Kurt Hofmann has another great article out there, comparing the recent Arapahoe High School shooter and professional victim disarmer Evie Hudak. It's worth the read.
This is what I tried to post in response.
Excellent work, Kurt. The comparison is a simply outstanding observation.
Not to pick on you specifically as you're hardly the only one who does this, but I dislike dehumanizing terms like "filth" to describe other people--even the very worst examples anyone could imagine, like killers or politicians. You know me well enough, I think, to understand what I mean by this. Dehumanization is a deliberate tactic of the very people
that wish "our kind" could be removed from the earth entirely, and we should always avoid the path of becoming what we behold, even when it seems like picking nits. I'm also of the opinion that it doesn't add anything to the weight of a valid point--and your point in this article is SO superb that I'd not want anything hanging out there that someone could use as a lever to actively ignore it. After all, many people are committed to their ignorance, and are just looking for something to grasp onto when they have nothing of substance themselves. We should deny that comfort at every opportunity.
Just to be clear, I certainly don't mean to steer anyone away from the fine art of properly-targeted ridicule for those who so richly deserve it. Here, for example, the term "self-righteous busybodies" is right on--both dead accurate, and also distinctly human.
And once again: a truly outstanding observation. You're becoming somewhat of a specialist in this format--I do hope you keep it up. :-)
7 comments:
You can get denounced as a lukewarm "butt" for mentioning this on WoG, but I've about had it with the whole Examiner site despite the excellent articles. Between the "unresponsive script" errors I get on Linux and those amazingly annoying autoplay videos, I could practically write an essay in the time it takes to read one there.
I don't look at many of the "Examiner" columns, and never comment anymore since it is so screwed up. Don't visit WoG more than once a day either anymore. Got tired of reading that I'm somehow enabling the gun grabbers, or "not doing anything" if I don't use facebook, twitter or write letters to politicians, etc.
They want to disarm us because they want to do things to us we won't allow them to do if we have guns. And they already know that. So do we.
Joel: yeah, I hear you. At least there's AdBlock on the desktop, which does get the vast most of it. The problem I've been having lately isn't on the desktop--it's on my smartphone.
To wit: Examiner currently has the "distinction" of being the only website I've seen in the iOS browser which has figured out how to auto-launch the App Store app in order to push something in front of whatever it was I actually went there for. It's the popup window, all over again.
Oh freakin' joy.
Now I do know that some enterprising outfit will come up with some sort of AdBlock equivalent for the mobile OS eventually, but in the meantime this almost certainly means that other marketing teams will follow Examiner's "lead". It's pretty clear, these days, where the first development money goes, among public-consumption web development.
And I gotta admit, I must be some sort of dinosaur, because I have never understood how a core marketing strategy could be quite so "piss off the consumer so much they give us money to go away" and yet still be so sustainably lucrative as to enhance the practice over time.
I suspect this is wrapped up in the sustained-monopoly problem (thus putting it in the realm of politics), but that's a topic for another day.
And ML, I understand your sentiment, too. Out of respect for David's long (and continuing) history of outstanding work, I have developed a mental mantra of prepending the phrase "For those who wish to play the game, " in front of all the "you're-not-doing-enough-if-" phrasing.
It helps, but it hasn't cut out the sting of the rudeness entirely. Nor, for that matter, the autonomic reaction to resist it. I would think that David, of all people, could identify with that impulse, and I can't bring myself to hold it against him yet.
(Hell, if for this reason only: David is the only reason I ever ran across you in the first place, ML. :-)
"David is the only reason I ever ran across you in the first place, ML."
I'd forgotten that. :) And yes, I do appreciate very much what David has done and does now. And I do understand that he is frustrated and disillusioned, just as so many of us are. Part of that is the fact that it's almost impossible to evaluate the impact of one's efforts.
For example, I post the link to my self defense story all over the internet at blogs and fora, offering my book free to those who will request it via email. All I ask is that they send feedback when they've read it. To date, I've given away several thousand of the e-books, and the actual feedback can be numbered in the dozens at best.
But does that mean the book has not been read? Or that it has not had some positive effect on those who read it? I'll never know. Is it worth going on with it? I think so.
It helps, but it hasn't cut out the sting of the rudeness entirely. Nor, for that matter, the autonomic reaction to resist it.
ML & Kevin;
Glad I'm not the only one that grates on.
Wonder if David reads this blog... he seems to have toned down the "do it my way or you're an enabler" stuff lately. (grin)
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