As I See It

Posted on March 22, 2003 in Crosstalk Thinking

I’ve been putting my thinking online more and more lately and, consequently, paying the price for doing so. Yes, there has been praise — much more than I expected, to tell the truth — for my positions. But I’ve caught flak now for just presenting what I think. I call it flak as opposed to criticism because the chief fault MJ finds with me is that I write in a manner that she first calls “provocative” but later — perhaps after realizing that word implies intelligence and thoughtfulness — amends to “rable rousing” [sic]. (See her responses to my attempt to categorize varieties of “pro-peace” ideologies.)

I’ve often been puzzled by people’s reactions to me. It’s a subject that I often bring up with my online friends. Together with them, I’ve come up with a list of possibilities to explain the behavior:

• They are jealous or threatened by my “intelligence”. To tell the truth, I have a hard time believing that. If this the case for some people, I feel I don’t think I am especially smarter than most people. I make mistakes. I attribute things to the wrong person. I can’t do square roots in my head like my wife can. I agree with Erskine Caldwell when he says that a writer is really “a simple-minded person”: I’m just setting out what I think in public.
  
  
  
• They are afraid that the fact that they have not thought through the issues like I have. Maybe.
  
  
  
• They’re embarassed that they haven’t had some of my experiences. Maybe.
  
  
  
• They fail to read me for what I am saying. Well, all I can say for this is mea culpa. We fuck up sometimes. We’re human.
  
  

• They are afraid that if they follow my lead (and I am merely following others), that they will discover inconsistencies in their thinking on moral subjects. Maybe. I’ve resisted putting things on paper myself for this very reason.
  
  
  
• They think I am attacking them.The fact is that these articles I’ve written over the next few days have had as their first and most important purpose getting out for myself just how I think. I haven’t really been targeting people with a mind to “taking them down”. Rather, I have started from their thoughts and compared my own to them, given my reasons why I accept or don’t accept them. Or I have puzzled over their reactions and presented possibilities for them, as in this piece.
  
  
  
• They are projecting their faults on me. Sometimes this is the case. I am not pointing fingers here.
  
  
  
• They are intoxicated. I’ve suspected this in a few cases.
  
  
  
• They are afraid that if they write down what they think, others will find fault with it and respect them less. They are afraid that they might have to do the same and pay the price. Maybe. Criticism comes with the territory. You will pick up critics whenever you write. I’d rather have them criticize me for “provocativeness” than “flakiness”. It’s a choice that I have made. As for the second: anyone who thinks less of you because you speak your mind sincerely isn’t worth having as a friend. Anyone who can’t accept an apology when you have fucked up may also not be worth the trouble.
  
  
  
• They are plain lazy. They don’t want to think. This is probably the meanest thing that I actually entertain as a possibility. What I have done takes time and trouble to do. But I add this important insight which I believe I can safely apply from my own experience to that of others: I haven’t thought every moral position through. Some are more important to me than others. When the press of the times demands that I pay attention to someone else’s thinking, I often find myself with nothing to say. So I keep silent if I am smart or I attempt to attack if I am stupid or I try to formulate a position based on what has come in if inspiration strikes. This, of course, leads me to the risks naturally entailed in putting my thoughts out where others can see them. Others are entitled to do the same, with the same risks. I don’t grant the entitlement: it’s there for all of us by virtue of our being human.
  
  
  
• They want me to be fluffy bunny. This was the theory of my Danish chat friend and reader of this blog alina. She believes that people react because I have a “strong personality”. But she adds: “you couldn’t write the wonderful stories that you do if you didn’t have it.” There are a few habits that I am willing to correct, apologies that I am willing to make when I fuck up, but I am not changing who I am, folks.
  
  
  
• They think I am stupid or evil. Everyone’s entitled to their opinion.

I can almost predict the responses to this: Joel is being:

• hateful
  
• patronizing

• belittling
• offensive
• Fill in the your own insult

No. I’m just telling it like I see it. That’s what you get when you come to my blog. As well as the photos, the occasional lapses into humor, the talk of the weather, my neighbors, the appeals for action, and the other stuff that I write about here.