Wednesday, March 09, 2005
On Politeness vs. Pussyfooting
Here's a comment I left on this blog post where someone ruminates about the pitfalls of criticizing an idea and having the subject take it personally: One of the things about keeping a site like this is that it's often our instinct to take our thoughts to there first, even as we're still in the process of working them out. I know there are times when a simple email to the person I'm thinking about would have given me a straight and informative answer to my conundrum, instead of airing a half-finished idea more-or-less publicly without first asking for their input. i hate metablogging and hate hate hate the blogging as journalism nonsense, but one of the cornerstones of journalistic ethics is to try and get in contact with the subject of a piece you're writing to get their comment on it before you publish it. Maybe that's a bit of a common courtesy that we might adopt if we find ourselves the subject of too many raised eyebrows.
This got me to thinking about how, despite one's best efforts, one does modify one's voice based on the audience. A couple of years ago I learned a lesson about linking to someone's website and jokingly making fun of the content. The person, whom I know in real life, was going through his referrer logs and saw the original message and took it personally, and then Chewie got involved, and the rest is etched in Immortals' history. But the point is, after that I became more aware that making fun of people even in the nice impersonal text medium, can still cause problems.alexander o'neill
http://tvt.blogspot.com/
Now, I'm of the opinion that people are entirely too thin-skinned and can't understand the difference between being teased and being personally attacked. My experiences growing up taught e that there's a world of difference between someone who likes and respects you and who gives enough of a shit about you to try and be funny and rib you about some dumb thing you said, and someone who dislikes you or is simply a bully who goes after you in order to make you look bad. Maybe most people had too comfortable a youth to be familiar enough with the latter to be able to tell it from the former.
For me, if I'm teasing someone it's because I like them enough to make the effort, if I didn't like them I wouldn't devote any spare brain cycles to them at all, or just be swift and brutal.
Anyway, my point is, if you can't handle the people around you criticizing something you said or wrote or did, then congratulations, you're incapable of growing as a person. Hope you enjoy peaking, because improvement from here on out isn't in the cards. No one is capable of only having brilliant ideas, the road to a good idea lined with the gravestones of appropriately examined bad ideas. This refers to life in general, so I'm not breaking my rule about blogging-about-blogging, which I still think is as useful as calling someone on the telephone to talk about phones.
I say that not in defense, or to apoplogize, but rather to acknowledge the reality of internet pontificating. I'm a big fan of Television Without Pity and for last weeks' American Idol recap the author got slagged for listing "Hard to Handle" as a Black Crowe's song, rather than under it's proper designation, as an Otis Redding tune. The thing was, it was obvious (I think) that his point was not that the song was the Black Crowes, but rather that the contestant was singing the BC version. In any case, you take minor issues like that that provoked a flood of emails from well-meaning but ultimately annoying readers and throw personal feelings or identity into the mix, and you get clusterfucks of internet inescurity and hate.
And, of course, since it's always easier to write things than it is to say them, you lose that "should I say this" filter that keeps most of us on our toes in real life.
My solution (easy for me - I find it hard to feel slighted) is that everybody should buck up and engage in well-meaning criticism. But blogs, being what they are, are so close to journals (and not journalism) that often any criticism is paramount to opening up ones diary and making fun of it.
It shouldn't be that way, or, perhaps, diaries should be open-season. But, you know, whatever - don't call yourself a Pimp and expect me to roll over on the "irony" of it.
(Yeah, I know - I went three whole paragraphs...)
It isn't 'pussyfooting' to be gracious and succint -- how hard is it to say "I see where you're coming from, I get where you're at, I just disagree." 'cause unless I changed the link under my blog post from 'comments' to 'crtique the motherfuck out of me' they can get out of my face or start a blog of their own.
But of course, by then, I've already signed them up for horse porn.
