i know society expects its girls to show diffidence when criticizing boys. but come on!
-Gwen7
@gwen - I don't think that was a factor in Edvard's reply. I think it's more a reflection of the vibe around here. The feeling at DoCo is that you can get your shots in, or toss in the occasional bit of well-intentioned
snarkiness, without much fear of genteel reprimand. But make too regular a habit of it - or run with it a little too long - and people here tend to call you on it.
This is an unusual forum. It's more like a family dinner conversation than anything else. And it has very similar social "rules." Ms. Maltese video bumped into that I think. An occasional face pull or air quote would have been fine. But the overall tone was rather sarcastic. And since it runs around 15 minutes, it can get a little tiring after a while. Even I was getting a little impatient over it. And I agreed with a large amount of what Ms. Maltese was saying.
My feeling is you can call somebody out in a debate without recourse to 15 minutes of subtext and pantomime that is basically saying: "This
moron is full of it! He doesn't know what he is talking about." Truth is, I'd have found it far more acceptable if she just bluntly said it up front - then went on to the rest of her presentation
sans most of the drama following.
But it was TV (even if it's half YouTube) and that's the behavioral norm for that weird kingdom - which is probably not worth defending - any more than it's worth letting it get to us.
The whole problem with alluding to something is it leaves the message too much up to individual interpretation. Which often differs from what was intended and leads to misunderstandings. Even a simple forum post runs that risk. Even when you're trying to be explicit. As I think is the case with something you heard in Edvard's post. And which I honestly do not think was his intended message at all. We've somehow managed to keep ourselves remarkably free of most of that "battle of the sexes" nonsense. Perhaps, being human, our track record isn't absolutely perfect on that score. But I think it comes pretty close. And we
do try.
I don't think anybody (consciously or subconsciously) was trying to "mansplain" (is that the word?) anything. I just think Edvard was saying - "Enough with the digs and editorial glosses already. We get it! You think he's a con man.
Now can we just move past that and get to the substance of your arguments please?"
