It’s been about ten hours since I sent an email to the editor over at The Seminal and I’ve yet to get a response. I still haven’t regained any actual editorial control over my own post over there. The moderator is hanging around in comments, waiting for me to come back, spamming Youtube video links and waxing philosophical about Warren Zevon. Doremus is sucking up to them and getting the expected praise in return, it’s all very childish and stupid.

This, however, I feel I have to answer, as it sums up what’s wrong with the situation nicely:

doremus35 September 21st, 2010 at 8:16 pm
77
In response to RBG @ 76 (show text)

We can yell at each other and curse and scream and call each other names we reserve for our foes, but when the feathers settle and the beads of sweat pass into white wisps of past heated struggles, we FDLers are a community and we lock and holds hands knowing that we all are working for a better day when all men will truly be brothers and call each other friend.

Aww, isn’t that adorable?

Please. All men will never be ‘brothers’ and we shouldn’t hope for such a sickeningly saccharine outcome. People have legitimate disagreements, and moreover, *should* have legitimate disagreements. It’s part of being an adult and striving to make the world a better place.

But that’s a fundamental failure of American society; the privileging of civility over decency, of getting along over being right, of finding consensus over finding the truth. ‘Be nice!’ Americans say. ‘Everyone’s ideas are of equal value!’ they say.

Bullshit. While opinions are inherently subjective, not all ideas are of equal merit, and nobody is entitled to their own personal set of facts, their own personal reality that we all have to concede ground to.

The way we find the best answers and get closest to the truth is through argument, not hand-holding, campfire sing-a-long Disneyfied false camaraderie.

Of course the moderator, enforcer of false comity and Youtube link spammer, ate it up with a spoon:

RBG September 21st, 2010 at 8:21 pm
78
In response to doremus35 @ 77 (show text)

I could not agree more.

I couldn’t agree less. Get bent, the both of you.