[QUOTE=Little Nemo]
It appears I have to go against the consensus of this thread.
ExtraKun, your “friend” was a jerk and obviously he wasn’t really your friend. Friends are supposed to support each other not tear each other down. You knew that; he didn’t.
As for the idea so many people have that this is “normal” behavior, I’m amazed. I guess I’m lucky to work in an environment where people genuinely work together.
[/QUOTE]
If you consider people offering one another relevant scholarly and intellectual criticism in a university environment to be “tear[ing] each other down,” you are sadly mistaken.
And such an exhange of ideas and opinions is, in fact, normal behaviour at any institution of learning worth its salt. Personally, i’m glad i work in an environment where people are able to disagree with one another and offer alternative interpretations without feeling like there’s some personal pissing contest or backstabbing involved.
I’m not arguing that academia is perfect; far from it. There are plenty of egos and self-important assholes with tenure, and there are some academics who tend to be selfish and destructive, rather than generous and constructive, with their criticism. I was at a seminar a couple of years ago where one of the interlocutors described the paper that had been presented as having “all the dramatic impact of a wet noodle.” That sort of put-down was unnecessary; it was perfectly possible to offer advice and criticism without beiong a dickhead about it.
Just out of interest, what should the OP’s friend had done in that situation? Should he have shut up and let the error (if it was an error) go uncorrected, just for the sake of the OP’s fragile ego? That would have been a disservice to the OP, and to the rest of the class.
As for you, ExtraKun, apart from whining about it on this message board, you should have handled it in class.
If your friend was wrong, as you assert, then you should have pointed out that he was wrong, and explained why your definition of “first mover advantage” was the correct one. You could have done this politely, while at the same time demonstrating to him, to the class, and to your professor, that you knew about your topic.
Cheesesteak, i agree that the OP should make clear to the professor that he was right. Actually, i’m curious as to why the professor didn’t know that the OP’s friend was wrong in the first place. If this is a business course, then “first mover advantage” should be part of the lexicon of every student in the class, and the professor should certainly know what it means.
I also concede that it’s possible that the OP’s friend did what he did just to make himself look good, and that his manner of criticism might have been inappropriate. But the idea that one should refrain from criticism or differences of opinion in these sorts of setting is just pointless and counterproductive, and it seemed that this was what got the OP so worked up, as he implies with his assertion that “The issue is not that you are right or not, though.” As far as i can tell, the OP would have thought his friend did the wrong thing, even if the friend’s definition of “first mover advantage” was correct.
