Of Little Pricks and April Fools
[Update 2: 7 April 2008: I'd like to close the book on this one, though you're of course free to enter and see a couple of bloggers at their most monstrous. Kudos to DM for fighting through to daylight.]
[Update, 4 April: To Dan: So I take it, from your own posting of the cached version, that you want me to un-private the post? I didn't want to prolong the circus, but apparently you do. We can let more people weigh in in comments and the whole nine yards, though that will get ugly. I was trying to keep this post off the top five so Education Alltop and Popurls browsers would stop coming in - and really doing that more for your sake than mine.
My reputation can take it, because I'm not generally an ass towards people in my posts. You can't say the same, and many people will eventually come out from hiding and say in public what they're only saying to me in private, if you push this enough.
And I'll be very secure in analyzing my behavior on this post and the day of its writing. It really does fit into the paradigm of bullying/bullied behavior. It would make interesting reading and thinking.
I wanted to make a point and get your attention to make you think. But you want to play hardball, I guess.
So here comes Round 2. See the original post, and the comments, below the fold. I ask you have the courage to not be anonymous, since anonymity seems to have brought out the worst in one person already. And the followup post is here.]
“Be careful when you fight the monsters, lest you become one yourself.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
Since this English teacher has posted little lessons this week about writing titles and good introductions, and about sentence variety, he’s going to have a bit of fun now posting about etiquette and online identity - as he responds to a personal attack by a blogger who apparently wants a bit of circus. Share this one with your students as an object lesson and cautionary tale.
Intro: A Little Serendipity
Bill Farren emailed me a link to this excellent primer by Paul Graham on “How to Disagree.” (It’s worth a bookmark.) This excerpt from the bottom of its “disagreement hierarchy” serves as a serendipitous introduction to this post:
Name-calling.
This is the lowest form of disagreement, and probably also the most common. We’ve all seen comments like this:
u r a fag!!!!!!!!!!
But it’s important to realize that more articulate name-calling has just as little weight. A comment like
The author is a self-important dilettante.
is really nothing more than a pretentious version of “u r a fag.”
Definitions 1: Prick
Prick (pr
k)
n.
- a. The act of piercing or pricking; b. The sensation of being pierced or pricked.
- a. A persistent or sharply painful feeling of sorrow or remorse; b. A small, sharp, local pain, such as that made by a needle or bee sting.
v. pricked, prick·ing, pricks
v.tr.
- To puncture lightly.
- To affect with a mental or emotional pang, as of sorrow or remorse: His conscience began to prick him.
- To impel as if with a spur…
Dan Meyer gives us an example of “prick” - the verb, definition one - in this bit of link-love to my blog:
Text too small? Here’s a transcript:
“I’ve been a Diigo user for two years come July. Seems like everybody and their grannies have adopted it in a Twitter-induced stampede over the last two days…. I’ve been evangelizing Diigo on these pages since day one.” —Clay Burell, who would like you to know that, between the two of you, he found Diigo first. By two years come July.
On Selective Quoting for Character Assassination
The blogger pretentiously known as Dy/Dan employs the oldest trick in the book, quoting out of context, to omit the true motive of my post - sharing a year’s worth of lessons using Diigo in the classroom - and mix it with mud. (At least he was honest enough to include ellipses for the two paragraphs separating the sentences he lifted.) I’ll leave it to the reader to waste time puzzling over the motive of this unprovoked little prick. But it’s a good textbook case of distortion through selective quoting, if you need a real-world example for your classroom.
Applied Rhetoric: Apophasis and Irony
Apophasis: The mention of something in disclaiming intention of mentioning it.
Situational irony: The disparity of intention and result: when the result of an action is contrary to the desired or expected effect.
I won’t mention the irony of Dan accusing someone else of egotism, when he in the very same week left this comment on Scott McLeod’s post about “comment density”:
What I’m saying is that those numbers up there correlate to _something_. Yeah, Ewan, Vicki, and Will were some of the first on the scene. Yeah, Scott has some impressive credentials. But no one _stays_ at the top unless they can _clearly write interesting thoughts_.
That’s really it. And it’s the only reason (aside from Scott’s largess) I’m featured _anywhere_ in this post. I dropped into this scene late. I have no credentials. I’m half the age and quarter the experience of anyone else in this post. But I spend a _lot_ of time thinking and reading about education and I run through eleven drafts of every post.
–So writes Dan Meyer, who would like you to know that, between the two of you, he’s at the top, spends a _lot_ of time thinking, and writes eleven drafts of every post (slander is that hard?). And clearly writes interesting thoughts. And did he mention he is _at the top_?
Again, I won’t mention the irony here. But if I did, I wouldn’t need to use ellipses.
I will mention, though, that with enough ill will, anybody can comb anybody else’s online writings to lift quotes for the purpose of slander, as this little exercise shows. (See how easy this is, Dan?)
Closing Definitions
I like radicals, rebels, and bad boys - but only if they’re “good men.”* My definition of “good”? We could boil it down to the absence of resentment and the presence of good will. We could boil it down, even, to the old bumper sticker:
Over the last year, a few people have told me Dy/Dan is worth reading. As Dy/Dan himself tells us, he has “good ideas.” I acknowledge as much, though only from hearsay. Me? I like smart people, sure - but not if they’re smart asses as well. I don’t read them for the same reason I don’t hang out with them in real life. There are too many smart people who are good-willed as well.
Dy/Dan, as he tells us, is “half the age and a quarter of the experience” of many of us. Maybe a couple decades more of life will teach him that, as Malachy McCourt writes,
Resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die.
That being said, I’ve been guilty myself of having what I fondly call “a case of ass” in posts and comments (and in real life). It comes with the territory of being passionate. But I’ve learned that the simple remedy for those moments was to simply say, “Yeah, I was an ass. But big boys can admit it and make up.” That normally works.**
But not coming clean like that? It keeps us dirty.
So Dan, keep up the good ideas, but to riff off the Nietzsche epigraph that opened this post: Be careful when tempted to post the little prick — lest you become one yourself.
.
.
.
—
*Apologies for the gender bias. Doing the “him/her” thing just doesn’t work. Oh, for a neutral human pronoun in English.
**(And Dan, after trying to get us out of the mud over a year ago [Update: and also here], and again a couple months ago, I have to say I’m amazed at your persistence to keep the bile flowing. Can we settle at least for mutual oblivion? The net is not a small town in an old Western. It’s surely big enough for the two of us.)
Photo by Jacob B.
Clay,
Thank you for a truly funny posting on this day of lame jokes!
Such a delectable double (triple?) entendre that even this staid old librarian could pick up on.
What will come next: a pricking of conscience, a deflating prick of the ego…
I have the image of a great, deadly snake, roused from sleep to uncoil and strike at its annoying tormentor. The drama of it all!
How very delightful.
diane
diane’s last blog post..Letter to the NYS Board of Regents
diane
2 Apr 08 at 8:21 am
Clay,
You would think the edublogosphere would be big enough to encompass the gamut of perspectives. Lately the rampant egos are just on a blogging bender. I did read the post on blog/ comment etiquette. The word ‘etiquette’ is of obvious French origin-but more interestingly Old French estiquet meant “a note, label.” “a short written notice,” “a notice posted in a public place,” and “a written certification.” I think that means you just called Dy/Dan a certified prick. Bon Poisson d’avril
Linda
2 Apr 08 at 8:54 am
Ouch.
Benjamin Baxter’s last blog post..Obama’s Pastor’s Timely Teachable Moment
Benjamin Baxter
2 Apr 08 at 8:56 am
‘By the pricking of my thumb something wicked this way comes.’ - Ray Bradbury
diane’s last blog post..Letter to the NYS Board of Regents
diane
2 Apr 08 at 9:07 am
@Diane,
The prick was unprovoked. That’s what I don’t get.
The writing was fun, though, so in the grand alchemy of things, the bile became a honeyed bit of pleasure.
@Linda (and you seem a good stand-in for Dorothy Parker indeed),
I never called anybody any such thing. It never entered my mind.
@Benjamin,
Half “ouch,” half “hee hee,” I hope. Happy April Fools.
Clay Burell
2 Apr 08 at 9:53 am
Excuse me, but was that “Happy April Fools’ [Day]” or “Happy April, Fools”?
diane’s last blog post..Letter to the NYS Board of Regents
diane
2 Apr 08 at 9:57 am
Um, back again. As @garageflowers reminded me, “Something Wicked This Way Comes” is actually a quote from Shakespeare borrowed by Bradbury as the title for his book.
Forgive me, Obi Wan.
diane’s last blog post..Letter to the NYS Board of Regents
diane
2 Apr 08 at 10:13 am
@diane-touche, madame!
@Clay just keepin’ it real in the blogosphere…..
Linda
2 Apr 08 at 10:16 am
YouthNet at Students 2.0
2 Apr 08 at 12:10 pm
In a post, “Vandals, Vulgarity and Victims”, that I wrote a year ago I ended with this:
There is a saying I love to use:
“Don’t wrestle with a pig. You both get dirty and the pig likes it.”
This is fairly easy to do with an angry person… simply choose not to engage in their dirty approach.
However these kind of hurtful, hateful on-line vandals bring the mud to the fight. They hurl it at you and get you dirty whether or not you choose to engage. Combating this is not easy: It takes courage, it takes thick skin, it takes effort to choose a moral stance; to avoid slinging mud. As a result, it leaves me wondering… How do you stop these malicious people from getting the best of you? Beyond not giving the offenders any credit or notoriety, and beyond ‘turning the other cheek’, what else can be done?
- - - - - - - - -
I like your approach on this of all days:-)
David Truss’s last blog post..Candy Cultures - Reflections on a leadership activity
David Truss
2 Apr 08 at 1:43 pm
@Dave,
You nail why attacks like this are so obnoxious. Turning the other cheek doesn’t work any more (if it ever did).
Jeff Utecht wrote an interesting post about all this just this week. It’s called “Who’s Controlling Your Online Profile?”, and is well worth the read.
I really have to thank Dan for leaving such a wide April Fool’s opening with the timing of his ass-showing.
The funny thing - sad thing, really - is that, if you follow the two links at the end of the post, you’ll see that I did make a good-faith effort to mend fences and return to grown-up-land.
Now I don’t care. Three strikes and all of that.
In college, it occurred to me there are two basic personality types: aggressive and loving. They reveal themselves most clearly, my theory goes, when too drunk. The lover wants to hug, kiss, and worse; the aggressive wants to insult, get in your face, and fight.
I made the mistake of really, really trusting one of the latter. Thought we were best friends and would have trusted him with my life. His betrayal and abandonment taught me to heed the signs of hatred when you see them. He was the most aggressive drunk I’d ever known.
So yeah, anyway, I dunno. Thanks for the comment, though. Nice to hear from you (and I like the reflective re-posting you’re doing as you migrate to your new blog).
Clay Burell
2 Apr 08 at 1:56 pm
Whoa. Clay. I don’t know if my single-sentence citation deserves the full-post meltdown here. I just noticed everyone rushing around to claim first-dibs on Diigo, like all my friends who swear they loved the new great band before it went mainstream, and thought it was funny enough to note.
I hadn’t counted on this reaction, though, so my bad all the way. Didn’t realize we were like this, you and me.
Dan Meyer
2 Apr 08 at 1:59 pm
@Dan,
“Meltdown” - right.
Oblivion is better. We’ve ignored each other this long. Why ruin a good thing?
This is a no-ass zone.
Clay Burell
2 Apr 08 at 2:18 pm
[...] This whole Diigo thing cracked me up, everyone claiming they’d been pushing it for years, like me and my friends claim lifelong allegiance to bands the second they get signed. It seemed funny enough for remark but, wow, did I ever miss the mark with that one. [...]
dy/dan » Blog Archive » Whoa.
2 Apr 08 at 2:34 pm
Is it still April 1st in South Korea? I thought it was the other way around? Way better than Buffy reruns.
Dean Shareski’s last blog post..My first crack at Keynote and Pecha Kucha
Dean Shareski
2 Apr 08 at 2:39 pm
@Dean,
I took liberties with world time
@Dan,
Since you closed comments on your follow-up post - really, let’s just take five. Centuries.
Go back to sharing your good ideas, don’t provoke people who mind their own business, and think a little bit more before that eleventh revision.
Seriously, good luck, and good night (and by the way, it was both: I was indeed offended, and I also enjoyed the invitation to cross swords. It’s not often a writer gets a justified opportunity to cut loose like this).
Clay Burell
2 Apr 08 at 2:48 pm
Well, I have nothing real to add just now other than a very Australian, “How ya goin’, mate?”
John Larkin’s last blog post..How do you lifestream fellow educators?
John Larkin
2 Apr 08 at 5:32 pm
Wow. Perhaps I’m not aware of the past history between you and Dan, but from this posting I would assume your mother was a Capulet and Dan’s a Montague (bonus points for referencing Shakespeare).
Was it a snarky comment? Sure. Could it be read as a poke at you? Sure. But that’s it. I wouldn’t even go so far to call it a “sharp, localized pain.” It was a poke. Why go slashing in return? I notice you didn’t comment at all on Dan’s post that angered you. Why not?
I’ve been a regular reader and sometimes commenter on both your blogs, have found both full of good insight and ideas. This post goes totally against the collaborative nature of education that you’ve been promoting. It’s a horrible example to new bloggers and isn’t going to help anyone get into this game for the right reasons.
Hope that wasn’t too ass-y.
Ben’s last blog post..YES!
Ben
3 Apr 08 at 12:41 am
@Ben,
No offense taken - ideas are fair game, people aren’t (unless they ask for it).
While I hear you about the asymmetry (a small jab, a nuclear response), if you follow the last couple links, you’ll see a longer history.
As I say in my close, I’ve heard Dan has good ideas and give him credit for that.
But I stand by the message to new bloggers: Collaboration requires social intelligence, not just good ideas. Be mean to people, you might get meanness back. It’s a basic law.
And between the two of us, I want you to know several people have privately thanked me, because they’ve received pricks in the past. So the jury is split on this.
And yes, I may have had too much fun, once I started writing. But we English teachers are funny this way.
Clay Burell
3 Apr 08 at 2:01 am
All too seriously
He obviously “wants a bit of circus”, which is evidently what one gets by piddling in your pond.
To us students here’s the “cautionary tale”, beware the vindication of talented academics. Never underestimate the backlash of seemingly mundane or harmless humor. You might be opening a floodgate, a pent up fury of aggravation, superior authority and intellect, to which you will be the unwitting receptacle.
Great show men, and the comments here are priceless BTW. Kudos to you Clay on an excellent dissection of bad etiquette.
I’m trying to relate my humor here of this whole circus without
[being] a little prick. Perspectives abound in this wild ‘net often so obscure that many people find it worthless to read comments or pages leading to their own. It is humorous to observe the day-to-day practices of professionals in their industries happening in real time on the ‘net. I’ve always heard rumors about inflated personas and mercantile vengeance. To sum it up, I relate to you both Clay and Dan, whereas I also found your whining funny in the “why don’t you cry about it, that’s what you get for ‘evangelising’” sense and the “how dare you piddle in my pond, I SMITE you now!” sense. Not that Dan exhibited that in his comment, a good faith interpretation might’ve been that it had no actually offensive value other than a dry humored, metaphor for a claim to first rights. Journalistic commentary? Perhaps, it is after all a personal blog…
For the students perhaps you could give extra credit to someone who can determine the BIG prick here, and *chuckles* the worst example of hypocrite.
I like good men too, saying so indicates nothing of my character. You’re not a fan of A. Crowley are you?
Thanks again I am truly _rolling_ *bows.
Ash
3 Apr 08 at 3:55 am
I could be a white haired granny looking at these words, but alas, no children yet from my children. So just a granny want to be. I do know the value however of feeling support, of using time to care…of risking for …things that matter. Of respect systems. And of listening to Aretha at least once a week.
So. I’m one of the quiet thank yous.
I am sorry to bring it up.
But I am. I am not proud of the fact that I am not yet completely beyond the stinging of words. Not yet free of the unsure self that feels.
Many an April I am the fool but I do understand this isn’t an easy spot to sit. Not in any way. I’ll send good thoughts. Really good ones for peace.
And I do recommend the Bill Evans.
Sarah Puglisi
Sarah Puglisi
4 Apr 08 at 12:40 pm
This is my last comment, I hope.
This isn’t the first time I’ve tangled with somebody who thought it was okay to walk around thumping people, and then said “What’s the big deal? I was just kidding. C’mon, take a joke. Lighten up, brah.”
Listen to that podcast in the post above this one. It’s uncanny how the first 15 minutes invite this as another example of getting in a fight with somebody who thinks they can provoke people without paying for it.
The old fatherly advice, “Don’t start fights, but once in, be sure you finish them” holds true here.
For those of you who disagree with what I’ve done - and again, the history is long and the backstory is deep - I can only say, first, I don’t feel particularly clean about it myself, and second, if you have known me at all through these pages, you should know it’s not characteristic. That being said, just as I was often suspended for fighting in school, when I was always only fighting _back_, I can handle it if you feel I’ve crossed a line you’re not comfortable with. Good luck, if that’s the case.
People have lives. We don’t remember that well enough when we gratuitously provoke them. Maybe they’ve had bad medical news, or a marital crisis, or a professional one, on the day they discover some annoying piece of sarcasm aimed at them from some “annoying tormentor,” to quote Diane. And maybe that’s why they “uncoil and strike.”
I won’t say anything more. I apologize to those I’ve brought down, and thank those who understand.
Now on to that beautiful springtime I was hoping to enjoy during this spring break vacation. It’s glorious out there, finally, after a long, cold winter.
Clay Burell
4 Apr 08 at 1:57 pm
Just another quiet ‘”Thank you”. I’m glad you re-posted this. Your wit made me smile the first time, this time you made me think a little more deeply about blog bullying.
LindaH’s last blog post..Music - Luxury or Nurture?
LindaH
7 Apr 08 at 2:12 am
[...] if the cast-iron skillet approach really wasn’t necessary to get you to listen, as you claim, then I’m sorry. Being [...]
After the Circus: Spring Cleaning | Beyond School
7 Apr 08 at 2:39 am
Let me say firstly and flatly, I was the bigger hypocrite and/or prick.
Ironically my comment was motivated by very similar circumstances and feeling, that justice for bullies must be swift and hard. To my regret this was somewhat impromptu and absent-minded, having no understanding for the context of your post. Passing judgement is tricky, like dealing with a double _ended_ sword you cannot thrust it safely and must keep it reserved, tolerant and controlled. Sometimes even, the whole point is to lure you into the mud; it is my hope that you will resist the urge to enter it further.
It is my personal opinion that you and your community area valuable commodity in service to the noble enterprise. To which I have done a disservice in contributing to your waste of time and energy.
Mine was an attitude reflecting little more than reductio ad absurdum, in that my behavior reflects that of little tact, empathy or due respect. To sum, diplomacy is the great social cohesive force and when we allow ‘good will’ to degrade selfishness sets in (ie resentment and cruelty). That is the great moral, that others _do_ matter.
When we are at fault we must make amens, without reserve, to preserve our character and hopefully become wiser in the process of humility. Perhaps the purpose is to not only persist in virtue but to be a force of it, thus improving the world by our presence.
Thankfully I have the convenience of anonymity, I respect your bravery. I second that, here’s to a lovely spring season!
Ash
9 Apr 08 at 1:01 pm
Responding to insult is an age-old problem:
Even the finest arms are an instrument of evil,
A spread of plague,
And the way for a vital man to go is not the way of a soldier.
But in time of war men civilized in peace
Turn from their higher to their lower nature.
Arms are an instrument of evil,
No measure for thoughtful men
Until there fail all other choice
But sad acceptance of it.
Triumph is not beautiful.
He who thinks triumph beautiful
Is one with a will to kill,
And one with a will to kill
Shall never prevail upon the world.
It is a good sign when man’s higher nature comes forward,
A bad sign when his lower nature comes forward,
When retainers take charge
And the master stays back
As in the conduct of a funeral.
The death of a multitude is cause for mourning:
Conduct your triumph as a funeral.
-Lao Tzu
Just sayin’ that it’s OK sometimes. I enjoyed your audio clip, also.
Doug Noon’s last blog post..When Worlds Don’t Collide
Doug Noon
9 Apr 08 at 2:07 pm
Just caught up with this one from one of Dave’s reflections. It is somewhat ironical that both you and I have had rather nasty dealings with dy/dan. I commend you for taking a stand and staying there until the end. For me, dy/dan and his ideas hold no draw - there are plenty of great ideas out there from young teachers who’s ego doesn’t get in the way of their thinking.
The writing and language usage was great to read. My father also gave me the same advice. “Never look for a fight nor start one but if someone cannot stop, then be the last one standing” Keep strong Clay!
Kelly Christopherson
19 Apr 08 at 1:50 am