h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

It's been drawn to my attention that in a place that I don't read (still haven't) that you said you thought my 'Why do women work?' thread was trolling/a wind up/ whatever.

Honestly - sincerely - it wasn't meant that way. It was triggered by a piece I read by Deborah Orr in the Grauniad a while back and my intention was to explore (what I think is) an interested and multi-layered economic issue.

I'll take it on board that the glib title might have mis-led some into believing I was maxing a provocatively sexist point - as at least one other person kept trying to do. But surely anyone reading on past the subject would have realised that this was not what I was about? I'm disturbed that the title got people's backs up so much.

Surely?

One thing I've got out of it is a challenging of my (monotonous) Dialectical Materialist assumption that a) our beliefs, decisions and behaviour are shaped by material circumstance and b) everyone knows this. Now I'm realising...maybe not.

Anyway. It was meant to be an interesting discussion not trolling. Honest!

Good for you for dropping by.



Well.... I said in the thread itself that we've an irregular verb. You think you are being humorous and teasing, other people feel you are winding them up.

*aside*

This discussion could get derailed very quickly onto the specifics because effers felt decidedly wound up by the LOLcats discussion *and I really, really do not want to talk about that here*.

So.... let's not have a discussion that's full of coded allusions to specific people and threads. Let's keep it honestly generic. I cannot be doing with code and sub-text, and I don't think it would help to discuss specifics other than the thread you mention.

*end of aside*

What I for one am never sure of is whether in any one case you are being teasing, spiteful or playful. Some researchers plainly get on your s, but you are human and that is what s are for. But a lot of the time I find you hard to "read", and not just because I don't know what dialectical materialism is. Or sim'lar. (Seriously, a LOT of what you are on about goes whizzing straight over my head. "Dialectical materialism?" - it's a 747. While phrases like "Baudelairian discourse" are bloody Concord.)

When I read your threads I get the impression that you are delighted with them, and some or a lot of the other people in them are operating with varying amounts of bafflement or exasperation. That's probably me projecting my reaction though (see above) because Taff held his own masterfully in the section of the Capitalism Kills thread that I read. Damn. I said I'd avoid specifics.

Anyhoo.

It's always difficult to know how firmly to host a thread one starts. I got bored of the Why do Women Work thread because there didn't seem to be much actual debate in there, just a constant spiraling around shifting goalposts. I got the feeling you were enjoying yourself immensely, contradicting everything everyone else was saying and, as I said, playing with goalposts. This was my impression, I didn't de-construct the thread. I may be being very unfair.

Here's the important thing. I don't really mind or care. It's a free internet, and h2g2 has to host cleverness as well as fluffiness. I don't want us to drown in pinkness and oestrogen. So the fact that I got bored of the behaviours I saw (or thought I saw) in WdWW is neither here nor there. I won't accept targeted bullying, but you've always seemed to me to be indiscriminate, and you've never struck me as a bully.

Dealing with you when you are being an arse is annoying though. I did feel decidedly got at in one conversation we had here about working with prisoners when you decided to take a pop at me for what you saw as prejudice and what I put up as honestly shared self-doubts. So you can punch harder than you think you do at times. I suspect that's a pretty good example of you not realising how you come across. It's stupid of me to still feel stung a couple of years later.

Now me, I'm obviously squeaky clean in all circumstances. I never make jokes that people don't get. I never mis-judge situations. I'm never over-bearing. I never post in haste and repent at leisure. Ho no. I'm Little Miss Perfect, me. And it's lovely and warm here up my own bum.

In brief, I think we all tend to assume that other people get more context, more tone of voice and more mood than in fact they do.

Why isn't any of this easy? It would be so much easier if it were.

B

Delighted? Only in the sense of conversation being delighted and that's why we do it. Even if it isn't always.

Hmm. Am I being told off for being too clever? That doesn't sound like something you'd say. And yet... Well fair enough. In which case maybe this is the stuff of blogs and h2g2 is for other things. In which case my impression has been mistaken for several years. But my attitude is that if anyone doesn't understand the topic of a thread or isn't interested in it they are not compelled to take part.



Yes, you're right. Everyone has different . And here, obviously, we do have to be specific. Our twice-banned friend. A, RL friend of yours. Fine. A very, very smart guy - if not as smart as he thinks (he just doesn't 'get' The Big Questions). Can be humourous. Claims liberal credentials. I'll even allow that he *has* liberal credentials. Maybe he's even a total sweetie. *But* he so likes to look hard. His constant MO is to post something provocatively sexist/ borderline racist, wait for a reaction and then yell 'Nyah nyah! That's not *exactly* what I said. You dimwit.' Every. Single. Godamm. Time. I used to get riled, I admit. I should have just ignored. Now my policy is to call him on it but not bother getting entangled. I ain't his female dog.

I don't mentions this as tit for tat, I promise you. It's widely commented on as an Elephant In The Room. Are we just failing to appreciate a puckish sense of humour or what? If the newmods are, as I understand, sending out 'behave' e-mails (bad idea, but if that's what's been decided...) then maybe patterns such as this might be acknowledged.

Where am I going with this? Nowhere really. Just typing randomly while I cook lentil lasagne:

- Did I sting you over something to do with the treatment of prisoners? I honestly don't remember - we have different places in each others' memories. I generally try not to sting people unless I want to and you don't fit into that category. Even if I sometimes want to slap you.

- Taff...Capitalism Kills...are you sure? I'll look back, but it doesn't seem like his kind of thread. I have nothing against the man, no matter what...someone else might think.

- Dialectic Materialism...'It's not important, you're not expected to know...but you really should read more.' Anthony H Wilson. Yer basic Hegelian view is that we live in a world of ideas and can be free in the mind no matter what our circumstances. Feuerbach's 'Hegelian Inversion', taken up by - who else - Marx, said, 'Nuh uh'. We are fundamentally constrained by material circumstance. So now you now.

- I really, really do think I've made every effort on 'Why do women work' to repair any damage done by my foolish title. I'm not convinced that I bear full responsibility for others not having read...you know?...the actual words.

Damn! Meant to...

End with a song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpLOsmc8cIU

No idea why that's hidden.

Och I don't know. You came here and asked what I thought and I said what I thought. Yeah, Twigster's another smartarse; the site is full of them. You. Us. It's that kind of site. That's what I like about it. And I was surprised by Taff too. So much so, I wondered if his account had been hacked.

But the short answer to your question "are we failing to understand a puckish sense of humour" is "yes". For the reasons I gave above.

I don't think, institutiuonally, there is much we can do. What little there is, we will.

I don't want us to lose our cleverness and intelligence. I don't want us to lose our playfulness. The cost of that is occasionally crossed wires, which is fine. People cannot hold us hostage saying "but I'm offended...." However, patterns of bad behavour directed at a single person aren't ok. Not at all. No.

What may need to be reintroduced is a sense of nettiquette, it's an old-fashioned term now, but there used to be this thing about having good manners online. This is a generic observation, btw, not a coded dig. But what really is pernicious is an atmosphere where people assume that there is a lot of subtext and coded diggging going on. The question I am wrestling with is how to reduce that atmosphere so the default assumption is "puckish sense of humour" not "wind up merchant". (And that's not a comment about you, you, you, it applies equally to most of our smartarses, bob love 'em all).

What this means for those of us who've got the situational awareness is that we need to use it, and use it a lot over the next few months. So the more of us that have some level of self-awareness, other-awareness and self-restraint (especially in the first 3 months or so) the better.

I guess (since you started this conversation and you're here in my PS) that I am going to ask you to engage situational-awareness before posting for the next few months at least. Who knows, it may become a habit. Me too, though. I need to do that too.

Lentil lasangne, sounds good. I tried making some the other night but it went hideously wrong. No lentils and no lasagne.

Bwn

Mod frenzy tonight. I saw it, anyway.

Mushrooms. Leeks. Green lentils, Coriander. Parsley. Layer it with Bought white sauce.

Puckish sense of humour? Like when Jimmy Carr makes offensive remarks about Gypsies and anyone who doesn't get it is a dimwit?

OK. I get it now.

Ah, mine is a layer of onion and tomatoes, a layer of onion, spinach and tinned lentils, a layer of cheese or bechemal sauce. But it lacks something without the pasta. Or the lentils. Or indeed the spinach.

I sat next to Jimmy Carr on a train for half an hour the other day. It went nowhere. Literally. We sat at the station for half and hour and then all got off.

No tomatoes. Thar's the secret.

If you feel that someone's being abusive, use the Yikes button. For now, of course, it goes to the BBC mods.

I'm staying out of it because though it's right up my proverbial alley (lesbians...! culture....!) it has half a dozen people I like a lot slinging mud at each other, and I'm so fond of everyone I'm thinking "oohhhh... look at them playing together, see what fun they are having" like the mad, cat-crazy woman I am, while heads are pulled off and eyes are poked out.

I've a policy of steering clear when friends collide. It's the only way.

Ben

Well I'm afraid that I have a policy that unless language is grossly offensive it should remain visible for all to see. The fact that some unseen arbiter might not remove would not necessarily make the remark acceptable.

Seriously...is it really acceptable to imply that a thread is devoid of intelligent life? I don't think *you'd* ever sink to that.

I think you're in denial, Ben.

Yes. That's what I'm saying. I'm not an appropriate judge for that thread because I am biased. Biased across the board, in that I like just about everyone in it and I think none of you are at your shining best there. But biased / in denial / call it what you will. Not neutral. Will that do?

But - and this is the important thing - I *know* I'm not neutral and so I'm standing back. See? This is me standing back!

How much worse if I said "no, no, I've got 20:20 judgement, I never make mistakes" and waded in? Putting it bluntly I could (and would) a year ago. What's not to like? Lesbians, culture, dick-headedness, fur and feathers flying everywhere. *sigh*

Anyhoo, we'll see how it plays out.

Ben

Well I've just withdrawn and advised him to also. *I'd* have been quite interested to discuss it, too.

Anyoo...you've behaved admirably to the extent that you haven't told me to off yet.

Heh!

Oh, there's time, there's time...