elanya

Before I start, I should point out that Shan told me I was "rude and offensive" in my comment, above. As usual, I didn't mean it to be, but she tells me the part about not naming names comes across with a "snide, insinuating slant". I assure you it was strictly unintentional: I did that in order to not inflame those third parties I would normally have used as examples (as I used myself for the converse case). The Catch 22 is that if I was to name names, then I'd be criticizing people who I believe can't accept criticism, so I shouldn't name names. But without those examples, I don't have much of a "realization" for my argument. Shan said that it wasn't so much that I didn't want to identify people, but that I shouldn't have said that there were actual people I chose not to identify, which confuses me indeed, since she said that it would have been perfecly all right for me to say something like: "We both know people that behave ...". I see that as the same thing, and didn't mean to offend (as always), if any offense was taken. Okay, having said that, let's move on. ;-)


Not being able to take criticism and 'requiring compliments to function', as you put it, are not mutually inclusive.

I didn't claim they were *necessarily* though I've observed that if a person holds one trait, they tend not to hold the other. In a sense, I do see a generalization to "either a person can take compliments or they can take criticism, but not both", but that's a subjective interpretation.


However, accusing someone (naming names or otherwise) of engaging in "the absolute worst kind of purile fantasy-fulfillment", that is not constructive critcism :p It's rude, to put it midly. As a participant in the meme in question, I think I have reason to be offended by your rant.

Okay, that's a fair point. I may have been overly rude in expressing my anger and frustration at what I perceive to be a gratuitious and self-serving (yes, those are negative terms), but rudeness requires a target: I had no individuals in mind when I wrote that. As claimed elsewhere, my frustration is with a trend, not the individuals that express that trend. I think there are deeper forces at play here, mostly dealing with differing world-views. To oversimplify, I think people are usually clumped towards one end of a "social/rational" continuum. Of course, I tend to value the rational end more, and use positive terms like "intellectual" to describe peers in that cluster (which doesn't preclude others from being intellectual, just that those in that cluster tend to be concerned more than the others with "traditional" intellectual pursuits), and negative terms for the other end of things (examples omitted for brevity and fear of recriminations =] ).

The biggest problem, as I see is, is that people can/do/will read my posts and comments in a very different light than that which I intended them to be interpreted, especially if they're on the other end of that continuum I mentioned. Not having enough interest in bridging to what I perceive as having less value (thier interests), I tend not to adjust my style accordingly. Thus I am percieved as rude, offensive, inconsiderate, and a whole passel of other negative terms by some kinds of people. Yes, I could spend the effort to be unambiguous in my writing/speech, but I have no interest in doing so, as they have no interest in checking with me to see if the meaning they've understood was what was intended. I'm willing to cooperate, but only if the effort is commensurable. In the specific case of me ranting from my own soapbox, however, the effort must be higher on the "outsider's" part, otherwise the situation just isn't fair.

Did that make any sense?