Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
Wisdom from my Hello Kitty of Blogging account (I don’t think you can follow those links if you’re not signed up)…
On the Internet, as well as in person occasionally, I have noticed a lot of people imposing the following tests on other people, with great flourish and fanfare:
1. Do you agree with me?
2. Do you know what you’re talking about?
3. Have you managed to remain non-offensive?They do this over and over again, many times in the space of a minute or two, which permits me to observe the following: Not once do I see the test subject pass one or two of the tests, and fail the remainder — the results are never mixed. All three are passed, or all three are failed. They are shrink-wrapped together and advance or retreat as a set.
I suppose people on both sides of the political spectrum do this, and until you see the pattern maintained for awhile there’s really nothing wrong with it. It only becomes suspicious when it remains consistent throughout a great many examples.
It becomes a callable foul when an ideological zealot hammers his opponents about perceived insults while simultaneously maintaining silence as his cohorts engage in actual ones. But even then, once called on it, the zealot will deny his own double-standard, and his blind spot may be so enlarged and debilitating that he is speaking honestly as he does this.
To really freak yourself out about this, apply the “Peggy Joseph test” as I’ve done a few times. When an Obama fan persists in this pattern, in which everyone who disagrees with him suffers an incurable knowledge deficit, and none of his like-minded comrades do, solicit an opinion about the competence of this colleague in the cause…
And this is where things get to be strange. The best you’ll get back is something like, yes there are some people with unrealistic expectations AndThatIsTrueOfBothSides et cetera. That’s the very best. You won’t get an acknowledgement of the obvious, that there are some absolutely incompetent people backing Obama. The problem is with an inability to say “This person has reached the same conclusion I have even though she’s a moron.” Or, conversely, “This other person has reached a conclusion different from mine, even though he might know a lot about what he’s talking about.”
The meaningful observation to make is one of fear. If you think things out fearlessly, one of the first things to become evident to you is that, although confessions like the two above do not help to get a conclusion sold, certainly, they don’t make that particular conclusion unsalable either. The correlation between knowing what you’re doing, and reaching the right answer all the time, is a rather weak one. Stupid people make the right choice every now & then. Pretty often, really. And you don’t have to wait long for the intellectual giant to make a colossal blunder.
The same goes with being offensive. Offensive people can be, and are much of the time, right. These relationships are non-correlative. Therefore, even if one does seek to argue dishonestly and impose double-standards on the participants to make a particular conclusion more cosmetically appealing, there is no need to shellac these unrelated characteristics together.
It is only an intellectual coward — and therefore, ultimately, an intellectual incompetent — who can’t acknowledge these basic, basic things.
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But even then, once called on it, the zealot will deny his own double-standard, and his blind spot may be so enlarged and debilitating that he is speaking honestly as he does this.
I WAS gonna say sumthin’ about that reality teevee star from Alaska and Our Humble Host but… I won’t. 🙂
- bpenni | 01/12/2012 @ 12:01Gonna have to take back what I said about your perspective being overly-broad. You gotta get back on Hello Kitty and see what double-standards REALLY look like. You’ve lost track.
- mkfreeberg | 01/12/2012 @ 12:08You’ve lost track.
And that’s a GOOD thang.
- bpenni | 01/13/2012 @ 12:51Hah! On that, you get no argument from me. Happy Friday. And cheers.
- mkfreeberg | 01/13/2012 @ 12:52