> The issue isn't so much your anonymity as how you come off as kind of a dick.
What's been most amazing to me in this whole recent set of exchanges is how *I* got branded a name-caller, while people who seem to have something invested in seeing themselves as adults feel free to lob gratuitous, school-ground insults like this. What are we, 12? [Note the cleverly inclusive first-person-plural grammatical construction: it's helpful in flushing out the constitutively defensive interlocutor, prone to personalizing otherwise contrite (though, admittedly, cheekily so) gestures toward collective responsibility - while of course holding open the greasy door of plausible deniability, should evasion prove needful. </dick>]
CG's "poison" comment set me back on my heels a bit: that's a serious charge, and deserves to be taken seriously. I'm open to correction on this, but having reflected on it for a day, I don't think it sticks. Yes, I've been provocative - intentionally so, and I'll continue to be so. I didn't see anything in the rulebook ruling that out. And I'm hardly alone in provoking - hell, it's practically de jure 'round these parts </redneck>. I just choose a different register than most, mainly because I've never seen anything good come out of standing toe-to-toe and banging our theses against each other [averts eyes], no matter how compelling (the etymology is helpful) most of my brothers, and a troubling number of my sisters, seem to find that modality of engagement - as we struggle to dig our (hopefully collective) way out from under a few centuries of relentlessly violent, colonial, racist, sexist, patriarchal, capitalist pootie. I used to get in trouble for colouring outside the lines, too - and you guys have got *nothing* on my third grade teacher, Mrs. (sic) Clarke, except maybe an even bigger chip. [Shit, sorry: I thought I'd turned that shit off. Okay, this time with emphasis: </DICK!>]
It's not (solely, or even primarily) personal; it's about testing and understanding the group dynamics, the self-selecting social system (and, sorry, its leadership) and what that whole mix throws up [!] when confronted with a willful rule-breaker. (It all gets especially interesting when the rules are mostly just implied - i.e., habitual, comfy, but undeclared.) If some take the provocation personally - possibly due to some kind of patriarchally inflicted failure anxiety, although there I'm hypothesising (Disclosure: I'm leaning toward yes) - then I'd suggest it's better we all know about that sooner than later.
Building meaningful solidarity might require a degree of self-transcendence, even *before* the revolution. And self-transcendence may require a degree of self-examination. "Gnōthi seauton" and all that. Et in spiritum sanctum dominum. Play ball. Smoke if ya got 'em.
I'm pretty sure this shit </PG13> would be even more depressing if I didn't (feel like I) understand it so well. But I'll be okay, thanks for asking.
</martyr complex>