RAMANAM
In the Name of The Father, and of The Son and of The Holy Spirit, Amen.
Countrymen,
The phenomenon of non-discussion discussion has long intrigued one. How, one asks, does one describe the phenomenology of the phenomenon?
The phenomenon is well-known. X says something to Y, statement or query, and Y responds with a non sequitur, a moral equivalence, a taunt or a verbal slap and wraps up with an ad hominem, in some sort of language, relating X as an irrational, stupid, ignorant, condemnable fool or worse. Then X responds with such calm reason as they can muster and Y replies by changing the subject while re-singing their foregoing repertoire. And on it goes.
The phenomenon is common in comments on blog posts. Sign of the Troll.
After years wondering how to describe the phenomenology of this phenomenon, seeking some precision in that description, the way Bateson, for example, found precision in describing schizophrenia in systems terms, one concludes there is none other than that some people just want to see the world burn … and enjoy setting the match as often as possible. And not a few are employed to do that.
The phenomenon is not of schizophrenia and thus cannot be described in systems terms. It can be described, perhaps, as systematic non-system. But even that affords the phenomenon a degree of rationality that really it does not deserve because it does not have.
At the Gate to Lanka Ravana stationed an ogress of name Lankini. When Hanuman approaches the gate on his mission to find Sita, Lankini taunts and threatens him. Hanuman biffs her one in the kisser. She swoons, then rises and charges Hanuman. He biffs her another one in the kisser and she expires from the pain, more than she can handle.
Now, biffing an internet troll in the kisser is not possible. However, it is the sole discussion in which they can engage.
Many trolls express the wish to reach through the ethers and punch someone. They are telling the truth there.
Internet trolls are not sick, they are demonic. They are not schizophrenic, they are born ogres and ogresses, a different breed of cat from that expected by ordinary people in ordinary life and discourse. And their demographics are expanding because they reproduce biologically, they clone themselves academically and they promote themselves legislatively and judicially.
Some people just want to see the world burn. And some are enabling them to do so.
Update 1: Let schools pay students to matriculate. School, like everything else in life, is a market, one way and another, and in a market, the customer is always right, one way and another. If the student pays, they are the customer and control the market, as now. If the school pays, they are the customer and control the market, such as at our country’s service academies.
Also, the hyper-ideologizing of schools means the market for education is saturated and a very large number of said schools are superfluous and deserve closure.
Also, as long as politicians and bureaucrats can seduce schools with money, and as long as every smallest matter is taken to be a government responsibility — i.e., opportunities for graft unchecked — schools are headed for their own gotterdamerungen because their economics and their ideologies, both, disfavor their longevity.
Pacifism for you, activism for me.
Suppression for you, expression for me.
Closed society for you, open society for me.
Their hypocrisy quotient is self-promoters’ nemesis.
Update 2: A most compelling post, thank you! Puts me in mind of Teilhard de Chardin, who saw in the hard sciences of geological and paleontological process and result the phenomenology of divine life, of God alive and kicking, so to speak. A novel immanentalism of sorts, precedented but unique in the history of Christian thought. Here Fernandez sees in structural engineering attitudes phenomenological actualities of social engineering assumptions, deftly expressed. Other commenters also appreciate this post’s brilliant helpfulness.
Update 3: Myron Ebell and Steven J. Milloy: Wrong Again: 50 Years of Failed Eco-pocalyptic Predictions
AMDG – VICTORY
