Sandbox Privilege; or Fingers in Ears, Vocal Cords on Repeat

Next to the unsightly word, nothing about the blogosphere annoys me more than its ability to empower people to stick their fingers in their ears and yell "LA LA LA LA LA LA." 

Not that I have a particular example in mind.  (Ignore that link.  I don't know how it got there.)  If someone declares "You didn't address this compendium of complaints" and someone else painstakingly addresses it, the former should not be able to say "I do not like how you addressed my points therefore I refuse to answer them" then ask another couple of questions then close the comments so as to render the latter unable to answer those questions in the forum in which they were raised. 

Now I know that every blogger has the playground privilege of gathering their toys and running home, but doing so violates even the attenuated conversational ethics of online interaction when someone does so after asking a direct question . . . especially when that direct question follows a thorough and diligent attempt to address a series of points one has accused another of failing to address.  To wit:

Jimmy:  Transformers are superior to Gobots in every possible way one toy can be better than another.  If they decide to bring back transforming robots, only an idiot would champion a Gobot renaissance.

Billy:  Gobots are so much cooler than Transformers!  Look:

First: Optimus Prime is a stupid truck with a stupid head and you're stupid if you think differently.

Second:  Cy-Kill is awesome because he has the word "kill" in his name and motorcycles go fast. 

Third:  Rocks are so cool.  I throw rocks all the time.  So does everyone else.  Who throws dinosaurs?  No one.  They're extinct.  If they were so much better then why are they extinct?

Jimmy: Let me address Billy's three-pronged argument which "definitively proves" his contention that Gobots are superior to Transformers.

First: "[Leader-1] looks like recent vintage Michael Stipe [whereas] Optimus Prime looks bad-ass.

Second: Cy-Kill is a pun so bad even these fools shun it.  [Megatron] combines the Greek word for "great" (or the French for "important person") with the Greek suffix used to indicate "something fundamental."  Plus it sounds an awful lot like "megaton" and Cy-Kill is a lame motorcycle and Megatron is a giant friggin' gun.

Third: Some Gobots transformed into rocks.  Rocks.  Some Transformers transformed into dinosaurs.  Rocks can't even move of their own volition.  If no one is there to throw these Gobots then they barely deserve the name. 

Billy:   I didn't say anything about Megatron or the Beast Wars!  You are a terrible reader.   Do you even care about robots able to become functional cars or jets or cybernetic dinosaurs?  You don't.  Obviously not.  (sticks fingers in ears and proceeds to scream)  LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA!  (gathers toys and walks home)

Now that I've purged that from my system . . .

Comments

[Anthony Paul Smith]

:Sigh:

[Scott Eric Kaufman]

I could've just sighed too, Anthony, but I was greviously annoyed by the impolitic move of asking a series of questions, dismissing my involved response out-of-hand, then asking more questions and closing the comments. I thought a lighter and livelier version--i.e. one involving Gobots--would serve the dual function of marking the breach and making light of it.

But yes, sighing is also an acceptable response.

[Stephen]

The food fighters, of course, were way cooler than both the transformers and gobots combined.

http://www.virtualtoychest.com/foodfighters/foodfighters.html

[Ancrene Wiseass]

Are you implying that early Michael Stipe was not badass?

[eb]

If he'd written "I apologize to all and Sunday" I'd read the thread, but as he didn't, oh well. My loss.

[Scott Eric Kaufman]

Murmur-era Stipe certainly wasn't a bad-ass. I can't seem to find any photos of the Green world tour (my first concert, I should add), but with that mohawk-thing and the suspenders, he looked like he could be in Rancid, which semi-qualifies him for bad-assness.

Stephen, you Canadians frighten me. At least you still have single-paye...uh, nevermind.

[Scott Eric Kaufman]

eb, yes, a pun or evidence of a sense of humor would've substantially enhanced my enjoyment of that conversation. I don't even mean a good pun. "Cy-Kill" would suffice.

[Adam Kotsko]

I think it's fair to say that Gobots had nothing to match the dramatic depth of the Death of Optimus Prime -- although "Rodimus Prime" was probably the stupidest idea ever.

[Matt]

Honestly, Scott.

I swear to God I'm not really that invested, and neither am I the one who closed the comments, but it did struck me as an entirely justified thing to do, given the circumstances. Each blogger must take responsibility for the tolerance levels of their own threads, after all. Frankly I'm glad Long Sunday seems to be consciously deciding to opt for another, hopefully less circular path.

As for your post here, it's very tempting just to say "no comment."

Nothing, of course, is stopping you from providing this "thorough and diligent attempt to address a series of points," but perhaps some admission of your own bone-headedness on at least some of these points, after said bone-headedness has been painstakingly pointed out to you in two threads with which you dominated two blogs at once for several days, you know, might be in order. Sorry, but this is me being polite.

Or, you could just whine about the sandbox mentality of others.

(If on the other hand, you were trying to pick a fight with some other particular post than the ones to which you linked, then why not, you know, just take the gloves off already?)

Or, not to pile on, but maybe you would like to answer the questions still left lingering over your Long Sunday Foucault post, as you promised? I don't know.

I probably should've just opted for some faux-cryptic, making-light comment about "Rodimus Prime," whatever that is. Friendly yours,

:sigh:

[Scott Eric Kaufman]

Matt, all I'll say is that it wasn't my intent to dominate two threads; that decision was someone else's. And I'd respond to said someone else, only I already have. It was his response to that, followed by his immediate closing of the comments, which annoyed me. You're more than welcome to think that initial post bone-headed, because I did, indeed, fail to define symbolic politics . . . but the idea that what I meant by "symbolic politics" was "anything that isn't voting" is equally bone-headed. Especially since I only mentioned voting at the very end as a symptom of the very withdrawal from conventional politics I had been discussing throughout the body of the post. All of which is only to say, I still think the proud failure of the New Left heavily contributed to our current situation, and that the move to relive such failure will (if it's possible) render the left even more impotent than it already is.

I know you're being polite, and so am I, but we're just going to have to agree to disagree on this one. I don't now, nor will I ever buy, the political apathy is a powerful political strategy line. Got to go now, but more later.

[Matt]

Oh, apathy's really where it's at, though. This might be insulting, I suppose, had it any basis in reality.

Well, throw straw and people respond with irony, I guess.

Take care,

Matt

[Matt]

Make that incredulous irony, I suppose. Kindly unmask this mystery villain who has dominated both threads wherein it appears the multitude takes serious issue with your post, and on quite a few levels.

Or, you know what, you could just drop it.

[Scott Eric Kaufman]

Matt, I'm not sure what you're getting at. I think I'm making a serious argument, as do others. I understand that you don't, and that's fine, but I believe that I pointed to a substantial link between the 1) demise of real leftist politics in the US, 2) the rise of actual far right conservatism and 3) the reason why the left shouldn't repeat the mistakes that led to #1. I'm neither constructing nor arguing with strawpeople here, nor do I think the people involved in the thread on the Valve (eventually among them, John Emerson) thought my arguments unserious. If I seemed an unserious strawperson, well, that may be because I didn't define "symbolic politics" and instead relied on readers having a passing familiarity with the conflicts of the time and the terms in which they were couched. That, as you rightly note, was a mistake on my part . . . but I don't see how it was a dishonest one, or one which compelled anyone other than you and Charles to dismiss my argument out of hand. Even T.V. eventually noted that his criticism was largely born not of a difference in tactics and/or strategies but of despair, and as I noted, that's a respectable position, just not one I've taken yet.

But, as you said, it's something we can drop. I only wish, however, that it had been dropped before I spent forty-five minutes answering Charles' objections point-by-point, only to have those objections dismissed out-of-hand (and sans argument) as ridiculous and not worthy of response. That pissed me off. Perhaps, as I note above, it's a fact of online interaction and I just need to get with the program. But you know what? I don't want to. Serious arguments should be treated seriously, not imperially.

[Scott Eric Kaufman]

Also, I find it odd that the response to this post fell into the "two camps" models of past debates. Why it is that a post on the rebirth of the SDS should parse along "party lines" is a mystery to me, especially since we're outside of the readily available institutional explanations. I'm not sure why a renaissance of the failed politics of the New Left should warrant the response it warranted from Charles, especially in light of the fact that my link to Long Sunday was more personal lament than structural criticism. When I see people advocating that passive position, it calls to mind the hopelessness in conventional politics that caused the New Left's withdrawal. No condemnation there, merely a question of tactics, one which I think we should all seriously consider, what with all of us being closer to each other politically than not.

Ugh. I'm not dropping this for any other reason than it's bothering me, not because I feel the need to get the last word. (It's my blog, after all, I know how to do that. But I won't.)

[CR]

Also, I find it odd that the response to this post fell into the "two camps" models of past debates.

But Scott, this IS the same argument we've been having all along, which roughly boils down to: is it possible/effective or impossible/absurd to do politics through anything other (and/or outside the framework of) party/electoral/grassroots politics. Usually we're talking about writing, writing of the sort that's either been done by theorists or american academics or both. Now we're talking about "symbolic politics," whatever that might be.

Sean's rejection of the political viablity of theory.
Rich's repeated claim that left academics/theorists are delusional hypocrites, useless compared to grass-roots types. (I've in particular taken a lot of this stuff from him in the past, where he taunts me about something I said long ago about the teaching and socialism...)
And now you.

Holbo steers clear of the political pretty much constantly, so I won't even go there.

But it really isn't suprising that it broke this way, right?

[Rich Puchalsky]

CR: "this IS the same argument we've been having all along [...]
Sean's rejection [...] Rich's repeated claim [...] And now you."

Another thing that I've said before is that I wish that you'd stop choosing up sides. Who is the "we" in your first sentence?

I'll expand on that further. The original political impulse is to defend an acquaintance when it looks as if that person is being unfairly attacked. Of course people do this. But the besetting problem of "your side" (and sure, I'll call it a side if you will) is that you incessantly politicize this into an ideological difference. If you attack someone and their blog-acquaintances defend them, it must be (according to you) because they share some common ideology. If someone attacks you and your blog-acquaintances join in, it must not be because they know you, but because (according to you) they agree with you about some essential issue.

And, of course, since blog communities formed in the first place out of some commonality of interest, there really are certian initial areas of agreement between most of the people attracted to them. That is enough so that you can pretend that there is a "we" that makes sense, if you want to.

I suspect that certain people like this because it is the only taste of political solidarity that they get. But, whatever; it's annoying to me to have my name brought in in a reply to Scott simply because you've had arguments with me about something similar in the past.

[Matt]

Trainwreck Scott, your arguement isn't unserious, it's simplistic. You seem predominantly unwilling to admit this possibility, or to respond to the actual complaints. Perhaps you misunderstand the complaints, but people do grow tired. Blaming Charles for dominating two threads, when he has quite obviously done no such thing, is likewise simplistic. That's all. In retrospect, it's probably unnecessary for me to point these things out; sorry then.

Take care,

Matt

[Scott Eric Kaufman]

But it really isn't suprising that it broke this way, right?

A little, yes, but only because I doubted anyone would consider the antics of the New Left in any sense, from the theoretical to the practical, viable. After all, while we can debate the current efficacy of theory as a politicizing agent, the debate as to the success of the New Left's adoption of political theater over grassroots political action has been settled: the New Left failed. What they called their "symbolic politics" (the phrase isn't mine, but as I noted above, contemporary) failed to have the effects they so desired, ipso facto (at least to my mind) we ought not repeat their mistakes simply because they've retreated into nostalgia.

In other words, I had absolutely no idea that the LS camp would align their outside-the-system politics with the New Left's, in large part because, well, because they're not at all alike. Late New Left politics, if you can even call it that, endorsed a radical individualism that say contemporary politic readings of literature shun. If anything, the New Left became radically libertarian, endorsing only what bettered the life of the particular individual doing the endorsing. The selfish of such a "politics" isn't what I see as the core contention between our two camps.

Matt, I don't know what to say other than "I didn't blame Charles of dominating two threads, said absolutely nothing of the sort." Had I not been made to appear to say a number of things I hadn't, I wouldn't have had to answer Charles' thread. Also, had his points not been so patently absurd, had his defense of what he mistakenly believed the New Left to have been, its positions, its politics, then there's a chance I could take the "you're not understanding his criticisms seriously" line seriously. Unfortunately, there's no there there, in that case; he offered no alternatives other than, well, wishful thinking. Literally. As in "I wish and hope and fervently but secularly pray that my critiques of power will bring about a new political order," when in fact, there's nothing to that. CR's pedagogical argument I can and do buy (since it's what motivates me to teach), but this wispy claim that my reading is damnably "ideological" (because he's above ideology? to which model does he subscribe and where can I find me some transcendence?); that because I criticize the New Left's political inefficacy I'm somehow repeating Reagan-era arguments about the social ills created by the New Left (because I'm not, in fact, saying the exact opposite); &c. You can call my post simplistic because I didn't connect all the dots, but to hold up Charles' criticism as a counter-example is simply ridiculous.

[Stephen]

I think you've mischaracterized the playground rhetoric used by the Long Sunday folks here, Scott. Their hypothetical defense of the Gobots is as follows:

"You simply can't see the superiority of the Gobots. There's really no point in arguing with you about this, because unless you've read and entered into sympathetic resonance with Lacan's seminars, not to mention A Thousand Plateaus, the Gobots will remain forever impenetrable to you. I pity you, really, for your Transformer fetish; it is very predictable given the prevalent neoconservative ethos that privileges values such as 'playability' rooted in the instrumental rationality of the Western tradition. Perhaps someday you will understand; until then, your very presence sullies my Gobots and you cannot touch my toys."

[Anthony Paul Smith]

I sighed becuase I'm equally frustated by the Holy Trinity of The Valve (Sean, Rich, and yourself) and the Long Sunday crowd.