# Silenus, you failed the emotional intelligence test **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [July 25, 2006, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silenus-you-failed-the-emotional-intelligence-test/365944 "2006-07-25T12:47:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Walter\_Windchill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Walter\_Windchill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walter_Windchill)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2006, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silenus-you-failed-the-emotional-intelligence-test/365944/41 "2006-07-25T20:40:39Z")
I tend to find the OMG TEH OUTRAGE!!11! threads pretty tiresome myself. But not as tiresome as the nearly bottomless pit of smug superiority harbored by the netizens of this particular board. It seems to have climaxed in this case, with a fellow saying that a widower “doesn’t get a pass” for his grief, for whatever perceived wrong he committed in articulating that grief. Really, however you try to justify it, it’s a pretty strange society where some random stranger decides he has the authority to grant or deny “a pass” to the victims of tragedies based on whatever third-hand testimony he’s collected about their behavior in the midst of that tragedy. In short, it’s fucked up. ---
**Author:** ![Walter\_Windchill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Walter\_Windchill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walter_Windchill)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2006, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silenus-you-failed-the-emotional-intelligence-test/365944/42 "2006-07-25T20:42:30Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > I wouldn’t go so far as to call it “witless, casual judgmentalism,” though. Do you suppose that it was witty, then, or that it was carefully considered? I think he’s already conceded it was neither. ---
**Author:** ![D\_Odds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/d_odds/32/2882_2.png) [@D\_Odds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Odds)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2006, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silenus-you-failed-the-emotional-intelligence-test/365944/43 "2006-07-25T20:43:14Z")
> [@Captain Amazing](#): > > The original thread was the standard, “Oh, let me post about some tragedy that I read about in the world and feel morally superior because I’m outraged on behalf of the victims” pit thread. True, but to break it down to a finer level, it was “Rich, white, self-important yuppie talking on cell phone while driving runs over Hispanic wife and mother - why hasn’t he been executed yet?!” Amazing how the reader can fill in the details when there is a lack of them in the source material. ---
**Author:** ![Cluricaun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/bb73d2/32.png) [@Cluricaun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cluricaun)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2006, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silenus-you-failed-the-emotional-intelligence-test/365944/44 "2006-07-25T20:44:35Z")
> [@Walter Windchill](#): > > But not as tiresome as the nearly bottomless pit of smug superiority harbored by the netizens of this particular board. Of which there are many flavors… :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Walter\_Windchill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Walter\_Windchill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walter_Windchill)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2006, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silenus-you-failed-the-emotional-intelligence-test/365944/45 "2006-07-25T20:52:18Z")
> [@Cluricaun](#): > > Of which there are many flavors… :rolleyes: Oh, forgive me for my meta-smugness. I’ll be good. Just don’t roll your emoticon eyes at me anymore! ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2006, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silenus-you-failed-the-emotional-intelligence-test/365944/46 "2006-07-25T20:53:56Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > I was not aware that was a requirement for empathy. It certainly helps. It’s one thing to care about people you know, but another thing to care about strangers. ---
**Author:** ![Cluricaun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/bb73d2/32.png) [@Cluricaun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cluricaun)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2006, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silenus-you-failed-the-emotional-intelligence-test/365944/47 "2006-07-25T21:13:01Z")
> [@Walter Windchill](#): > > Oh, forgive me for my meta-smugness. I’ll be good. Just don’t roll your emoticon eyes at me anymore! Look, you got bent all out of shape over an off the cuff observational remark made by a poster with a good history of appropriately sympathetic posts, and got your undies so in a bunch that you started this rather lame pitting. Then, to top it off you shoot yourself in the foot by carping on about others smugness, when really all you’re doing here is wanking on about your own superior sense of uber empathy and others (god forbid) lack thereof, which is just fucking boring. But please, prattle on. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2006, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silenus-you-failed-the-emotional-intelligence-test/365944/48 "2006-07-25T21:21:14Z")
> [@Walter Windchill](#): > > Do you suppose that it was witty, then, or that it was carefully considered? I think he’s already conceded it was neither. Precisely. Because if it can’t be one thing, it must be that thing’s exact opposite. > [@Captain Amazing](#): > > It certainly helps. It’s one thing to care about people you know, but another thing to care about strangers. No, I’m pretty sure it’s all the same thing. The only difference is a matter of degree. I wouldn’t expect someone to break down in tears because they read a newstory about a guy seeing his wife killed suddenly and violently. Genuine _sympathy_ to the sufferings of strangers is very difficult. No one is expected to feel this man’s loss as their own. Empathy, however, is a basic component of a functioning human being. A person who cannot feel empathy to the suffering of a stranger is lacking something vital to his own humanity. Mind, I’m not saying that about **silenus** , who clearly does have empathy for the situation: he understands that such an experience is emotionally devastating. His objection in the original thread was to his perception that the husband’s comment did not seem to properly reflect the level of grief he should be experiencing. All **silenus** was guilty of in the orginal thread was an ignorance of the variety of ways grief can manifest. While such ignorance should be corrected, it was not necessary to condemn it with the venom and condescension displayed by the OP. ---
**Author:** ![Autumn\_Almanac](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d26b3c/32.png) [@Autumn\_Almanac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Autumn_Almanac)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2006, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silenus-you-failed-the-emotional-intelligence-test/365944/49 "2006-07-25T22:03:36Z")
Paul McCartney was a young teenager when his mother died of cancer. Reportedly, his immediate response to the news was, “What will we do without her money?” ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2006, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silenus-you-failed-the-emotional-intelligence-test/365944/50 "2006-07-25T22:58:06Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > I take my pitting with what I hope is a fitting dignity. > > Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. I hate the phrase “class act” because it sounds cheesy to me, and is also completely alien. However, the SMDB has both introduced me to it, and educated me to its meaning. Therefore, in the spirit of what it means, but without using the actual phrase, I must say you’ve hopefully killed this thread, in the best possible way. Fair play to you. ---
**Author:** ![Walter\_Windchill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Walter\_Windchill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walter_Windchill)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2006, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silenus-you-failed-the-emotional-intelligence-test/365944/51 "2006-07-25T23:02:19Z")
> [@Cluricaun](#): > > Look, you got bent all out of shape over an off the cuff observational remark made by a poster with a good history of appropriately sympathetic posts, and got your undies so in a bunch that you started this rather lame pitting. Then, to top it off you shoot yourself in the foot by carping on about others smugness, when really all you’re doing here is wanking on about your own superior sense of uber empathy and others (god forbid) lack thereof, which is just fucking boring. > > But please, prattle on. You’re not qualified to comment on either my shape or my undies, and your observation about uber-smugness is trite and banal. Surely there is a state between such holier-than-thouness that one second guesses the blathering of the quite recently bereaved, and a jesus-like absolvement and forgiveness of all people, however arrogant and judgmental. For example, there may be a state of frustration with that holier-than-thouness by those with a modicum of who-the-fuck-am-i-to-judge, expressing itself as simple “who-the-fuck-are-you” style “pitting”. I hope to occupy that state, but I doubt you follow me. Like so many of these boardlings, you see all moral and ethical debates as some rhetorical pissing contest. You don’t spend one second thinking about the widowed man, but every second watching carefully, waiting for the opportunity to measure your moral prick against that of another. I find that strange, and sad. In the REAL world, anyone judging the recently widowed would be an absolute prick, an intolerable asshole, a smug shit worth nothing but a good booting, and anyone saying so would be nothing but a normal person. To see those as equivlent puts you in the realm of those who have spent so much time in their online judging they can no longer see a difference. ---
**Author:** ![Cluricaun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/bb73d2/32.png) [@Cluricaun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cluricaun)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2006, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silenus-you-failed-the-emotional-intelligence-test/365944/52 "2006-07-25T23:29:06Z")
Enough. \*\*Miller \*\*\* and \*\*Jjim \*\* have gotten this one to bed both eloquently and with aplomb, and I was just being defensive of a poster I appreciate, albeit not with the grace or style possible with those two. Take a step away from the keyboard for a bit and we’ll talk about something more fun than this pissing match in the next thread we bump into each other in, I have no real bones to pick with you. ---
**Author:** ![Cluricaun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/bb73d2/32.png) [@Cluricaun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cluricaun)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2006, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silenus-you-failed-the-emotional-intelligence-test/365944/53 "2006-07-25T23:30:20Z")
\*I have no idea why I put a star next to **Miller** ’s name. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2006, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silenus-you-failed-the-emotional-intelligence-test/365944/54 "2006-07-26T00:19:40Z")
> [@Cluricaun](#): > > \*I have no idea why I put a star next to **Miller** ’s name. Gold star for a good argument? 😃 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silenus-you-failed-the-emotional-intelligence-test/365944.md?page=2)