Althouse: Hey, the guy who named the blogosphere...

May 20, 2007

Hey, the guy who named the blogosphere...

... is kind of a dick.

23 comments:

Bob said...: BLOG WAR!

*laughs*; 5/20/07, 12:09 PM
Palladian said...: "I, certainly not a moderate, regard them mostly as hapless wobblers who lack courage or conviction, or the courage of conviction, and who therefore glorify waffling as a high virtue..."

He's dismissing a majority of the American electorate. Bill, honey, politics bores and disgusts most Americans, especially at the Federal level. What the smartest and best Americans value is ideas, not politics. Both parties seem to be out of ideas.

"How on earth have the inheritors of the acid generation, surely one of the most vapidly useless ever to be spawned out of the dark bowels of American history, managed to become the “swing vote” those of us who actually have functioning, rational minds must seek to convince of anything?"

Spawning out of bowels? Is he calling people shit? I stand humbled before his functioning, rational mind. This is exactly the way to win votes!

Anyway, the fact that so many people need to be won over is a good thing. It means that many people are open to change and aren't roped to a party line. I don't know how a "functioning, rational mind" could ever claim to find their ideas mirrored in the increasingly blurry, murky "platforms" of either of our political parties. Perhaps that's a good thing. Broad, diffuse parties that don't spell everything out discourage fanatic allegiance. Being open to change doesn't mean that you're "wobbly" or lack courage or conviction. A mark of the best mind is the capacity to change.; 5/20/07, 12:12 PM
Ruth Anne Adams said...: Dick Bill Platypus?; 5/20/07, 12:21 PM
babuilder said...: If I don't agree with the genius of his politics then I'm a dumbshit? He is confusing moderate with independent. If the political ideas are persuasive there is no middle ground.; 5/20/07, 12:39 PM
Synova said...: Well... he's probably not wrong that moderates more-or-less detest politics.

I know it's not the same thing, but I came to the conclusion quite some time ago that political apathy is a *good* thing rather than a *bad* thing. A high level of participation usually means a high level of dissatisfaction and strife.; 5/20/07, 12:59 PM
Paco Wové said...: "...regard [moderates] mostly as hapless wobblers who lack courage or conviction, or the courage of conviction, and who therefore glorify waffling as a high virtue..."

Ah, yes, spoken like a true partisan ideologue, whose world is populated entirely by My Side and Them!, and who will never understand that both sides are full of it, just in different ways, or that subscribing to someone's laundry list of opinions does not make one a political thinker.; 5/20/07, 1:50 PM
John Stodder said...: I don't detest politics. I detest mindless ideological zealots, weasely party hacks, and talking-points robots. They're ruining politics. And they're far from courageous, unless you think sheep are courageous for sticking their noses in the rear ends of other sheep.

Wait, I should say that over there on his blog.; 5/20/07, 2:16 PM
Victor said...: Please stop trying to stir up a blog war where none legitimately should exist.

[Keep doing down this path we're going to have to think of a celebrity/blogger nickname for you :)]; 5/20/07, 2:31 PM
Unknown said...: Hmm. Just kind of?; 5/20/07, 2:58 PM
Revenant said...: I'm with mcg. "Kind of"?

Quick's way too Kos-like for me.; 5/20/07, 3:16 PM
amba said...: Yeah. But I'm interested in your new full-strength expletive policy with the prudent, not prudish, exception noted in the Cornyn comments). What prompted that? Or isn't it new, am I just suddenly hearing it? The unwritten "blogosphere code of ethics" seems to mandate asterisk pasties over blunt and barnyard expressions, even though everybody knows what they are. Why and when did you decide, f*ck that, I'm coming out swinging?; 5/20/07, 4:46 PM
Ann Althouse said...: Amba: As I wrote in the comments to that McCain post, I am trying to fight the mindless filters that can block my site for readers. Also, with the word in a title, I think it could be noticed by children in the room or people in the workplace and make people less willing to read my blog. I would prefer to write it out, but I don't want to lose readers. I don't think we'll be hearing McCain say "f*ck you" when he's giving a speech.; 5/20/07, 6:18 PM
Simon said...: Amba - see this re the mindless filters.; 5/20/07, 6:59 PM
Mark Daniels said...: To begin: This is off-topic, although related to Bill Quick's invention of the term, "blogosphere." I've always hated that word! It's meant to describe something that's still pretty cutting edge and futuristic. Yet the term sounds so Fifties, like something that Walt Disney would have used to describe a future world in which cars fly from home to work. It's only been recently, because the term is apparently going nowhere, that I've finally yielded to its acceptance and used it myself.

As to the topic at hand, I was only thirteen during the Summer of Love and a certifiable fan of rock music. I never did any illegal drugs then or any time thereafter...and not because I was a Christian, as some might suspect. (Throughout much of the late sixties and early seventies, I considered myself an atheist.) I never did drugs, quite simply, because I was a control freak. I remain a recovering control freak. It never appealed to me to be out of control. I'd seen too many drunks acting stupid for that to appeal to me. (Of course, being a control freak is to suffer from a different and arguably, no less destructive addiction. It's certainly no less destructive from the standpoint of Christian theology. So, I'm throwing no stones in saying I never did illegal drugs.)

As to whether the 60s were mostly about politics: I'm not kidding when I say that I was already about politics before the Summer of Love. To show you just how big a dork I am, I was already into politics by the time I was five. I was reading both daily newspapers in my hometown, pretty much cover-to-cover, except for the business sections, by the time I was ten. So, I loved the political component of the late-60s. But I don't think the decade was mostly about politics.

Even most young people who were into politics in that era weren't really into politics. They were involved to combat racism or the War in Vietnam or, by the early Seventies, sexism. But they could've cared less about farm price supports, national security, or Medicare.

The bottom line is that to say that the era was mostly about anything is probably inaccurate stereotyping. Most people--even most young people--weren't swept up into either drugs or politics in the 60s, whether they experimented with drugs or demonstrated against the war or not. (I did get involved with antiwar demonstrations, by the way.)

That stuff was just the external wallpaper of our lives. For the most part, young people did the same thing in the 60s and 70s that young people have always done. They moved toward adulthood.

Another decade that gets painted with a broad stereotyping brush is the 1920s. It's portrayed as a time of flappers, vacuity, and speakeasies. That stuff was there to be sure. But it was in this same era that Americans elected Presidents noteworthy for their sobriety and blandness, Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover. Most people, young and old, went about their lives without getting caught up in "the defining trends" of that era, either.

It's tough to define a decade.

Mark Daniels; 5/20/07, 8:55 PM
Unknown said...: Ann, I'm a little late to this party, but this thread reminds me of what might be called the Sullivan Fallacy (now the Sullivan-Althouse Fallacy, to be included in all future lists of informal logical fallacies) in which one substitutes the testimonials of those in fawning agreement for argument.

Sullivan does it via the posting of sycophantic emails ("You're SO right Andrew. I'll never read Instapundit again; he's just a passive-aggressive advocate of torture!"). Althouse does it via name-calling (how witty and brilliant, calling an opponent a "dick"), to be followed, very predictably, by the words of supporters.

Not precisely analogous, because you don't delete negative comments (like this one.) But you know your supporters will dominate, even when you don't give them much to work with.; 5/20/07, 9:09 PM
Daryl said...: Bill Quick is definitely a dick.

He's a smart guy and a capable writer, but his personality leaves something to be desired. You're not the first person he's blown up on. At least this time he was completely coherent (that's not always the case; see his comments in the thread).

He complains that calling him "kind of a dick" is not straightforward enough. I think everyone gets the point, Bill.

And by "gets the point," I'm not making a dick joke. They aren't particularly funny. They're a waste of time. I'm just using an idiom.; 5/20/07, 10:26 PM
hdhouse said...: Ann, I posted as follows there:

"After reading the last entry, I've really decided not to participate. I just dropped by after finding a link on Ann Althouse's blog.

I grew tired of the self rightous "politics are groovy" types in the 60s...methinks before this self-styled non-moderate (you the inventor of the term blogosphere) were born and long ago learned it was moderation that held this country together while the politicos masked a personal power agenda under the guise of reform did their ego-utmost to piss it away.

Naw, this type of crappola writing went out with LSD induced vapidity and shouldn't again be visited."; 5/21/07, 4:12 AM
Ann Althouse said...: Amba: I didn't answer your question properly, I notice now, the next day. I make a special case out of the word "f*ck" because of filters. They can't filter "dick." It's a name. My own father's name was Dick. I have yet to meet anyone named F*ck.

But there's the question, why did I do a post like this, just calling the guy a dick? I don't usually post like that or talk like that about someone. It's like the old "nerd wants love" post. I do it occasionally, when linking to someone who's being rotten to me. (I normally just don't link to such thing.) A short post requires you to go over and read it. He gets traffic. He's not particularly hurt by it, actually. He has his point and you have to read it. You might think he's right. Personally, I think he's so clearly wrong that just reading his post will get you where I would otherwise have to persuade you to go.

Plus, I operate on whim and intuition here. And the guy's name is Quick. It rhymes with dick and calling him a dick is quick.; 5/21/07, 6:17 AM
DaveW said...: Using other characters to defeat filters is called "masking" and is a terms of service violation on many websites and forums.

Actually I think you are using the asterisks to avoid blogger calling your blog a spam or porn blog or if you are trying to defeat user end filters. If, say, a pre-teen get's here and sees the masked profanity you'd be deliberately defeating the parent's efforts to screen offensive websites from their child.

I don't think that's what you're doing though. I just wanted to make the point that deliberately defeating filters really isn't considered playing nice.; 5/21/07, 8:31 AM
Gordon Freece said...: Bill Quick says,

political moderates become so because they hate politics.

Wrong, Bill! People who Quick thinks "hate politics" are more interested in the goals of politics than they are in the game of partisanism.

Can't say I much object to "f*ck". Foul language has often been "shrouded" like that in print for God knows how long, the 18th century at least.; 5/21/07, 11:52 AM
AlphaLiberal said...: I guess I don't see how he's a "dick". He offers trenchant criticism of the "moderate" approach to politcs. If you don't like his comments, then address them. But to call the guy names without addressing substantive arguments is just silly and lame.

But I guess people who can't defend their positions turn to name-calling.; 5/21/07, 1:54 PM
halojones-fan said...: Wow, that was cool--over on Bill Quick's comments page, I've been accused of being a woman and then called a bitch. But it's not like he's a dick or anything, right? :rolleyes:; 5/21/07, 2:46 PM
Tully said...: Followed through the link, and thank you for reminding me why I don't read his blog.; 5/21/07, 10:08 PM