Wanna conduct a straw poll, see how many folks find the post you quoted more condescending than the post that started this whole thing off?
I don’t think my post was condescending at all–it makes me wonder, again, whether you know what the word means. Self-righteous and arrogant, maybe, but not condescending. If others see it as condescending, though, I’d genuinely like to know.
Daniel
You’re right; referring to Frank’s characterization of RickJay’s post as an “honest question” as disingenuous is perhaps an overstatement. Only, RickJay’s disingenuousness seemed so blatantly obvious to me that I was knee-jerk suspicious of anyone who could refer to it as honest. That does not necessarily mean, as you point out, that Frank was being disingenuous. You, sir, on the other hand, are an entirely dishonest debater who has absolutely zero shame when it comes to finding slippery ways to back out of the actual discussion at hand in order to avoid any possibility of an appearance of “losing” the argument. You employ, most frequently, the classic strategy of using many the same words, so that you appear to be discussing the subject at hand, only you begin using them in slightly different context. Thus, whenever an argument isn’t going in your favor, you divert it only subtly enough to appear to remain on topic, when if fact you’re now actually talking about the context of the topic, for example, or “defining terms,” or whatever. Taking the word “condescending” in this discussion, for example, and diverting it from describing my treatment of the subject of Edie Sedgwick, to, now, describing my treatment of being accused of condescension in the discussion of Edie Sedgwick. Thus I have todefend myself afresh, only–hey, how’d you do that?!?–now I have to start all over defending an entirely new post. The nice thing about this technique–of which you are truly a master, Dan–is that it’s possible to keep it going infinitely: a subtle correction here and there, and you can outlast any debate opponent, as you shift the ground beneath him just enough to keep him distracted, while you sit calmly filing your nails and giving off a scent of incense and piety.
Barf.
Whatever, man. As I’ve said before, I think you’re pathologically unaware of your own peccadilloes, and I’ll put my honesty against yours any day. The only way you avoid dishonesty, IMO, is through pathology.
Daniel
Nice. Because the sampling of people who would even bother to participate this far along in lissener-pileon couldn’t possibly be biased. Dude, you are good.
Which is why I invited folks to let me know, not just offered to do a straw poll. You have a few defenders in this thread; I invite them to let me know if that post was condescending.
Do you see how you’re doing exactly what you’re accusing me of doing–i.e., subtly changing what’s being discussed in order to make the other person look bad? Or are you too wrapped up in your insane belief that I’m dishonest to really evaluate your own self?
Daniel
I’m not really sure how anyone misinterpreted lissener’s answer. He was, in his own words, lamenting sweeping cultural illiteracy, which was obviously in response to what he felt was RickJay’s personal cultural illiteracy, by not knowing some two-bit “celebrity” who died 35 years ago.
The reality is that lissener had a senior moment (his words), where events and people that were widely known in his youth are now unknown to today’s youth. He, unfortunately, calls it illiteracy, rather than understanding that people of different generations just focus on different things.
Of course, you and lissener feel that calling someone ignorant or illiterate is nothing more than an innocent remark. Somehow, with all of your intellect, you can’t wrap your mind around the idea that people consider it insulting. So, the both of you sit on the same side of an argument, again, wondering why so many people think you’re condescending jerks.
And . . . you turn your opponent’s argument back on itself! An extra point for difficulty! Man, if there were a Nobel prize in bullshit, dude . . . You change the subject in order to avoid engaging the actual subject, but my merely pointing that out is . . . changing the subject! And even while doing so, you divert another degree, and deflect the light of exposure off of yourself and back to me, at yet another level of remove from the original subject. You are unstoppable. You have me beat. I honestly cannot think of another tack. I call you Uncle.
I’m sure you can’t. And I have the answer to my original question, which was whether you could see the condescension in three different posts of yours. The answer seems to be that you can see it in two of the posts (and consider it justified, which wasn’t part of my question but was nonetheless interesting). As for the third post, you can’t even see that question–and the extent of your inability to see it is so great that you accuse me of dishonesty for failing to ask it.
Remarkable. I suppose that, given this level of looniness, resorting to accusations of dishonesty against me is all you have. In any case, I’ve got my answer, and I’ll stop now.
Daniel
Last word.
I hope this doesn’t count as cheating, because I’m changing the subject: I just want you to know that when I respond to your posts in Cafe Society (as I’m getting ready to do), I’m not doing it to prove a point; I really do think your thoughts on film are interesting and insightful. Just so you know.
Daniel
This is where we’re never going to agree. I did think of it as an honest question. A surprised or perhaps bewildered one. One that you could have answered off the top of your head, but you couldn’t be bothered to.
Well, we weren’t going to say anything but…
“Who the hell is Edie Sedgwick?”
Honestly, it’s six words. “Disingenuousness?” Are you insane in addition to being an asshole? Really, how is it possible to so ridiculously deconstruct a six-word, off-the-cuff sentence? I’ve explained what I meant. I’ve even admitted I did a bad job expressing myself and shouldn’t have typed that. Bad phrasing is not “disingenuousness.”
The thing is, I’m a jerk once, twice a month, and when it happens, I usually admit it. That six-word sentence was my one for October. You’re a shithead 365 days a year and you just keep on proving it.
I must admit, though, that’s it’s tremendously fun watching you make stuff up in an effort to sound really smart.
Sigh. Your disingenuousness in trying to sell that thread-shit as an honest question, retard.
I tried to sell it as an honest question? When? Do you even know what “disingenuousness” means?
The thing is, I’ve admitted I shouldn’t have posted that. Mea culpa, it was a dumb thing to type. Really; I completely, totally agree with the criticism that’s been levelled my way in that regard, at least by everyone who actually offered criticism, as opposed to your stupidity and weird, off-the-wall interpretations of what was, really, a throwaway line.
Yet you keep bullshitting. It’s amusing, but kind of weird. You’re very, very nuts.
I think you’ve missed the point of Miller’s comment.
He was twitting Equipose for claiming lissener’s jerkishness wasn’t, but that Frank (and RickJay, and everyone else who can read English properly) was ‘just reading it that way’, not defending RickJay’s jerkishness.
In this thread I’ve criticized RickJay for being rude, lissener for being insulting, and both of them for exhibiting far more animosity than the issue merits. I have been told by Pitter and Pittee, respectively, that I am “absolutely right” and “right on all counts” (which, of course, I am). One might think this would follow:
Instead, this thread, this fray, this frayed thread, goes on. Lefty and lissener are happily accusing each other of condescension that reminds one of how the PRC and USSR used to while away the hours at the U.N.: “You seek hegemony!” “No, you seek hegemony!” “Reactionary!” “Antiprolitarian!”
“Jerkface!” RickJay pops back in to admit he was wrong, and also, unfortunately, to further admit that lissener is weird and stupid. And Equipoise, in a rare (for him) loss of balance, is nonetheless perched on lissener’s shoulder, whispering, “let’s you and them fight.”
Maybe it’s because there haven’t been any great big fun threads lately. A lot of us, me included, are abnormally irritable and aggressive, like kids cooped up too long indoors on a rainy day.
iow, status quo??
Oh, I suppose so. I should have said “seem abnormally aggressive,” because it could well be my self-serving mind telling me that it isn’t just me who’s sluggish and bored and irritable (and too often behaving badly because of it), that it’s happening to others too, and therefore it isn’t really my fault. There’s always contention, but the squabbling seems meaner now, both in the sense of nastiness and that of pettiness, and often both at once, with much less humor to make it palatable.
I know the SDMB hasn’t yet corrected the omission of “entertain the King of Soup” from it’s charter, and therefore can’t properly be held to account in a court of law, but lately I’m having less fun, and certainly I’m being less funny, than it would take to justify tolerating my own rudeness, never mind anyone else’s. Either way, both this little disquisition and the last one probably illuminate my own flaws and no one else’s.
Yeah, wull, he started it.