Life as a Dandy Warhols single
Gustav said:
depends on the severity of the illness, dont you think?
could it be possible they have their lucid moments and waste it by being whiny cunts?
Entirely possible. But that lucidity occurs within what boundaries? One who becomes acutely aware of their own frailty in excess of the regularly expected human condition generally responds.
I know that among depressives, many spend their lucid moments trying to figure out the nature of their sadness and why it occurs. The cynical, of course, find this obsessively self-centered, but life is what it is, and one cannot prescribe a solution unless the problem is understood.
a quick aside
i think the churchill/disraeli exchange might have never taken place
There is some seed of truth within the myth. Perhaps it was one of those things that woke someone up in the middle of the night with a jolt:
That's what I should have said!
More to the point, though, there
are more subtle, complex, and appreciable ways of zinging someone. Xev, for instance, while often a bit too deliberate, generally favored the deeper cut.
Why not just razz the other and shout, "Nanny nanny booger!" or some such.
We see the problem in myriad manifestations. It is, indeed, easier to stoop into the gutter to match one's neighbor than to raise the other from the mire. And I think we all know I'm qualified by experience to say that.
And still even closer to the point is the fact that the
cunt suspensions weren't just about the word. It was about choosing a deliberately provocative, intellectually flatlined method of disagreeing with a decision.
There was an occasion that a member I'm well known to disagree with was repeatedly posting vile bigotry in my jurisdiction. I exercised my authority without suspending him, only to have him argue in the thread. This is generally out of bounds in my territory, and he was thus advised. We exchanged a number of private messages, and as the situation became irreconcilable, I advised my colleagues of what was going on. At some point, based on the absolutely stupid and utterly ridiculous nature of the member's tantrum, one of my colleagues stepped in and sent him on a week-long vacation.
To the other, more reasonable appeals have had positive effect including retraction of moderator ruling.
It's not
just calling a bunch of people cunts. The final straw leading to suspension was other conduct related to that decision. It isn't
just calling the president by his middle name. It was the disingenuous and combative defense combined with a useless attack. If you try to kick a lion in the sac, don't complain if you get your foot bitten off. Look around. People insult the living fuck out of one another around here every day. What gets them sent is when that's all they do, or if they simply refuse lesser sanction.
In the real world, if you go around treating people that way, you either get pummeled in the alley or hauled off to a cell. If this community is to be remotely microcosmic of reality, well? Shall we leave people to get pummeled in the alley?
What if it was you getting thrashed on the street. Sure, I have some affection for your quirky aggression, but what if the beat cop recognizes you and shrugs it off. "Let him get his ass kicked. He's an ornery prig." Cop wouldn't be doing his job, right?
Well, we
are the beat cops. And after a while, it gets a bit tiresome trying to decide where a back-alley beat-down goes from a silly slappy fight to a full-on whooping. And if you watch—and not even particularly closely—we let plenty of silly slappies go on around here.
If our community is microcosmic, it is distortedly so. The few of an older generation than mine are not exactly normal. A couple, for instance, is of the deviantly cool sort. Another is of a nature that I should forego describing in the name of civility. And still another is just fucking crazy. But none match the statistical norm.
Of the younger generation we've seen pass through here over the years, they might fit the profile for youthful zeal, but they deviate in being smarter than average. Back in the day we had a few that were actually
really smart. One would hope their time here didn't warp their expectations of reality too much.
The connections between our corner of the webworld and real life are tenuous and analogous. Comparisons only go so far.
Sunday evening, driving home, I listened to NPR's
On the Media. They ran an episode on technology and the internet. One segment, "
Smirch Engine", discussed the cruelty of the internet:
BOB GARFIELD: Millions of blogs, websites and comment boards provide millions of opportunities for someone to insult you, to float rumors about you, tell lies about you, reveal secrets about you, host compromising photos of you and otherwise make your life a living hell.
You have very little to fear from 1984 but every reason to quake about Lord of the Flies. Anyone who frequents sports websites, or politics, or classical music, for that matter, knows that the anonymity and physical distance of Internet communication can lead otherwise civilized people to barbarism and cruelty. The "online disinhibition effect," it's called.
ADAM JOINSON: Some research we did out of my lab found that when people are communicating online, they tend to become more focused on themselves, which means they're more focused on their attitudes and emotions.
BOB GARFIELD: Adam Joinson is a professor of psychology at England's University of Bath.
ADAM JOINSON: And if you combine that with a lack of concern about the person you’re talking to, not being aware of their reaction and their response, then quite often you can get a powder keg where people do tend to vent, they do tend to flame.
Tell me you don't see it here.
We don't have people shooting one another for their shoes. Our version of a tavern brawl is a flame riot. Our version of a drive-by is a one-liner. Our version of heroism is calling a moderator a fascist.
Enough of our membership
doesn't give a damn about context and other people's feelings that it becomes problematic. Enough of our membership only cares about other people's feelings because, with a cloak of at least partial anonymity, they want to hurt others. We can say it's only a website, we can tell people to lighten up (gotta lighten up, gotta lighten up right now) until we're blue in the face. Quite clearly, what happens in webworld doesn't simply stay in webworld. It has real effects on real people.
Additionally, Sciforums was never intended to be a mere flame factory like so many other boards. It's like that joke about the aliens. Sure, they may exist, but the most compelling argument that they're not here is that anyone capable of interstellar travel would take a look at us and recognize that humanity is still dangerously crazy.
We might despise the pundits, the slick lawyers, the goofy media, the evil politicians, and so on. But we also want to
be them. And if we don't, why the hell are we acting like we do?
If people want to be viewed as intelligent, why should they not act as if they were? Is that
really so oppressive? And yet, to call someone out on a lie is too rude for some of our rudest folk. To condemn bigotry by its name is apparently a gross insult to civility. And, yes, I've even experienced a few occasions where people have been offended because the number and length of my words was too great; apparently, I'm being elitist.
Now, as an Anarchist sympathizer, one of the problems my Anarchist heroes faced was that they were great at identifying the problem, but absolutely empty for functional solutions. The whole idea seems to be that everyone should just get along, and if we smash the state, they well. I mean, seriously. Come on. Guf-
faw.
The essential question is whether people want a simple flame factory or expect something more of their experience here. And, frankly, if they want a flame factory we should just shut down the board, because there are plenty of those to be had already. There's no real future in it if people just want to be part of an idiotic herd.
Prove your individuality! Act like an idiot! Just like everybody else! Christ, man, it reminds me of those damn Levi's commercials in the '90s that encouraged you to show our individuality by wearing the same pants as everyone else.
So, no. Sciforums is supposed to be something else. And that means there
are rules. And it's not like we're rigid. Hell, part of the reason we've reached this point is because we keep bending more and more, allowing the community to act ever more stupid. So we're going to put our foot down, and if a few toes get stepped on, well, they should have been watching out.
That's the way it goes. It's come to this. Sad? Yeah. Tragic? Maybe. Inevitable? Only by a certain filtered hindsight.
If civility is such a hideous burden, if decency and coherence are just too much to ask of people, what the hell are we doing here? We can achieve the same effect with a Victoria's Secret catalog, a bottle of Lubriderm, and a smidge of imagination.
And pornography is a great analogy. I mean, shit. So this one time we're playing poker late into the night, and one of the guys sitting out the hand is flipping through the stations. He comes across a Skinemax feature, or something, because suddenly everyone is fixated on the jiggling breasts glistening with baby oil on the screen. But that lasts only about thirty seconds because, ye gads, it's just
horrible. Not offensive, except in its utter stupidity.
But every once in a while, you come across a dolt for whom that plastic, vapid porn is a legitimate fantasy.
Ever
read porn? No, no, I don't mean look at the pictures and read the bio spot on the back of the centerfold. I mean the thousands—
millions—of badly-writ stories online, or in the letters sections of the magazines, or crafted for those 3 for $10 shrinkwrapped specials from the adult bookstore.
Billions. And they're
horrible. God
awful. And sometimes the plots don't even make sense. I mean, really. You know it's like this horrid story about three sisters. You'd think after the twentieth time, they'd stop being shocked or distressed. Or, at least, you'd think they would stop pretending like it's the first time it ever happened. And, you know, I don't
get incest lesbo porn. I'm pretty sure it's manufactured by men who don't actually know any lesbians, or any women for that matter.
One could make the same claims about the flame factories that have existed online since the days of audio couplers. Well, except for the bit about men who don't know women. I mean ... sure, there are plenty of those, but I think we actually do have genuine, real human women in our community. Never mind.
But what passes for intelligent discussion around here most days is often analogous to badly-writ porn. Like the "non-consent" story, riddled with cliché, and in the end it always turns out that she
likes it that way. Oh, come
on.
And every once in a while, you'll encounter someone who exists within that ideology. I remember this one woman I was with for a while. I think the reason I never got the hang of how to do her was that I literally didn't understand that I was supposed to sound like a porno. You know, call her a dirty slut, tell her she likes it, grab her hair, get behind her.
Then again, most cheap porn scenes go longer than she did.
Anyway, I digress.
The Dandy Warhols, "Get Off"
Yeah like it or not,
Like a ball and a chain,
All I want to do is get off; I feel it for a minute babe.
Hot diggity dog, I love God all the same.
But all I wanna do is get off, I feel it, I feel it, I feel it babe.
Baby, come on, yeah.
If you have a hard time gettin' there, maybe you're gone.
If you find, you find yourself forget yourself.
Yeah maybe I fought.
One thought I was saved.
But all I wanna do is get off,
and feel it for a minute like the real thing baby, I guess.
I already forgot, what I thought I would say.
But all I wanna do is get off. I feel it, I feel it, I feel it babe.
Baby, come on, yeah.
If you have a hard time gettin' there, maybe you're gone.
If you find, you find yourself, forget yourself.
Hey, come on yeah.
If you have a hard time gettin' there, maybe you're gone.
If you find, you find yourself forget yourself.
And like it or not,
Like a ball and a chain.
All I wanna do is get off.
And feel it for a minute like the real thing baby, oh yes.
I already forgot, what I thought I would say.
But all I wanna do is get off, I feel it, I feel it, I feel it babe.
Baby, come on, yeah.
If you have a hard time gettin' there, maybe you're gone.
If you find, you find yourself, forget yourself.
Hey, come on, yeah.
If you have a hard time gettin' there, maybe your gone.
If you find yourself, forget yourself.
I'm such a horrible fascist, aren't I? I mean, I want our community to be something more than a bad Dandy Warhols single. And that's
so fucking wrong.
Right?
____________________
Notes:
"Smirch Machine". On the Media. WNYC, New York. August 14, 2009. OnTheMedia.org. August 18, 2009. http://www.onthemedia.org/transcripts/2009/08/14/01
