[lbo-talk] indulgent

[Tayssir John Gabbour]

On Sun, Jul 6, 2008 at 3:42 PM, Michael Pollak <mpollak at panix.com> wrote:
> I think there's one nuance people seem to have left out, which might be the
> most important one if someone has called you intense, namely as a term
> non-intellectuals apply to intellectuals.  It's used by the kind of people
> who think "judgmental" is a bad thing; people who don't want to rock the
> boat, and think we should all get along by bracketing every zone of
> contention; people who avoid going into intellectual detail out of
> disinterest and politics out of politeness -- people like that might say
> "you're intense" as an attempt to explain why you scare people without being
> insulting and suggesting how you might soften it.

I've seen something similar among mental workers. (Skilled software
programmers.) There's this one "intense" guy who loves to hold forth
about everything that interests him, including politics. So, one day,
he pointed out that corporations are just out for themselves. Everyone
laughed, until the manager said half-jokingly, "Not every
corporation."

Then the other programmers laughed nervously and turned to their
computers. The talkative programmer went on, but there was suddenly no
one to listen, and soon he too turned to his computer.

When the manager isn't around, they're much more free to discuss
worldly matters. For example, the last time the manager was absent,
they engaged in heavy critique of intellectual property and
corporations.

However, one of them avoided political disagreements like the plague.
Some random hypotheses are:

    * He's a good-natured guy who was punished for thinking very, very

      differently. So he keeps his thoughts to himself and tries to be

      happy.

    * Leftists are often like some depressing doctor who gets a kick

      out of telling you how terminal your cancer is, but isn't so

      interested in sketching a real cure. The most rational solution

      is to start ignoring him.

    * Those of us who are very talkative -- I'm included -- are

      frequently aggressive and bad at listening.

Tayssir