. Not about the word, but about me. So I got defensive. I tried—honestly I did—to determine to what extent I myself was responsible for the trainwreck that followed, and here’s my annotation, to try to explain my understanding of the text, subtext, context, etc., of the exchanges that made up that hijack.
In my attempt to avoid accusations of leaving stuff out, I’m going to have to make this pretty exhaustive. I ask that all responses along the lines of “Don’t you have anything better to do lissener?” be taken as read.
My understanding of what happened here:
11. I used the word “meme” to describe a debate tactic as a peeve of mine.
12. Daniel responds with a sarcastic suggestion that my use of the word was an attempt to appear to sound smart (“maybe I need to leverage my paradigm to actualize my positive thinking”), and that I should have said “motherfucking theory” instead of “meme,” and ask the lazy debaters I was complaining about “a pithy, incisive question that clarifies whether they’re being illogical.”
18. I respond by pointing out, also sarcastically, that logic is probably not going to be effective against debaters who are using insult and untruths in a debate. I then go on to say that, to a certain extent, I agree with him, and I ask him if there is a better word I can use. (Still struggling to imagine how anyone could interpret any of this as “attacking.”)
19. I follow up with a post (again sarcastically) suggesting that Daniel’s objection to the word is also not universal, and that I will try not to use it in his presence. Sarcastic, yes; attack? You decide.
20. Daniel follows up by insisting that my use of the word according to my understanding of its usage (a usage explicitly backed up by two other posters) reveals a “disrespect” for the word, and “cowardly” to boot. Now, I may not be the best judge here, but to the extent that any of this exchange turned into “attack” mode, I’d have to say that “cowardly” is when that happened. Daniel continues by saying that my mere use of the word “meme” is explicitly insulting, and “vicious innuendo.” Now, I cop to some sarcasm up this point ([defensive]in response to Daniel’s sarcasm[/defensive]), but Daniel’s suggestion that the mere use of the word “meme” is to engage in “dishonest,” “cowardly,” “cryptic,” “insulting,” “snide,” “vicious innuendo.”
22. My followup post asks, “seriously,” for a suggestion of a word that would communicate what I’m trying to communicate. No sarcasm, no argument, no defensiveness: just a request for an alternative word. I follow this, of course, with a slightly sarcastic expression of bewilderment at his disproportionately enraged reaction to my use of this word.
23. I return to the thread after having consulted Wiki, American Heritage, and Webster’s to acknowledge that the definitions I’ve managed to track down do NOT, in fact, support my understanding of the usage. So maybe I’ll just say “viral factoid” instead of “meme” from now on. Pretty attacky, huh?
34. twickster joins in, continuing to tell me that I’m “wrong” about the definition of the word.
44. I respond by (sarcastically, obliquely) pointing out that he apparently missed the post (#23) where I acknowledged that the dictionaries seem to agree with Daniel, and that I’ll use a different word from now on.
54. Daniel responds to my request for alternate words, and my acknowledgment that my usage is not the universally condoned usage, by saying in effect “well, then, you were redundant.” [I’m thinking, man, he just really wants this to be a fight, doesn’t he? I can’t win.] He then goes on to Gaudere himself hilariously by apparently forgetting about posts 15 and 16 when he says, trying to “snidely” and “cryptically”—and therefore hypocritically—score points off of me by nominating my frequent fragmenting of one response into two as one of his own pet peeves. He goes on to instruct me to “Think, meditate, ruminate on your contribution to the thread, and only when you’ve got a good handle on it should it be posted.” Very helpful, if outrageously patronizing. [I’ve pretty well given up at this point and decided to leave it lie. Daniel’s transparent need to keep this discussion ginned up into a fight by continuing to use the most insulting language possible makes it clear to me that my energies could better be preserved for teaching a pig to sing. But apparently Daniel hasn’t had enough; he wants to keep the fight going.]
66. Quoting someone else who expresses something similar to my peeve without using the word “meme,” Daniel calls me back into the fray with another flicker of patronizing sarcasm, adding the cowardly “Okay, I’ll stop picking on you now” to try to avoid responsibility for this after-the-dust-has-settled stirring up.
68. I finally display some anger—as forthrightly as possible; no sarcasm or oblique deniabilities—by asking Daniel to tell me explicitly why he’s so angry at me that he must expend so much emotional energy on seeking out opportunities to poke me with a stick.
70. Daniel ducks the question by saying that since the thread is “about peeves,” apparently that gives him license to continue to disguise his personal insults toward me as general, boardwide “peeves.”
72. I follow up by repeating my challenge to him to start a Pit thread and criticize me directly, so that I can respond without appearing to be so “defensive.” [His strategy, I’m thinking—slipping into the language of paranoia at this point—is that, if he disguises his personal attacks against me as boardwide “peeves,” then I can’t respond to them without making myself look defensive. In effect, I’m thinking, he’s poking a stick in my cage when everyone else’s back is turned, and when I swat the stick and snarl, he goes all wideyed “What? I din’t do nothin’!”]
78. I respond to tomndebb’s suggested alternatives by sarcastically and obliquely (and therefore hypocritically) suggesting that I’ll just be more careful when Daniel is around.
80. Daniel responds by pointing out that he didn’t kill my puppy.
96. Bippy asks me to clarify an earlier response, in re the universality of the usage of “meme” that I was employing in my initial post.
97. Daniel, unable to pass up an opportunity get the “fight” going again, responds to Bippy’s question—explicitly addressed to me—by speaking for me. First off, he acknowledges that my position would normally be his position too (“I’m not a big fan of saying that a word’s use is incorrect”)—thereby making it clearer to me (YMMV) that his position here is based not on the objective merits of the argument, but on the fact that he is so emotionally invested in disagreeing with lissener, specifically, for purely personal reasons. Again; could be paranoia. You decide. Anyway, he continues in this post to restate his case that I use the word “meme” specifically to insult other people’s intelligence. This still bewilders me.
100. I respond to Bippy’s question before having seen Daniel’s cooption of it, by honestly answering it with the clarification he asked for.
101. Having continued down the thread, I discover Daniel’s attempt to answer for me, and I respond sarcastically. I’m still bewildered by Daniel’s apparent need to continue to be so entangled in me and my participation in this discussion, even with other posters. He scares me a little bit, you know? How this thread seems to be, for him, more about me than about anything else?
102. I reply to Daniel’s post, specifically, by attempting to demonstrate the illogic of his objections. There is sarcasm in my response. I end by suggesting that Daniel needed to stop thinking about me, and with a lame “joke” about meditation/medication.
104. Mr. Dibble, like other posters before him, continues to try to make it clear that my usage of the word is not, in fact, “peculiar to” me, as Daniel has insisted.
105. Knorf drives by and accuses me of taking myself too seriously. Whatever; I ignore it.
107. Brynda jumps in feet first, “warning” Knorf that I am going to “attack” him now. [Having just gone back over this thread post by post, the sense of her attack on my character—and I use that word advisedly—continues to elude me. No doubt some of you who will respond to this new thread will point out my “history” in these forums, but Brynda, wide eyed, denies all knowledge of such history.] She follows this incendiary insult—a preemptive accusation of an “attack” that was not coming; I’d already read and ignored Knorf’s driveby—with a bit of grandmotherly advice whose tone of sarcasm and patronizingness (there’s got to be a better word) is made clear by the attack that preceded it. If she’d only said “take a deep breath . . .” I might not have read it as sarcastic and patronizing. I’d have sighed in frustration that my defensiveness seemed worthy of admonishment, while Daniel’s childish stick-poking didn’t. But I doubt I’d have responded at all.
109. I respond to what feels like a very personal, and very wrongheaded, attack on my character, with a sarcastic promise to be less passionate in defending myself against dishonesty, and another reference to Daniel’s hypocrisy. I include, among the sarcasm, a request that Brynda reread my posts from a different perspective.
110. A fragmented followup, where I ask Brynda for evidence of what made her characterize my defensiveness as an “attack.” I acknowledge my tendency to defensiveness, and that in over 7,000 posts I have admittedly “attacked” another poster unnecessarily maybe a handful of times (I can think of only one offhand; sorry Eve), and ask Brynda to explain her perception that I am an “attacker.”
111. Brynda uses this very post, my RESPONSE to her accusation, as her only evidence that her accusation had merit. Even if my response can be called an “attack,” I’d have to call entrapment. She then goes on to characterize it as “overly defensive,” as if that’s the same thing as “attacking.”
113. I respond by pointing out that “defense” is not the same thing as “attack.”
114. –and I ask again for an example of what the hell she’s talking about, and ask her to imagine what it feels like to be repeatedly, and dishonestly, accused of something you haven’t done, before she dismisses my defensiveness.
115. Brynda responds by continuing her revisionist backpedaling and refusing to accept responsibility for her preemptive accusation that I was about to egregiously attack Knorf. She continues to use “attack” and “get defensive” interchangeably. She denies all knowledge of Daniel’s and others tiresome use of the viral factoid that “lissener attacks people who disagree with him” and claims that her prediction that I was about to “attack” Knorf was based entirely on this thread. [This is what sent me back over the thread, post by post, and brought us to where we find ourselves right now. If she was going to refuse to cite examples of where my behavior justified her use of the word “attack,” I was gonna hafta dig out the smoking gun on my own. Again, I can’t for the life of me figure out what I said, between my initial post and her preemptive accusation, that would justify such an incendiary attack.] She describes my exchanges with Daniel as “batshit” seemingly trying to justify her incendiary attack by mischaracterizing my posts up a notch or nine to “batshit.” (I still don’t see it.) She finishes with a justification for using “attack” and “get defensive” interchangeably. [And the countdown begins . . . when will Daniel attack Brynda for sloppy word usage?]
116. I quote my initial response to Daniel, and ask Brynda to point to the “batshit,” and attempt to point out the backpedaling in her previous response. I further make a melodramatic manifesto-y statement about refusing, from here on out, to take unfounded accusations based on viral factoids lying down.
121. Brynda replies with the general characterization of the entire thread as her evidence, and continues not citing an example of where I went “batshit.” She continues to claim innocence of any larger context for my defensive, and continues not citing where, in this thread, I justified her mischaracterization of my behavior. She also restates her amusing little tale that her insulting and incendiary preemptive accusation was, in fact, grandmotherly concern.
123. I allow her transparent dishonesty and patronizingness (patronization? patronage? patrimony? Ooh! I got it!)—her santimony—to finally push me over the edge into namecalling. I continue to demand that she take responsibility for her words, and provide me with some example of what the hell I said to justify her “warning” to Knorf.
