It wasn't exactly a response to the specific question I asked, regarding a "reality check".
Yes, James, we understand it wasn't a genuine question.
Of course you're right. The huge chip on arfa's shoulder dates back long before this particular thread. Over time he has worked himself into such a lather over me that he now goes out of his way to find excuses to disagree with me, even over trivial matters.
I think you're right. At some time in the past, I no doubt called arfa out on an error he made. That apparently caused some kind of crisis of ego in him. It seems to me that he is accustomed to believing himself to be the smartest person in every room. Rather than admitting an error or an inferior understanding of something, he feels like he needs to double down or triple down to protect his fragile ego.
Maybe arfa brane isn't like this "in real life". Maybe he reserves his particular brand of arrogance for internet forums. Whatever it is, though, on the internet he has apparently forgotten how to carry on a polite conversation - at least if there is any chance of somebody disagreeing with his views. Worse, he takes being gently corrected as a personal slight. It makes him angry, and he starts lashing out with personal attacks. He tries to bully, in short, and I'm the first to admit I don't like that.
No doubt there was a particular trigger point for arfa's animosity towards me. But he's now spent so long trying to come up excuses to pick fights with me that it's hard for me to pinpoint when the first one might have been.
I get it that it takes a certain strength of character to admit you're not perfect, and humility to admit when you are wrong. Some people struggle with developing that maturity. Probably, some never get there. Some like to deflect their problems and shortcomings onto others. I understand this. It doesn't mean I (or you) should pussy-foot around such people, to pander to their insecurities.
And that's you needing five paragraphs to acknowledge that no, you don't actually know why he's upset.
I should point out that, if somebody is going to make either of those accusations (against anyone), they should have the common decency to present a supporting case for their view, which ought to be objective and evidence-based. Otherwise, it's just rudeness - insults for insults sake.
The question of corruption depends on subtleties and nuance; when people present evidence, you just get indignant, rewriting what people say in order to defend your character against your own straw, and if it gets too much for you to handle, you just don't answer.
And that's part of the reason why lines like—
One thing you (and other readers) might have noticed over time is that I become less "easy to talk to" the more the people who are trying to talk to me fail to observe basic human courtesies.
—don't work. It goes both ways, you know; other people's frustration with your wilful dishonesty and disruption builds and, yes, some do eventually start cussing you out. That doesn't mean Arfa Brane's conduct is appropriate, but it's also true that compared to trying to figure out how to accommodate your extraordinary needs, a fuckton of fuckoff can feel like an easy temptation.
Here's another example:
We could have a more useful discussion about the reasons I might "disdain" certain aspects of religion, if you were interested.
These sorts of lines are more performative than anything else. After you spend years avoiding such questions, you try a line like that when you think it might have some theatrical effect, but we do have the recent example of the thread about
talking to God↗, so maybe you should quit with the make-believe.
Yes, James, we could have a more useful discussion about the reasons you might disdain certain aspects of religion, but it's not, as you suggest, a question of my interest; you have been running away from those discussions for years. Genuine, useful discussions of religion and religious belief apparently exceed you. And, moreover, as the example I provided reminds, getting you to even approach those issues is its own trial, and what you offer is largely a bland, featureless caricature that, at best, applies to some assertion of an impossible average.
That's part of what I mean when I say you are difficult to talk to: Instead of responding to the discussion at hand, you make stuff up and respond to that, instead, and blame everyone else for your behavior.
And, actually, part of that is how we find ourselves in the present moment: We might still wonder what you were actually doing when you asked for a reality check, but part of the answer seems to involve you inquiring based on your own make-believe. To reiterate the earlier points in short form: 1) There is almost always a communication problem; 2) while I'm not a scientist, I see the same sort of rhetorical noise and distortion in your exchange with Arfa Brane that I see in other subjects; 3) it is unclear whether you are capable of recognizing certain distinctions, including example; 4) in re distinctions, do you even know why the other is upset; 5) because no matter how righteous you feel, you are displaying behavior common to much of your posting involving a diverse range of people and subjects.
Furthermore, as I said, when you asked it was not clear your inquiry was genuine. Now that you've made the point that it wasn't, well, it's not surprising, but still.
And like I said, without that origin there is a cloud over the answer, so even if Arfa Brane was totally off his rocker at the outset, it's hard to tell; he certainly isn't going to say so, and you're not able to.
Additionally, it is unclear whether you are able to recognize certain distinctions. Think of it this way: Motor Daddy or Mr. G yelling at you isn't quite the same thing as when Arfa Brane is pissed at you, or Sarkus is annoyed, or even when Vociferous goes around in circles with you. It really is a diverse list even without including me, and even when you're right, James, you just seem unable to help yourself. Still—
Perhaps you should consider not just my side of the interactions with those people, but also their side. See if you can spot some common, problematic behaviors in them
—consider that you have set me up for an easy line that goes, approximately,
Yes, they disagreed with you. I actually don't like the line; its priorities feel awry, and it's far too general. The more accurate point is that they have somehow offended or displeased you in another context. Again, this behavior of yours is so common it is nearly irrelevant to whether you are right or wrong;
e.g., even if Arf is running crackpot, there is something else going on here—you passed over that part.
Or perhaps—
Only one of the two of us is regularly resorting to insulting the other rather than presenting coherent arguments in support of our position on the particular topic of dispute.
—we might observe only one of the two of you routinely strikes a condescending tone according to straw men constructed for the apparent purpose of justifying condescenscion.
There is a cheap line in political dispute about
everyone who disagrees with you, and when people throw it at me one obvious point to consider is that no, not everyone who disagrees with me is negatively categorized, because some of them teach me what I need to know in order to not be incorrect. And if we don't see much of those around here, that could easily be a marketplace result characteristic of our community.
And in our community, James, people know that nobody is going to stop you. Remember that, because no, your straw pretenses are not polite; they are, in fact, disruptive, provocative, and rude. I can read Arfa Brane whatever list of advice about what is or isn't appropriate, but he already knows, and if he looks right back at me and complains, "And it's not going to stop, is it?" he will not be wrong.
These two fallacious elements, James—the sosobra you build, and the pretense of what is polite or not—bring you and everybody else more grief than anything else; they are even basic components of what happens at that intersection of
you and supremacism↗, or why your atheistic evangelism often reads like fodder for religious paranoia about infidels.
It's not simply that people disagree with you; it's that some run afoul of some particular pretense of dignity, so even if Arfa Brane really was that far out in the wasteland, or it remains unclear who got the better of what in running circles with Vociferous, or, sure, maybe Sarkus could have been a little less defensive about your sleight, one shared component among a range of otherwise diverse experiences in our community has to do with these parts of your behavior.
To wit:
Anything is possible, I suppose. But it's really not a plausible reading of this thread. I have been very careful to clear up all possible points of confusion where arfa and I may have talked past each other for a post or two, although arfa is still pretending that I never posted such clarifications.
Y'know, you just spent five paragraphs making clear that no, you don't actually know why he's upset.
It's one thing if people notice, another for them to wonder at what point it's worth engaging, but throughout they cannot overlook that it's not going to stop.
And remember, a line might feel persuasively effective, and can be reasonably well constructed, but if something about it is untrue, people will eventually notice.
