02-14-2017, 03:58 PM
(02-14-2017, 02:48 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote:I've been holding back on this issue for some time, so here goes...(02-10-2017, 07:45 PM)SomeGuy Wrote: > Look, I am not emotionally invested in anything that happens on
> this board, and when I start to become so, I leave for an extended
> period of time. I don't hold grudges, and I am here because I
> genuinely want to discuss certain issues that I can't in real life
> outside friends/family, not all of whom read as widely as I do.
> So, provided someone, say, refrains from repeatedly implying that
> I am a liar and/or a moron, I am happy to be (reasonably) civil.
> I got out of the Army almost seven years ago, and at that time I,
> barring possibly law enforcement officials, lost my legal
> obligations to respond politely to "Hey, Fuckface"-type comments
> from my elders.
Well, thanks for that description. Since I'm committed to writing
about Generational Dynamics every day, I don't have the
option to leave, so I have to stay and fight it out every time.
I was perhaps unfair in accusing you of using the "bait and mock"
technique and calling you a troll, but in my own defense
I did tell you the reasons why, and I accepted your explanation
and apologized.
As you know, I get attacked by a lot of people. Last year I was a
special target of paid Russian trolls, though they seem to be backing
off now, since they aren't getting anywhere with me. But I get
attacked from all angles. Here is a sample list of things that I've
been accused of: I'm a neocon, I'm a Communist, I'm a Fascist, I'm a
libtard, I only read the liberal media, I only read the conservative
media, Soros is paying me, the cia is paying me, the pentagon is
paying me, I'm a Russian troll, I'm a liberal trojan horse sent to
destroy conservatism from within, I'm not even a man, I'm uneducated,
I'm naive, I'm stupid, I've never actually been to Azerbaijan, I've
been coasting entirely off the history I learned in middle school, I'm
fake news, I'm a pathetic propagandist, I'm irrational, I'm tabloid
garbage, I'm a mentally unhinged writer, I'm a lunatic, etc., etc.,
etc., etc. So I've developed an arsenal of techniques for responding
to attacks. Lately I've been trying the "whatever" technique, which
may work better than simply calling someone an idiot, which really
only works about half the time, and so isn't particularly effective.
I haven't been called a Fuckface, but the day is still young.
By the way, my father loved the Encyclopædia Britannica, and we
always had it around.
I, too, have walked away from this forum once before--only to embrace it again--for much the same reasons cited by SomeGuy. (I, for one, would hate to see him go.) One of the main attractions of The Fourth Turning for me was its nonpartisan approach to generational theory. Indeed, the book struck me as distinctly apolitical, and at a time when the political passions of the Left and Right were running hot--and still are. I'd like to think this forum is an "oasis of civility in an increasingly uncivil society." That would be the ideal anyway. The webmaster should be committed--and I'm not saying he isn't--to keeping comments civil. But too often, some of the overheated rhetoric on this forum has been an affront to standards of civility. Allowing trolls to blog unchecked and uncensored on this forum runs the same risk as that stated in Gresham's Law: the bad drives out the good.
I blog on this forum, not for affirmation, but to have my views challenged, perhaps even changed by dint of some reasoning much more persuasive than my own. I was not the kind of school teacher who stood in front of the class with arms folded and dared the students to disagree with me. (Quite the contrary, it was actually very hard to elicit any debate at all by the time I left the teaching profession in 2003.) On this forum I expect a civil and spirited debate, one that offers sound arguments and counterarguments. And, yes, pushback that exposes my own faulty logic or political hypocrisy. I'm not looking to form a Mutual Admiration Society with anyone here. I might agree with you wholeheartedly one moment but then stringently disagree with you in the next.
Having said that, though, I will admit that I do not suffer fools gladly. By that, I mean--first and foremost--mean people. If you cannot best my argument by superior reason, I will no longer deign to debate you if all you have by way of rebuttal are ad hominen attacks. There's quite enough of that already in our body politic today. And by the way that didn't start with Millennials. Check out the heated exchange between William F. Buckley and Gore Vidal in the historical documentary The Best of Enemies, if you want to trace where our split-screen TV shout-fests originated.
So all I can say in conclusion is: Practice tact. I struggle with that myself sometimes.
