I’m not disputing that Sampiro was needlessly insulting to you in his response, nor that his style tends to wander toward opacity with each erudite digression. However, no matter how much you insist that a reference equals an equivalence, he did not compare his own writings with those of Shakespeare. Rather, he offered Shakespeare’s style as a counterexample to Shakespeare’s own aphorism.
It’s a lousy example, if that’s what you take it as, because Shakespeare clearly agrees with the sentiment: that is, it’s funny because Polonius clearly needs to shut the fuck up, or at least needs to quit wandering around the point and get to it. It’s also a lousy counterexample because I wasn’t discussing a work of primarily aesthetic value, in which side-trips can be useful; I was discussing an expository piece, and it turns out that Shakespeare was indirectly and cleverly critiquing Polonius’s obnoxiously overlong exposition.
It only works as a counterexample if Sampiro’s posts share relevant facets with Shakespeare’s plays, that is, if they’re works of great aesthetic value whose value will be diminished by cutting to the chase.
I read it. It wasn’t “incredibly insulting.” It was hilarious and insightful, with a delightful spice of snark, in the best traditions of The Straight Dope. (You *are *familiar with Cecil, right? Like, you’ve read the columns?)
Was it a bit condescending? Sure. Did you apparently deserve it? Hell yes.
Thus: backfire. You expected everybody to come in and say, “Gee, LHoD, that **Sampiro **sure is a Meany McJerkface.” Instead, we’re laughing *at *you.
Speak for yourself. I don’t see a consensus in this thread, and I know that I thought Sampiro was being a condescending jerk in the thread the OP’s about.
I know he can be funny, but I really haven’t seen anyone come up with a good reason that rambling on for hundreds of unrelated words is acceptable in GD. At* best*, it’s intentionally hijacking a thread over and over again. Hell, I’m half surprised he didn’t get any moderator admonishment for it.
Which is it? Do I grasp the irony or do I not? One of your posts implies I do and the other implies I don’t.
Oh, sure, 100% of people aren’t here laughing in LHoD, but enough of us are that the thread clearly isn’t having the intended effect. Look how much of the first page is about what a weak pitting this is.
Sampiro would be a strong contender for most popular poster on the board. I doubt that LHoD was hoping to start a dogpile —just to let off some steam. I certainly would never dare hope for a change in behaviour from Sampiro!
The point of it is explained in my response to Miller. Mission accomplished. If you thinkI had a different point, that’s awesome, but you’re wrong. Indeed, as I’ve said before, it accomplished something unintended: I learned something about what writing styles other folks like in GD. That’s what decent people do when confronted with constructive criticism: they learn from it.
Hey, I was right!
Wow, that never happens.
Sampiro, I don’t really care whether you grasp the irony. If you do, you were disingenuous in implying it was ironic for a different reason; if you don’t, then maybe you’ll learn something here. Either way, it was Poloniusesque behavior to respond as you did (with a rambling, self-important defense of the importance of your rambling), and you became part of the phrase’s ironic tradition.
Uh huh. Sure.
That’s his style, and I like it. So do quite a few other people. That’s why it’s “acceptable” (I mean, aside from the fact that it’s a public message board, which really trumps all other reasons).
What are you "Uh huh. Sure"ing? That Left Hand of Dorkness learned something about the preferences of others? (Any incorrect prior assumptions he had, he apologized for on the first page of this thread.) Or that he was able to get his feelings toward Sampiro off his chest? Or what?
I don’t care one iota about Sampiro (or about LHoD, frankly), but he was very clearly being a condescending douchebag in the linked thread, and to that extent he deserved this pitting. Whatever you think of Sampiro generally, however much you enjoy his style of posting, I’m utterly baffled that anyone would argue otherwise about his poor, pissy behavior.
Returning to John Brown for a moment- mentioned because it will have bearing later:
12th of May, 1856: The Sacking of Lawrence, Kansas
The anti-slavery faction and the pro-slavery faction had reached fever pitch in their tensions and on the date above a “posse” that was really much more a private militia of “Slavocrats” as they were sometimes called attacked Lawrence, Kansas. There was major property damage- some buildings were burned and printing presses destroyed- and some people were injured, but nobody was killed. (Actually not quite true: one person was killed but he was one of the raiding party and his death was an accident.)
The fact the mob was led by a sherriff of course made it worse. Retaliation was absolutely unavoidable. For that matter had the citizens of Lawrence killed some of the raiders during the raid it would have been completely justifiable, but they didn’t.
John Brown led the retaliation. Two weeks later he rode out with his sons and some other antislavery Lawrence area citizens (having to first promise his wife and his oldest son he wouldn’t do anything rash) to the pro slave settlements along Pottawatomie Creek and during the night they make three stops during which Brown, who clearly did not consider himself bound by the “eye for an eye/tooth for a tooth” limitations of the Bible or the law, ordered the deaths of three men, all of whom had been disarmed. It’s unclear who killed who, but it’s known that Brown himself killed at least one and that the others were killed on his orders.
Again, had these men been killed in the Sacking of Lawrence (which they were not all involved with) it would have been a death in combat. Being disarmed, taken captive, and forced to kneel and then being killed was murder, there’s no other word for it, the same as if an American P.O.W. was beheaded or shot by Middle Eastern terrorists today. Brown was responding to the raid on Kansas not by making a similar strike on pro-slavery forces but by deliberately and savagely killing unarmed men; in other words he was scaring the shit out of the pro-slavery forces, or- he was making “calculated use of violence against civilians in order to attain political goals”, or as it’s known in legal circles, terrorism. The result is Bleeding Kansas, in which hundreds of men will die in the next few months in a miniature unofficial war.
More later- probably much later as busy at the moment-
If this was our workplace, and we all had piles of projects on our desks but the boss called us into the conferece room for a meeting to decide if John Brown was a terrorist (I don’t know about you, but I’ve been called to weirder meetings than that), then yes, tangents are not welcome.
But this isn’t a business meeting, it’s a conversation. Everybody brings an opinion to a conversation, but only a boor brings an agenda.
Perhaps, but I don’t believe anybody would say that LHOD was blameless either, and I’m talking attitude and not just his absurd simplification of history (slaveowners were worse than Nazis so killing them was always good and no understanding of the time is needed).
So you apologize for criticizing something that you then criticize again. While I firmly believe it is incumbent upon all civilized people to accept any apology given with the degree of sincerity in which it was given there’s obviously no sincerity there, so I’ll say with brevity “take one big step back and FUCK YOURSELF IN THE FACE!” (with appropriate citation to Les Grossman). You and I have been arguing the same stupid-ass comparison of slavery to the Holocaust for six yearsand your meritless ahistorical non-arguments are officially old with you demonstrating the same complete lack of understanding or willingness to study the area each and either twisting or just completely disregarding my comments every goddamned time, so I’m tired of it and I don’t particularly give one good goddamn whether you like or dislike my writing style because I think you are a fucking moron.
Setting aside the fact that, having tromped over the rules in GD, you can’t even bring yourself to obey the simpler ones in the pit, you’ll note that I qualified my apology to apologizing for criticizing it in GD. I was also apologizing for suggesting it was a flaw; my second “criticism” of it simply stated a personal opinion, namely, that they annoy the shit out of me. Which they do.
And no, I wasn’t blameless in GD–thus my apology for my behavior there.
Yes, it’s a conversation–but it’s a directed one. Obviously I prefer a little more direction to the debate.
Your hypothetical is interesting: I do have piles of work in my life these days, and I have relatively little time for debates like this, so when I come to them, I like them to be focused. I don’t have hours to compose long lengthy rambling monologues on the topic, nor do I especially have the energy to read them. Things that attain are welcome, but for me, for now, things that don’t attain are unwelcome.
Again, personal taste, but a pretty strong one.
Man, thats one wordy way to say “fuck you”.
Just sayin.