<p>So, do the smug ones like Authoritarians? Just wondering</p>
<p>Apparently it has never occurred to some posters that the lack of criticism of their posts from people who agree with their politics is the result of CC’s literary/political little league moms’ fulsome and fawning praise of every utterance of the true believers – even when they haven’t bothered to actually read them, or at least pay enough attention to notice when they have lapsed into actual gibberish. Or that unless and until they dare to leave the fold they won’t get any criticism from that quarter, regardless of what they write or how they write it. That myopia allows the generation of a smug post like #160 - which its author no doubt takes for “wit”.<br>
-Allmusic - I advise you to refrain from responding. Anything you say will just be met with "You’re just against me because of my politics on the one hand and “You’re picking on a little girl!” on the other - all purpose excuses which repel any danger of honest self-appraisal.<br>
There are reasoned and impassioned opinions expressed from the right on these fora by people who will engage your opinions honestly. I recommend you seek them out if you’re interested in debate.</p>
<p>Kluge,</p>
<p>What a spiteful and bitter rant. You should be ashamed.</p>
<p>It is worse than smug, it is mean-spirited and beneath civil discourse. It lacks even a hint of self-doubt, humor or civility. It is well beneath sarcasm or condescension, which, to some degree, would have redeemed it.</p>
<p>As to post #160, it was first penned by Bill Buckley. I suggest you take it up with him the next time the two of you chat. </p>
<p>I will at least allow that Allmusic can poke fun at herself even if poking <em>fun</em> at others. She comes on hardedged, but always with a wink and a nudge. Maybe its a female thing: to be able to keep from going all animal on someone else, even while failing, as you have. Camille Paglia once said there are no female Beethovens because there are no female Jack the Rippers. </p>
<p>Well Jack, your post makes you out to be little more than a self-righteous tyrant devoid of anything like a curious self-awareness or simple vulnerability. I would prefer any of Allmusic, Thedads, Cheerspretty much everyone posting here, even CGMs posts, to this vicious invective of yours. </p>
<p>It goes back a ways. If you recall, you took a similar tack against a book review I wrote, on Shakespeare–of all things. I still have your screed to remind me if youd care to reread it. </p>
<p>Maybe you just need to step back, take a breath.</p>
<p>There was a time I could take your sarcasm, since I once took it for sarcasm. It was always rude and condescending but it was at least engaging in a way that was not inappropriate to the civility of a message board or common decency. I now see your posting as pure and simple viciousness. Perhaps youre having a really bad day. If so, I hope it improves before you go all animal on someone else. Your post made mine none the better. If you intended it, you succeeded. That must be something of a victory for you.</p>
<p>It is almost sad.</p>
<p>Cheers,
Emily</p>
<p>Kluge: I have had extensive conversations with FS on the craft of writing. However, I offer her my critiques privately, when asked, and not with a “sit up straight when I’m talking to you” tone. You should stick to the Duke rape thread, where you truly excel.</p>
<p>thanks for the explanation FS,(#155) that made more sense.</p>
<p>I admit that I must have a processing difficulty, I often have to read over very complex explanations slowly, and it seems that I forget what the first part was by the time I finish.
It seems to be a hallmark of ADD, and can be compensated for to some extent, but it does take a lot of energy and concentration, a skill which doesn’t seem to be improving with age I am afraid.
I try and reread some books that I enjoyed 25 years ago, and I just can’t get through them, so I appreciate those who try to write posts that try to be relatively brief and remember that not everyone has a degree in semantics. :)</p>
<p>FountainSIren - I appreciate the honesty of your last post. You say what you mean, without hiding it a morass of “look at me” linguistic gymnastics, and without the air of smug and tired superiority you have been encouraged to adopt. Anyone reading your post can understand what you’re saying, right or wrong, and there is no artifice to get in the way.</p>
<p>Keep writing like that and your content will become the focus of your posts. Return to the old style and there’s really no point.</p>
<p>Kluge,
As always, you neglect the content in favor of the form, fashion or style. </p>
<p>Let’s try it one more time, boldly:</p>
<p>**Kluge,</p>
<p>What a spiteful and bitter rant. </p>
<p>It is worse than smug, it is mean-spirited and beneath civil discourse. It lacks even a hint of self-doubt, humor or civility. It is well beneath sarcasm or condescension, which, to some degree, would have redeemed it.</p>
<p>As to post #160, it was first penned by Bill Buckley. I suggest you take it up with him the next time the two of you chat. </p>
<p>I will at least allow that Allmusic can poke fun at others in addition to herself. She comes on hardedged, but always with a wink and a nudge. Maybe it’s a female thing: to be able to keep from going all animal on someone else, even in adversity. Camille Paglia once said there are no female Beethovens because there are no female Jack the Rippers. </p>
<p>Well Jack, your post makes you out to be little more than a self-righteous tyrant devoid of anything like a curious self-awareness or human vulnerability. I would prefer any of Allmusic, Thedads, Cheers—pretty much everyone posting here, even CGM’s posts, to this vicious invective of yours. </p>
<p>It goes back a ways. If you recall, you took a similar tack against a book review I wrote, on Shakespeare—of all things. I still have your screed to remind me if you’d care to reread it. </p>
<p>Maybe you just need to step back, take a breath.</p>
<p>There was a time I could take your sarcasm, since I once took it for sarcasm. It was always rude and condescending but it was at least engaging in a way that was not inappropriate to the civility of a message board or normal decency. I now see your posting as pure and simple viciousness. Perhaps you’re having a really bad day. If so, I hope it improves before you go all animal on someone else. Your post made mine none the better. If you intended it, you succeeded. That must be something of a victory for you.</p>
<p>It is almost sad.</p>
<p>Emily**</p>
<p>Kluge, really. If you had wanted to bury the hatchet with FS, you would have done so without the “air of smug and tired superiority you have been encouraged to adopt” business–a double insult, really. Everyone was just starting to get along again, and then big tough daddy had to show up with his razor strop.</p>
<p>Ever heard of “if you can’t take the heat, get out of the kitchen.”</p>
<p>Kluge’s criticism of FS’s writing style and attitude were sharply worked yes, but not so painful that one need walk away limping or blow a cyber gasket as we have seen. Why does FS get a pass for her rather snide and insulting response to Dadguy in post #146? Why? Because she’s young? Because she’s female? Because she’s a conservative? If her style of posting is no-holds-barred, why should Kluge, or anyone, keep the gloves on when posting a response?</p>
<p>Why the double standard?</p>
<p>If many posters on CC have difficulty understanding the postings of a certain poster, and we are usually talking about well read, educated, thoughtful adult posters here, is it the readers fault that we (and i do include myself) don’t “get” the confused, flowery, overly eruadite language and ask HUH?</p>
<p>If a poster is asked again and again what she/he is saying or means, and her audience, who are not stupid or naive or unread by any standard repeatedly are confused and don’t see the point of the word sequence, again, is that the readers fault?</p>
<p>To assume that people are stupid for not understanding someone’s writing, and to comment back that they don’t like being talked down to or be talked at, or that after dissecting all the words, we find gibberish, is that the varied, spread out, differently educated, audience’s fault once again?</p>
<p>After awhile, one would hope the writer/s in question would look at their style of writing and look when they themselves throw a punch. A punch or slap in a velvet glove is no different than a bare knuckled one.</p>
<p>And Camillia was wrong in her comment.</p>
<p>And someone in the publishing world needs a tougher skin if they are to survive and thrive. Once an editor who knows their stuff really does their job, it can sting quite a bit. I know, ask my Aunt.</p>
<p>Dadguy, me, Kluge, Allmusic, and others are often scratching our heads at posts, going “HUH?” </p>
<p>Are we and others all in the wrong in our confusion, or is it the writer?</p>
<p>That is for the writer to ponder</p>
<p>Jazzy,
I don’t think there’s a double standard. There was a conversation going on about the humanities curriculum. DG (who I do not generally consider to be an offender in the nasty department, by any means) made his comments in 139, some of which addressed personal style rather than the topic…then someone else chirped from the peanut gallery in #140…FS got a little testy in response…and that is the recipe for conflating the whole thing into a barroom brawl, depending on circumstances. Kluge sort of swung in on the chandelier (rather late) throwing grenades and sucker punches. Such is life in the Parent’s Cafe.</p>
<p>CGM–Huh?</p>
<p>Okay, let’s set the scene: FountainSiren, having written several rather wordy posts, is confronted with Dadguy commented that FS seems to engage in “codespeak” and “mini-editorials or some other punditry.”-Allmusic- commented in post 145: “It’s that pesky word salad thing again, FS. You’re trying to be impressively linguistic, as opposed to communicating a point.” FS responds with “Curiously, my detractors always seem to disagree with my POV. I suppose addressing my style, given the content, is a less costly–some would say cheap–rhetorical move.” Dadguy offers that “I am sorry that you think my criticism of your writing style is a surrogate attack on your POV, because it is not”. -Allmusic- offered the olive branch: “I admire anyone who will continue posting through the barrage of critique (including mine)” which FS met with: “It helps to know that it comes–exclusively–from the screaming left (by normal standards, not cc standards).” </p>
<p>Apparently the irony of Hereshopings “I often find FS’s style difficult to penetrate, but worth it because I consistently agree with her views” goes unnoticed.</p>
<p>So given FS’s belief that comments regarding her writing style are exclusively the province of those who disagree with her point of view (a belief that is not entirely correct) there are two possible explanations she could look to: </p>
<p>1) FS’s hypothesis: that commenting on her style of writing is a cheap rhetorical means of attacking the substance of her posts by those who disagree with her, because her style is just fine and dandy, thank you, and they’re just a bunch of “screaming leftists” who have no other response to her brilliance; or</p>
<p>2) FS could really use some honest feedback on her communication techniques but isn’t going to get it from those who consider her a promising protege of group with a particular philosophy, and want to continuously love-bomb her as long as she remains in the Cult of Right Thinking.</p>
<p>Since FS was apparently unaware of anything but the first option, I had the temerity to point out the second. In response I am accused of being smug, mean-spirited, a self-righteous tyrant, rude, condescending and outside the bounds of normal decency. And something about being a man, too.</p>
<p>Now, just in this one thread, in addition to references to “the screaming left” and “I would like to take you seriously, but to do so would affront your intelligence” FS has delivered the following zingers,:</p>
<p>“I would have thought a social scientist would be sensitive to that; how much more so a highly sensitive and defensive social scientist.”
“I take you even less seriously now.”
“If, for instance, Kluge had said many neoconservatives are fascists I would have taken it as his normal rhetorical bloviating: his boorish, though charming, opinion.”</p>
<p>Oddly, I have, for the most part, agreed with FS’ point of view expressed in this thread as to the few substantive issues which hve been under discussion. But having the temerity to point out that the perceived presence of stylistic commentary from one side of the aisle is the same thing as the absence of same from the other is apparently beyond the pale, while FS’s own overtly offensive comments are okay - since they are directed at others, and dressed up in ribbons and bows. </p>
<p>Driver - You take my comments correctly. I do criticize those who encourage adopting an air of smug superiority when discussing public issues and the belief that making personal attacks is okay as long as they are phrased in an arch manner. I think FountainSiren is better than just another Coulter-wannabe and I see what appears to be your encouragement of her indulging in that type of vacuous posturing to be lamentable. I can live with her sticking pins in a Kluge voodoo doll if she’ll learn to a) be polite to those she disagrees with and b) state her position in a manner designed to communicate just what it is instead of to impress people with how smart she is. I apologize if you have actually encouraged her to drop the schtick, but it’s my impression that the opposite is the case.</p>
<p>As improbable as it may seem, I value the contributions both of you make to the CC forums, except when it’s all attitude and empty style, and I regret hurting FS’s feelings over the Shakespeare thing (which wasn’t my intention). But both of you honestly can’t seem to recognize that when you dish out the bile, however prettily worded, you make yourselves fair game for a response that may not be entirely to your liking.</p>
<p>Driver, I think you understood my post just fine…but eh, I don’t really worry about it too much</p>
<p>And I thought the velvet glove comment kind of clever…it you missed what I meant, i would bet you your daughter got it</p>
<p>FS is very very smart, there is no doubt. Just wondering why she dishes it out so often, but doesn’t take it herself all that well…</p>
<p>Kluge:
As a lesson in writing (since that’s now our thread topic) consider that #171 had almost all of the content of #172 without the wordiness, the invective, or the “you sit up straight when I’m talking to you” attitude. It also had the advantage of being readable in a short time, and a smattering of humor. When I need to learn how to write a legal brief, I know I can count on you. We can all learn from each other here.</p>
<p>So here you go driver and FS to clarify because driver didn’t get it:</p>
<p>A number of posters here on CC, do not often get FS posts, we get confused, we try and dissect them for content, we ask what did you mean</p>
<p>And often, when we do take the time to find a meaning in the posts, we find just words strung together with little content</p>
<p>And, because we are mostly educated, intelligent, worldly, well read adults in the audience having some problems with FS prose, is it the several adults problem understanding what is being written by FS, or perhaps, the writing itself that is the problem</p>
<p>A writer needs to honestly look at their writing to see if they make sense, especially a writer in the very public arena of colliegate journalism.</p>
<p>I think Kluge has done an excellent job of typing my post telekentically. Thank you so much, since I ought to load the dishwasher, so you have saved me time.</p>
<p>In truth, I enjoy everyone’s posts on this thread, nasty ones included. It isn’t my intent to hurt anyone’s feelings either, and since I have offered my opinions on FS’s oftimes convoluted writing, I don’t intend to belabor the point (for which, she may or may not be grateful).</p>
<p>Good point Driver - we cross-posted and I felt somewhat the same way when I saw your post. Kudos on the brevity – and wit. But since FS seemed to want a response from me, I felt one was due.</p>
<p>
Another great lesson we should all try to live by. Thank you, CGM.</p>
<p>driver, can’t tell if that was a dig or a compliment, so I will take it as the latter cause I know how much you love me</p>
<p>LOL! I am just feeling the CC Cafe Love!</p>
<p>(the dishwasher awaits, still)</p>