Good ol' trusty monkey dance... and cults

Saw a couple of MDs [*] some days ago; nice examples, each on their own. Once of them was, basically, an extremely tired parent who was physically hurt by his also tired child and burst. Reigned it very fast, but there was certainly a point of "status" fight in the answer. And that person loves the kid dearly, but being tired robs us of empathy... and lots other things. The more tired you are, the less person; do you take that into account when training for night troubles?

The other was on a website. An industry with a lot of freelancing got shown the main points of a 10-year contract. It escalated quickly. And, besides the escalation itself, it was interesting to watch the behaviour of both sides. In Spain, right wing is usually more boisterous, way more, when "defending" from "attack", while the left tends to go "whatever" and go its own way. That "whatever" IS still an MD: you're dismissing your opponent. For some reason, it looks like the opposite is true in the States. The "left" is more boisterous and the (classic) right [+] tends to retreat back to its own values and stay there.

While reading it, however, something else came out. The Bitch Patrol. Suddenly, it appeared like any discussion about the contract was insulting the freelancer, who'd been dissing the discussion... on twitter. Words stopped having their standard meaning and had context-specific meanings. Points were selected and dissected without logical standards... Appeals to authority, ad hominem attacks... You name it.

But, no. Oh, no! they were not doing it. Perish the thought.

Thing is, the way the original freelancer is behaving is right out of Marc's standards above. I personally think he's falling into a trap of his own unwilling creation, a blowback, surrounding himself by way too many yes-sayers. Still... The example remains.

Take care.

[*] monkey dance, not medicine doctor

[+] I do differentiate between "classic" right (religious, conservative) and "right" (zealots, neo-cons, and such), the same way I differentiate between left (soup kitchen volunteers, grass-roots unions...) and "left" (tenured union "workers" and their mafias, and the equivalent at "social issues" university departments... or parties).