Well…if you’re counting…
My first impression of the SDMB was, ‘Cool, a place where some intelligent discourse/discussions etc can be had.’ The whole "fighting ignorance’ thing appealed to me.
However, after a [relatively brief] time my impression was changed. With some regularity a poster will comment on how the SDMB is a bastion of raw intellect and mental prowess, and go on about the high intellectual standards displayed here.
Every once in a while, however, some poster, in an-the-Emperor-has-no-clothes type comment will note that [in their view] the SDMB is no different than any other MB, favorite drinking hole or other hangout where people congregate to solve all the universe’s riddles.
And that’s my view. However, if any part of the SDMB makes the SDMB look juvenile, banal, sophmoric and just plain silly, it’s The Pit. If I were Ed Zotti (thankfully for all, I’m not) I’d be cringing at the standard fare being served up there, by the hour.
It’s not as if I’m horrified by profanity, or a well placed rant. I remember someone chastising my view, saying the Pit was the place for “well crafted invective.” But I have never seen such a thing. (that I can remember) Every single day there are posts after posts, remarkable only for their indiscriminte use of profanity.(for apparently no purpose than they can)
They’re also remarkable on just how unremarkable they can be. Rants about small, petty garden variety life stuff warrants 5 paragraphs, replete with heavy doses of “fck", "cnt” and other sundry nonsense. Somebody didn’t fill the toner on the copier, someone cut me off in traffic, my boss is a jerk, a clerk at Wendy’s was rude/stupid, the newest video game sucks and on and on and on and on.
It gets so tiring.
Even the truly pitworthy-----Dubyas’ a good example---- is reduced to 'W’s a fing ct motherfu**ng lying babykilling idiot!!! ’
This is “well crafted invective?”
Lastly, I remain puzzled at the mindset that the banner “The BBQ Pit” absolves you from the basic things that make you a part of a civil, intelligent society. You don’t like my views in our discussion in GD, or IMHO? That’s cool. Meander on over to the Pit and call me every filthy name you can think of.
Is that fighting ignorance? Or breeding it?
In a society that increasingly frowns on indicriminate profanity in the workplace, we come here and spew filth at our bosses. (and others, even clerks at stores) Why? I suspect because of the [relative] anonymity. You wouldn’t go to a co-worker and call your [mutual] boss a “c*nt.” You’d be seen as crass, maybe even ignorant or uneducated. Why do it here?
The expected response is, “You don’t have to read it.” That’s a valid point. But I submit that there is a valid general impression that the higher the intellect, the higher the education, the less the indiscriminite use of profanity. IMO, an intelligent person uses profanity discriminately, with precision, and for a pointed effect, not as a blunt instrument or to carpet bomb. But that’s just what is seen daily there.
That’s just my opinion. But I agree that The Pit degrades the overall intellectaul tenor here. There is never a valid reason, in my view, to denigrate another human being because you disagree with them. Often, my general impression of the Pit is that it’s populated with a collection of college kids who still think it’s cool to call someone a “c*nt.”
There is a place for rants, and “well crafted invective.” But not everyone can discern the [less then] subtle differences between invading Iraq and not getting salt packets at the Wendy’s drive through, or how to use the word “f*ck” so as to not bludgeon.
I say: close it down. We’ll all look smarter. Leave the well crafted invectives to the professionals. Not everyone can be a Chapelle or Stewart. Some things just shouldn’t be attempted at home.