I used to think I was a misanthropist until I met some people from other countries and realized it’s not people I can’t stand but Americans.
We have a choice when we stumble on unfamiliar stimuli, we can choose to investigate what it’s about or not, and that choice itself bears investigation.
But to make a lame joke about the trouble it takes to look up an unfamiliar word does two things: relieves anxiety about not knowing something you think you are “less than” for not knowing, and that’s not my problem. To defend against this feeling of “less than” by devaluing knowledge is my problem since what I do here is work to incite the pursuit of knowledge.
What I saw on that thread was an inadvertent off the cuff devaluation of meaning. No harm intended, my god it was just a joke. See, this makes it worse, because you shared it. The subtext being it’s it’s perfectly glorious to be intellectually lazy, and that’s exactly what gave us six years of a vanity war in which innocent people die everyday.
Anyone who doubts the power of words, their own and others needs to step back and start thinking about discourse.
This isn’t about elitism. Knowledge is free and stupidity a choice. It’s not funny or amusing, it is the American default and won’t be tolerated here.
Thanks for explaining, I thought it was me. Or Pete Seeger.
As a child, if I didn’t know what a word meant and asked my folks, I was sent to Websters’ 3rd International, a copy of which still sits in my living room. Since my parents are linguists, I had to not only pick one of the list of meanings but give the derivation of the word as well to satisfy their curiousity. One of the coolest women I know, a huge part of her coolness is that she has a private subscription to the online OED, one of the very few to have a private subscription. If I win the lottery, I’m getting that. After I put a lawyer on full time retainer to represent everyone in my area up for commitment and buy my dogs a house with a yard again but in town this time.
My outburst has been building for some time and is a culmination of issues that I’ll probably need to address in individual posts. No, gosh it wasn’t you or any of the regulars. I never saw the name before and killed the thread rather than put a hurtful and humiliating spotlight on them personally when all I know it was a drive by shooting.
I want more, it’s not relational enough for me, drive by posts about suicidal feelings; got another one 2 weeks ago, I responded at length and the person never came back? I am fed up with that, “help me help me” then the poster never comes back. It’s dumping. Making it my problem, and not coming back, isn’t that a hostile act?
I’m going drama queen now, and you’re on target with relating it to childhood. Growing up things were the exact opposite for me, we had no dictionary in the house, and when I was caught reading an encyclopedia in first grade I was *redirected* to put it gently. And one of the most powerful memories I have was at age four, alone in the house and watching a speech by Malcolm X . When the adults came home they were appalled to find me watching public television, and I was forbidden PBS from that day forward. No one in my family graduated high school, it was simply not done. Year in and year out I was beaten for reading books, so I know the power of knowledge and why it threatens oppressors. I’m not saying oppressors visited that thread, I just fall apart when confronted with anti-intellectualism, as if my life is at stake. I know my family was a lurid exaggeration of the proud-to-be ignorant American character, but my family is what anti-intellectualism leads to, it’s a political stance, it gave us Creationism, anti-global warming, the KKK, George Bush, the whole stinking mess we’re in.
I know you understand all this, right. Thanks for relating to me, giving me space to think things through.
I’m sorry if anyone was de-stabilized by my post.
>>”when all I know it was a drive by shooting”
Ach, should read “drive-by posting.”
(note to self: breathe out)
Well, I always asked my parents when I didn’t know the meaning of a word, but half the time they didn’t know either. I got teased by them and other family for reading the dictionary, the thesaurus and the encyclopedias which all sat in my room along with the other usual reading materials. Some people don’t have a hunger for knowledge or a desire to understand things outside of their own experience. Only my grandma respected that and bought me a massive dictionary/thesaurus for Christmas one year.
I didn’t happen to see the drive-by yesterday. The nasty drive-by commenters are out there for sure. I get quite a few of them on my sex offender posts from angry, bitter people who feel free to hide behind their monitors and attack. Those are the comments I don’t usually post, and the only reason I moderate.
I was gonna put up “Keys to the Baudelaireian Room” but I’m too shy. You liked that one, remember Robin? Plus it fits. I’ve been victim of prejudice because all I have is a damned GED. Everything I know I’ve taught myself, but it wasn’t good enough I guess. There’s the elitist you talk about, not me or you for trying to pump something into our heads and then spread it about for hope and change and growth.
At the Dylan site, I tried and tried to put up things people should know about, learn about, yet I was the least educated of the bunch. I felt awkward, but who cares?
If you don’t mind, here are two that fit, and not just because of the thread’s title – they’re about searching.
Bob Dylan
That question mark figure
One alone
Dripping a thousand tears
Blood that accrues weeps
In past
Blue night
Dripping a thousand and then again another tear
Upon another
I swear
It’s me up there
Imbued out in cast black
It’s you up there
Carried on back.
Why the bitter, lost love?
And the portal of swallowed mud?
And the disease?
Shock light
At the very mention of the question
In black-brown-blonde governing tips
It’s he up there
Answer them.
——————————–
Is He There?
Is he there? Look at those wrinkles.
Is he home? Under all those years.
There is a mustache, there is a hat,
There is a ravaged gnarl in the throat
There is a shuffle in the gait
Is he around? The sound, the style, the mystery
And the clearness
Yes – he is there.
Under the roots
The mine
The harvest
Not by sun
But by digging
The growth continues
Up
Forever to the wind
I hear, I hear it, and then it’s gone
But it remains
I’ll never forget
And turn to it always
Bob Dylan.
We live in his land forever going back to unfold and awake us anew.
Ohhhh the beauty.
grizzledanold I saw BOB-he was fab-I feel reborn-
I missed the drive by postings-
Iam really bright-good in person-but Iam dyslexic and ppl on line assume all sorts about me-hah-hah
Ive always loved words-
Ya got a book ya got a friend-
Robin-You were saying in another post about the library-as a child I was at the Lib each day-all those books-plus the beautiful quiet-Life is for Learning-
Hi guys. Hey Poodle, I just have to second that, since we talk on the phone I know how brainy and articulate and tough you are in person. I know what some people think about you based on your typos, but what they don’t know is you taught yourself basics the privileged learn in structured school environments and safe, unchaotic home environs. Seen in context, being a little “off”, is charming and heroic.
I get this all the time, ya know, in real life I often appear spazzy and confused and out of control, but if someone engages me they might find a need to make patronizing noises about how “shocked and suprised” they are that I have so much “on the ball.” Gah. All humans are learning beings, and some been educated in areas society knows nothing about (lucky society). We need to tell them.
You know, about evolution. I had a friend here with her granddaughter, a dear kid, almost 13. Well, first night she said her science teacher didn’t agree with evolution and told them they “could make up their own minds.” So, she said she didn’t believe in it. I started to tell her it’s true, and that her teacher had no business teaching science if he didn’t teach evolution. Her grandmother told her the same. Her teacher made it “fun” she said. Sheeeeze.
I’ve had that run around SO much at the Dylan sites, six years of it. I’m just sick to death of it. The misinformation, the lack of research, the rigidity.
I went overboard with the kid, I shouldn’t of, but maybe I should of. She loves me anyway.
I pushed myself at that fucking Dylan site/sites to write and learn and converse with all on all subjects. Since we’re pumpin’ our own worth because we’re outcasts, by the way, I’m proud I stuck it to them with an IQ test on line a lot were takin’. I was the last one to do it, didn’t want to, but I scored the highest – 160. God damn it.
But I’ve met a lot of dear people from there, people with doctorates and masters I never would have. I usually have dirt under my nails and cuts on my hands, you know? Yeah.
Pretty pathetic I feel a need to say it, but such are the needs from wounds, I guess.
Poodles, I could tell you have reached and reached, it showed right away. Holy shit, I am a bit in awe of you. Robin, I would LOVE to see you spazzy and confused, ha!
“…her science teacher didn’t agree with evolution”
That’s the America we live in now, thanks to the theoconservative movement. Her SCIENCE teacher. What is science? What happened to science? In a single decade, poof.
I know Bush stole the elections, but I hold every voter who chose him responsible. It will take decades to undo the damage this administration has done. Starting with New Orleans.
Amen.
I was in shit shape this last time, but I still went to Milwaukee for Moveon door to door for three days to get out votes. On election day gave rides too.
We delivered Wisconsin, but by less than in 2000.
Science will come back, we work at it. People, average people, believe in global warming no matter what propaganda the money fed right wingers shovel out.
Hey, we took that girl to Yerkes observatory a couple of days later to hear a talk by a yes, scientist, a REAL one from the University of Chicago. She didn’t want to go if she couldn’t look through the telescope, ha, but she LOVED it.
But as with all things of worth, we must be vigilant, diligent. Yup.
What is the Dylan site?
It’s a message board, the Dylan Immigrant Shelter, run by EZBoard/YUKU hosting.
All righty. The “Shelter” is just a remnant, a poor replica of the original discussion site offered by the official Sony Bob Dylan site. The “discussions” folded about three years ago, were shut down, even though they were hoppin’. They hopped too much I’m afraid, too many participants were too ugly and freewheeling with not much uncensored, opening the potential of lawsuits about personal entanglements being aired in public. After the shut down, a young kid from the site started his own site for the suddenly abandoned members. His lasted about half a year. Then the Shelter was born, soon to be followed by another site, both of which featured the original posters from the official site.
Only the Shelter survived, though I think the other site has restarted in different form. There are of course other Dylan discussion sites, Expecting Rain for example, but the Shelter features members that span back six years to the official Dylan web site, operated by Sony and overseen by Dylan’s people.
I was one of the administrators at the Shelter for the last year. No more, I’ve had enough, though I could return in that capacity.