MRA Dilbert
December 13, 2015 4:28 AM   Subscribe

 
Pros: These are funny, in a ghastly sort of way.
Cons: At the end of the day, you've still read a bunch of Scott Adams' opinions on gender issues.
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:37 AM on December 13, 2015 [137 favorites]


Fantastic. I'll bet a MeFite created this.
posted by Faint of Butt at 4:41 AM on December 13, 2015 [7 favorites]


Thanks for reminding me of why I haven't read his blog or comics in years. Arrogant prick.
posted by Splunge at 4:42 AM on December 13, 2015 [9 favorites]


Fantastic. I'll bet a MeFite created this.

I believe some of the work was by Metafilter's own plannedchaos *coughs*
posted by BinaryApe at 4:46 AM on December 13, 2015 [123 favorites]


Ugh I only made it through the first few and I want to steel wool my brain
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 4:48 AM on December 13, 2015 [13 favorites]


This is actually an experiment to see how quickly a lawyer can draft a Cease and Desist order, isn't it?
posted by Thorzdad at 4:50 AM on December 13, 2015 [11 favorites]


I believe some of the work was by Metafilter's own plannedchaos *coughs*

Well, just the drawings and the words.
posted by TedW at 4:53 AM on December 13, 2015 [23 favorites]


Splunge, just to be clear, Scott Adams the author of Dilbert and Scott Adams the MRA advocate are different people.
posted by rockindata at 4:59 AM on December 13, 2015


No they're not.
posted by hydropsyche at 5:01 AM on December 13, 2015 [103 favorites]


Yeah, no. You can google any of the quotes from those comics. They'll take you to the Dilbert blog.

I'd provide a link, but I'm sure Adams will show up here to do that himself before long.
posted by duffell at 5:03 AM on December 13, 2015 [9 favorites]


Do you think he'll be back? The last time was a little bruising.
posted by Wolof at 5:05 AM on December 13, 2015


The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing you that Scott Adams was Dilbert, when in reality Dilbert is the general public reacting to things Scott Adams has said.
posted by nevercalm at 5:31 AM on December 13, 2015 [10 favorites]


I read three strips and noped away with my daily quota of toxicity fulfilled. I'm all for increasing social approbation towards such a terrible person, but this comes a bit close to just providing another platform.
posted by Dip Flash at 5:32 AM on December 13, 2015 [7 favorites]


MetaFilter: my daily quota of toxicity fulfilled
posted by acb at 5:37 AM on December 13, 2015 [9 favorites]


The fear of doubt is horribly limiting.
You could probably do a great "MRA or Phrenologist" game for buzzfeed.
posted by fullerine at 5:39 AM on December 13, 2015 [5 favorites]


Via a mefite's husband.
posted by Joseph Gurl at 6:10 AM on December 13, 2015 [13 favorites]


Posting this here reminds me of the old joke that ends "Look what I almost stepped in."
posted by Wolfdog at 6:11 AM on December 13, 2015 [6 favorites]


Guys, stop picking on a certified genius.
posted by spikeleemajortomdickandharryconnickjrmints at 6:15 AM on December 13, 2015 [6 favorites]


Ok, I'll be devil's advocate here. I absolutely treasured my copy of "The Dilbert Principle" in the mid-1990s. I clung to it like a life raft at my toxic old job, thrilled that there was finally a name for what I was dealing with. I know that a lot of other people did too, because it was raved about everywhere. Even today, I still have a few Dilbert comics on my wall at my good new job. Yes, Scott Adams is a total asshole. So was Albert Einstein.
posted by Melismata at 6:32 AM on December 13, 2015 [5 favorites]


Einstein at least said all that cool stuff like how a man's legs should be just long enough to reach the ground
posted by thelonius at 6:39 AM on December 13, 2015 [4 favorites]


rockindata, many of the quotes come from a post that Adams deleted from his blog.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 6:47 AM on December 13, 2015 [3 favorites]


Scott Adams is human garbage.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 6:53 AM on December 13, 2015 [5 favorites]


Yes, Scott Adams is a total asshole. So was Albert Einstein.

No sale. I'm sorry, but it's a ridiculous comparison: one of them put a name to something most people who have ever worked in an office understood, but many people couldn't have quite articulated. The other did math most people can't begin to understand. The two insights aren't in the same ballpark at all, and conflating them is part of Adams' problem: he's clever, but he literally and vociferously believes that makes him a genius, and has thus closed himself off from actually learning about the shit that comes out of his mouth and/or word processor.

There's no reason to feed it, even in passing. It isn't even doing *him* any favors.

That said: I understand what it's like to appreciate art from someone who is a complete failure as a human being. Like, I still love Adam Baldwin's performance in Firefly even though I can't see him without knowing what a horrible guy he is anymore. Everybody kind of has to decide what that does or does not taint for themselves. If Dilbert still speaks to you, it still speaks to you.
posted by mordax at 6:55 AM on December 13, 2015 [91 favorites]


Einstein could draw.
posted by shakespeherian at 6:56 AM on December 13, 2015 [32 favorites]


Yeah, I thought Dilbert was hilarious when I was working my first corporate job, because it laid bare so many of the Kafkaesque absurdities that I was being faced with for the first time.

It became less funny to me over time. And then Adams showed himself to be the worst sort of fedora-wearing toolbox, and I could no longer see his strip without thinking "oh, that's the strip by the repellent fedora-wearing toolbox".

So, yeah. I'm not sure I would still find it funny today at any rate, but certainly not when the author is a symbol of everything that's wrong with nerdy white male culture. (Speaking as a nerdy white male myself.)
posted by escape from the potato planet at 6:59 AM on December 13, 2015 [30 favorites]


I still love Adam Baldwin's performance in Firefly even though I can't see him without knowing what a horrible guy he is anymore.

That's what's even more horrible about Adam Baldwin - by all accounts he is a really nice guy. He'll wait at conventions for hours until everyone who has come to see him goes away with something signed. It's what makes his revolting personal and political views extra abhorrent to me.

At least Scott Adams is consistently a jerk.
posted by chainsofreedom at 7:00 AM on December 13, 2015 [17 favorites]


So... it's Dilbert?
posted by bile and syntax at 7:13 AM on December 13, 2015 [1 favorite]


My only question is why a Certified Genius™ like Scott Adams hasn't become the richest, most powerful man on the planet. My only guess at this point is his army of minions can't get their mom to drive them to the rallies.
posted by tommasz at 7:28 AM on December 13, 2015 [9 favorites]


Thanks for the link, Johnny Wallflower. I knew I saw that post when it first went up, but then later on I couldn't find it. He'd written stupid stuff before, but that was my first genuine WTF moment.

I guess I've been fortunate, because Scott Adams is the only author whose work I've really liked whom I've eventually had to stop reading after overlooking their deficiencies as a human being for long enough. I'm pretty good about separating the art from the artist, but enough straws accumulated on the camel's back to finally break it. I can't read any of his work any more without being reminded of his colossal ignorance, egotistical arrogance and general dimwittery.

I discovered Dilbert in the mid-nineties, around the age of 14, and loved it. It fit my young sarcastic anti-authority tendencies well, and genuinely helped me identify and cope with various workplace pathologies later in life. I own all of Adams' non-fiction books except for the latest one, and all Dilbert albums up to some 2014 release, IIRC. I joined DNRC (Dogbert's New Ruling Class, essentially just a funny mailing list) and saved all the posts for its entire run.

His blog was initially an obvious must-follow for me, and seeing its complete degeneration over the years has been fascinating, if simultaneously disappointing and sometimes infuriating. I eventually stopped reading it a year or so ago (having selectively skipped posts before), but kept following Dilbert, though trying to avoid reading the blog headlines, inconveniently posted below the latest strip.

Then one day a while back I saw that outragism post headline (after David Futrelle took him down a notch at WHTM), followed by his intention to write something about how the USA is actually a matriarchy. In his boundless narcissism, he's been able to convince himself about laughable bullshit before, but this idea was absurdly counterfactual enough for me to decide that now's as good a time as any to stop reading Dilbert, too.

I still kind of wish I could cherry-pick one part of his writing to follow without being exposed to the rest: his naively optimistic posts about technology advancing enough in his lifetime to allow him to avoid death by uploading his consciousness, or something. I'm pretty sure it won't happen, and it would be delicious to watch him deal with his mortality when he finally realizes that.
posted by jklaiho at 7:32 AM on December 13, 2015 [11 favorites]


For a second there I was feeling rather silly.
posted by Splunge at 7:32 AM on December 13, 2015 [2 favorites]


I keep waiting for a two-word-parser text adventure mocking all of this so that the other Scott Adams can regain his position as the Alpha.
posted by delfin at 7:37 AM on December 13, 2015 [8 favorites]


Ok, I'll be devil's advocate here

The devil doesn't need any more advocates than he already has, nor does Scott Adams, so there's no need to defend this shit.
posted by zombieflanders at 7:37 AM on December 13, 2015 [62 favorites]


Oh wow, I'm really sorry, I thought they were two different people. Ucker ick ick ick. Sorry again
posted by rockindata at 7:54 AM on December 13, 2015 [25 favorites]


Hah, the satire is a great concept, but even in comic form, the words are so repellent that I only made it about 6 strips before deciding to stab myself in the eyes for comfort.
posted by Devils Rancher at 8:04 AM on December 13, 2015 [2 favorites]


At this point, Scott Adams is Dave Sim minus the talent and creativity.
posted by Faint of Butt at 8:11 AM on December 13, 2015 [14 favorites]


sorry, I thought they were two different people.


Oh, no harm done. Two different parts of a straw-broken camel. I mean, who would have guessed. It's like Bill Watterson coming out as a Trump fan or something (no, it isn't, but )
posted by Namlit at 8:11 AM on December 13, 2015


I had completely forgotten that Adams existed. It has been years since I last saw his name. I wish that it were still so. I hope that I will once again attain that state. Quickly. Please never mention him again.
posted by five fresh fish at 8:17 AM on December 13, 2015 [2 favorites]


Given Scott's well-known fondness for being talked about on the internet I hope he appreciates his appearance on metafilter's front and back pages at the same time. I can't think of many on whom that recognition has been bestowed.
posted by octobersurprise at 8:28 AM on December 13, 2015 [3 favorites]


Bill Watterson coming out as a Trump fan

This would be fucking mind-blowing.

I managed about 6-8 strips and noped out. Was never a Dilbert fan, some of it was funny, but as I was never a corporate office type it never really appealed to me, or spoke to me in any way. An old (ex) friend was a fan back in the 80s and 90s and would show me ones he thought were funny, but his perspective was different to mine.
posted by marienbad at 8:48 AM on December 13, 2015


Yes, Scott Adams is a total asshole. So was Albert Einstein.

I'm shocked that this isn't a Scott Adams quote.
posted by knuckle tattoos at 8:49 AM on December 13, 2015 [59 favorites]


I am shocked to find people disparaging the genius of Scott Adams, inventor of the "Dilberito".
posted by boo_radley at 8:53 AM on December 13, 2015 [4 favorites]


That's what's even more horrible about Adam Baldwin - by all accounts he is a really nice guy.

It's only "horrible" if you believe there are no steps between being a saint and being the devil. It's likely there are as many assholes with perfectly decent views, as decent people with asinine views. In either case, one does not excuse the other, and it seems more and more people build very idealized and complex visions of people from fragments, and then freak the fuck out when they do or say something that doesn't match that ideal.
That's just human nature. He's a pleasant guy with fucked up views. Happens.
posted by lmfsilva at 9:00 AM on December 13, 2015 [19 favorites]


The devil doesn't need any more advocates than he already has, nor does Scott Adams, so there's no need to defend this shit.

People need advocates when they are demonized, or modernly, when their body of work is blacklisted because some disagree with them morally or politically. Less obvious is the fact that any work can be tolerated or enjoyed on its own merits without conflating it with the image of the artist. It is low criticism even when it is flattering.
posted by Brian B. at 9:04 AM on December 13, 2015 [4 favorites]


Bill Watterson coming out as a Trump fan

I would literally weep.
posted by clockzero at 9:04 AM on December 13, 2015 [6 favorites]


Mickey Kaus came out as a Trump supporter.
posted by Brian B. at 9:08 AM on December 13, 2015 [1 favorite]


with adam baldwin i just pretend he's actually jayne, of course if jayne was a voice over actor/keyboard warrior he'd name gamergate and help champion the worst of the abuses done under its name, that just makes sense. lets be clear though - it's not that he just has fucked up views - he's acted on those views. i'm glad he's nice to his fans in person, but he doesn't extend that to his fans on the internet if he views them as "sjws."

i also don't much understand the devils advocate position on scott adams -like, i see still liking some of his work and having fond memories of what it meant to you once upon a time, but that doesn't really speak at all to this project or his viewpoints. are you advocating we just ignore all the shitty things he's doing now because he maybe did some good stuff 20 years ago, or? what?
posted by nadawi at 9:09 AM on December 13, 2015 [5 favorites]


The "Interrupt" strip is one of those where if I didn't know better I'd assume this was parody of someone trying to humorously exaggerate an already extreme MRA position ("The problem isn't men interrupting women, the problem is women talk too much")

Actually, all of the ones with the implied message of, "Women, if you don't start fucking more nerds they are going to kill themselves or other people" probably fits in that category too.
posted by The Gooch at 9:30 AM on December 13, 2015 [10 favorites]


I feel sorry for the fedora -- it's not the worst hat in the world. If only the prototypical MRA wore one of those dumb beanies....
posted by smidgen at 9:38 AM on December 13, 2015 [19 favorites]


Brian B.: "Mickey Kaus came out as a Trump supporter."

Is that even remotely surprising to anyone?
posted by octothorpe at 9:46 AM on December 13, 2015


Initially, I thought Scott Adams was just an extreme case of engineer's disease, but even before the MRA nonsense, he veered into major narcissistic WTF territory. Like I said, I feel sorry for his hat.
posted by smidgen at 9:58 AM on December 13, 2015 [2 favorites]


This is great but also like finger-nails on a chalk-board. It physically hurts.

That being said, after you've had your fill of this parody, head on over to Bloom County 2015 and let your inner snark out.
posted by Fizz at 10:04 AM on December 13, 2015 [1 favorite]


OMG THAT'S MY HUSBAND'S PET PROJECT! Now he REALLY needs to join MeFi.
posted by sarcasticah at 10:09 AM on December 13, 2015 [58 favorites]


Yes. Yes he does.
posted by Melismata at 10:23 AM on December 13, 2015 [7 favorites]


Also, for fun, google "So was Albert Einstein" to see Einstein labeled as crazy, dyslexic, absent-minded, reviled as a lunatic (this is probably the best one), at the bottom of his class, vegetarian, vegan, a yogi, a creationist, a college dropout. It's the inverse godwin - "you know who else?" - only with even less regard for facts.
posted by knuckle tattoos at 10:46 AM on December 13, 2015 [17 favorites]


you know who else compared Einstein to Hitler?
posted by idiopath at 10:56 AM on December 13, 2015 [16 favorites]


well, I mean, favorably
posted by knuckle tattoos at 11:01 AM on December 13, 2015 [1 favorite]


Can't for the mefi's own joke, wasn't disappointed!
posted by Carillon at 11:11 AM on December 13, 2015 [1 favorite]


I'm still mildly upset about what happened to Scott Adams over the years. I used to really love his work -- it's how I ended up outing him -- and seeing that he's basically become a mean-spirited aggressive churl means I can't enjoy the humor in the same way I once did. The worn copies of old Dilbert books that were once touchstones of my childhood now serve as toilet reading.
posted by StrikeTheViol at 11:23 AM on December 13, 2015 [2 favorites]


Yes, Scott Adams is a total asshole. So was Albert Einstein.

Adams strikes me as more of a Feynman. But worse.
posted by TedW at 11:24 AM on December 13, 2015 [1 favorite]


Had to come back to the thread even though I already posted at length, to post at even more length. I couldn't stop thinking about this.

Having once been a fan, I was long fascinated by his oddities, back when they were still mostly harmless, and I've wondered about how his mind works even after that. As someone who has read nearly all of his non-comic strip writing ever since the Dilbert Principle days, through DNRC and a decade of the blog, I think I've got parts of it down. Excuse the colossal rambling wall of text that follows.

What is glaringly obvious from the massive corpus of text he's produced is that he's a narcissist. That alone would probably be somewhat grating, but not that egregious. It could be excusable in light of some redeeming factors. But he lacks such factors, and his narcissism manifests itself in a way that makes him intolerable.

Through his work, Adams has pretty much proven himself the following things: smart, clever, observant, funny (for enough people to be successful at comedy). His writing will tell you that these are also the main things his narcissism latches onto. But he misses important things about these adjectives and how they define (or don't define) his value as a person.

"Smart" means nothing much by itself. "Smart" is just potential. I'm sure he has a high IQ, but that's also meaningless in isolation. Both are only relevant when you're committed to bettering yourself by educating yourself, by listening and learning and seeking out knowledge. Adams is not. A good example of this are his older blog posts, where at one point he seemed to have some odd beef with evolution, and how it didn't feel right to him. He never went as far as denying it outright, but for a while there he made weird, hand-wavy assertions about how it didn't make sense within some parameters that he himself had set. It was obvious that he was not educated about evolution, but even informed criticism didn't faze him. No conclusions were ever really reached, and he eventually moved on from the topic.

"Clever", "observant" and "funny" are obviously necessary qualities for any successful comedy writer, which Adams is. "Observant" is prerequisite. "Clever" you need for being able to process your observations into a coherent form that is somehow novel, and therefore worth expressing. "Funny" is how you express the now-coherent observation in an amusing way that can be monetized.

Adams is a highly effective unconventional thinker. He is smart, clever and observational enough to consistently think outside the box, and to turn that into near-daily blog posts that, when they're not plainly idiotic or offensive horseshit, can sometimes make you go "huh, that's actually sort of plausible" and/or "I've never thought about it that way". There's never quite enough there to make you trust that he's right, but he is interesting. (This is why I read his blog well into the descent into offensive crankdom.)

Let's circle back to evolution and "smart". Adams does not care what people think (or cares much less than average). Not just about him, but about things in general. This is a facet of his narcissism. He lives in an alternate reality that he has crafted for himself. It is evident from his blog posts about evolution (and other topics), as well as the closing chapters of The Dilbert Future; cf. assertions and modifying reality by thinking. My theory is that he saw his viewpoint of evolution as valid, as the totality of what is relevant to know about it, even though people who were actually informed could prove him wrong. Their proofs didn't matter, because within the parameters that he had set in his alternate reality, the phenomenon of evolution was somehow wrong, HAD to be wrong, and any words to the contrary didn't matter, because they applied to a reality that is instinctively foreign to him.

His lack of actual knowledge is obvious to anyone who has read the blog. He has successfully substituted it with cleverness, humor and unconventional thinking. If you don't care deeply about the topic he mangles with his "observations", you brush it off. This is how he has thrived for so long. He's been just as wrong about a lot of things in the past as he now is about gender issues, but people generally didn't mind enough to stop reading. I do care a lot about gender issues, so this is where I got off. (He was mostly just weird and incoherent about evolution, not really offensive, so that didn't incite the level of backlash as his recent outbursts have.)

Adams sees that he is "smart" and "clever", and his narcissism prevents him from seeing that these do not equal "being right". In his narcissism, he fancies himself above the rest of humanity, even though he has utterly failed to leverage the raw potential of being "smart" into being a person who knows a lot of things and has worthwhile opinions about them. He doesn't care to listen or learn from other people, and obviously lacks the necessary empathy to do so towards women specifically. He does not consider experiences other than his own to be worth considering and incorporating into his worldview.

Since he has no knowledge to speak of, his sources of blog material are limited to using his observational skills to opine about current issues and events. Back when he started the blog, feminist issues weren't in the zeitgeist, weren't internet mainstream. As they have become both in recent years, along with MRA buffoonery, they've entered his awareness and become things he's decided to post uninformed opinions about. He's probably had the same character flaws all through his adult life, but a specific set of topics bubbling up was necessary for him to be revealed as the toxic clown that he is.

For a fun comparison, check out this thread from 2006. Nobody thought much ill of him back then, but it was fascinating to see some people already aware of how there was something off about him. They were right.
posted by jklaiho at 11:34 AM on December 13, 2015 [45 favorites]


The worn copies of old Dilbert books that were once touchstones of my childhood now serve as toilet reading.

“Dear —

I am in the smallest room of the house with your letter in front of me. Soon it will be behind me.”

(Attributed to Voltaire.)
posted by acb at 11:37 AM on December 13, 2015 [29 favorites]


Jklaiho that's an amazing analysis, nice work.

There's one of those that works as a strip in its own right, with Wally burbling MRA piffle over Alice the engineer as she becomes rage.
posted by Sebmojo at 11:43 AM on December 13, 2015 [3 favorites]


This appears to be a forum that spends way too much time dissecting the psychology of Scott Adams, a person who was never remotely on my radar until that incident. Does anyone even care or know about his opinions outside of Metafilter? He probably delights in the attention.
posted by naju at 11:48 AM on December 13, 2015 [1 favorite]


I feel sorry for the fedora -- it's not the worst hat in the world. If only the prototypical MRA wore one of those dumb beanies....

Hats most commonly marketed as "fedora" are usually trilbies. That's what's so crazy about this.
posted by Apocryphon at 12:00 PM on December 13, 2015 [10 favorites]


naju, he seemed genuinely miffed at David Futrell's post at least, and I'd hope that this thread would have the same effect (though I'm skeptical of him ever reading this).

Note that you could just as well replace "Scott Adams" in your comment with any internet personality of some fame/infamy. Clearly Adams is well-known by enough people to have him on their radar, even if he's not on yours. He's been plenty visible recently, given the internet attention that gender issues have these days, since he is one of the most prominent voices in the WHAT ABOUT THE MENS side of the discussion.
posted by jklaiho at 12:02 PM on December 13, 2015 [1 favorite]


I'm not sure why anyone feels the need to apologize for thinking Dilbert from like 20 years ago was funny. For me the strip itself has gone on far longer than it stayed good though. Anyway it's been apparent that Adams is a bit of a crank for a long time if you ever read his more serious thoughts.
posted by atoxyl at 12:16 PM on December 13, 2015



I guess I've been fortunate, because Scott Adams is the only author whose work I've really liked whom I've eventually had to stop reading after overlooking their deficiencies as a human being for long enough.


There was a time when I went to James Lileks's website every day, and I bought three of his books of bad food and home decor vintage photos, but I had to cut him out of my life when he started blogging about his political views. I've never cared about Scott Adams, but that one was a heartbreaker.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 12:17 PM on December 13, 2015 [20 favorites]


A lot of this discussion reminds me of what Ursula Hitler called Screwy Old Cartoonist Disease. I kind of pooh-poohed it at the time, but I think that there may be something to the phenomenon of a celebrity of one sort or another feeling free to vent the really crazy and/or offensive shit that they may have kept under wraps otherwise because a) they have a lot of people who practically venerate them, especially if b) they aren't quite as popular as they used to be, but that just means that the fans that have still stuck around are the hardcore ones, and extra-especially if c) they've made enough bank, or have a solid-enough gig, so that they don't have to worry about losing work. You could extend the above to Adam Baldwin (whose Gamergate advocacy doesn't seem to have hurt his career in the slightest, if his IMDB entry is anything to go by), Donald Trump, any number of Nobel Prize winners, even Jose Canseco.
posted by Halloween Jack at 12:20 PM on December 13, 2015 [3 favorites]


There was a time when I went to James Lileks's website every day, and I bought three of his books of bad food and home decor vintage photos, but I had to cut him out of my life when he started blogging about his political views. I've never cared about Scott Adams, but that one was a heartbreaker.

I was a fan of Lileks, too. But Lileks, like a lot of people, went over the edge and never came back after 9/11. Dennis Miller is another person I used to find funny but who got increasingly unpalatable after 9/11 as he slid further and further to the right.
posted by briank at 12:38 PM on December 13, 2015 [3 favorites]


This appears to be a forum that spends way too much time dissecting the psychology of Scott Adams, a person who was never remotely on my radar until that incident. Does anyone even care or know about his opinions outside of Metafilter? He probably delights in the attention.
posted by naju


Well, it can be fun to do. And being a libertarian, he sees this as a mutually beneficial trade. He has bad opinions, which we then add value to by making fun of, in exchange for the attention he craves.
posted by mccarty.tim at 12:47 PM on December 13, 2015 [2 favorites]


I was a fan of Lileks, too. But Lileks, like a lot of people, went over the edge and never came back after 9/11. Dennis Miller is another person I used to find funny but who got increasingly unpalatable after 9/11 as he slid further and further to the right.

Not to mention Eric S. Raymond, who started off as a chronicler of hacker culture, and then 9/11 happened and he went fully neoreactionary, waging a one-man war against the very idea of Social Justice like Ayn Rand with a School of the Americas diploma.
posted by acb at 12:52 PM on December 13, 2015 [6 favorites]


Hats most commonly marketed as "fedora" are usually trilbies. That's what's so crazy about this.

Actually, the crazy thing is that the fedora was named after a play in which the titular character was played by Sarah Bernhardt.

The crazier thingy is that the Trilby was also named after the female protagonist of a play which popularised the style of hat. Where the really, really crazy thing -- considering that the Trilby hat is associated with pick-up artists as much as with MRAs -- is that the novel the play was based on introduced the infamous and sinister character Svengali.

Thus concludes this episode of Hat Facts.
posted by tobascodagama at 12:52 PM on December 13, 2015 [114 favorites]


People are complicated. Years ago, well before the internet attention, I picked up a Scott Adams book because I thought Dilbert was mildly funny and the book looked entertaining. I couldn’t get through it. "What the hell is wrong with this guy?"

I still think Dilbert is mildly funny.

It’s tough to know where to draw the line. Dan Simmons, Frank Miller, Orson Scott Card (well, he always sucked). For me it really depends for me how the work is influenced. If you’re going to judge work simply by the personality of the creator you’re either going to have to bury your head in the sand or be cut off from a lot of things. Or fall into the trap of championing mediocre works because you like the creator. There’s a good chance the person that sings your favorite tender love song is a total train wreck who’s never had a healthy relationship.

I try not to fall into the "Al Gore drove an SUV" line of thinking.
posted by bongo_x at 1:06 PM on December 13, 2015 [1 favorite]


This appears to be a forum that spends way too much time dissecting the psychology of Scott Adams, a person who was never remotely on my radar until that incident. Does anyone even care or know about his opinions outside of Metafilter? He probably delights in the attention.

He's one of the most successful cartoonists of the last quarter-century, possibly second to Jim Davis.
posted by Pope Guilty at 1:09 PM on December 13, 2015 [2 favorites]


He's one of the most successful cartoonists of the last quarter-century, possibly second to Jim Davis.

Well, well, well. Apparently Jim Davis opened a Metafilter account on April 9, 2007. Nice try, but you've got to get up preeeeeetty early in the morning to fool THIS guy.
posted by duffell at 1:12 PM on December 13, 2015 [6 favorites]


At one time at my job in the '90s I had a new coworker who had come from AT&T where he had a cubicle right next to Adams before his comic made it big and quit his day job. He told me Adams was annoyingly self-promoting but was trying (rather superficially) to keep his 'anti-business' creative endeavor from affecting his work (he would deny that any of his current coworkers had inspired anything in the comic). The guy who'd worked with Adams completely lost contact in him when he quit and speculated to me that once he was truly in control, he'd be quite unlikable. And I think he nailed it.

I had a recent conversation about H.R. Lovecraft about his xenophobia and his creativity, and someone suggested that he created such terrifying monstrosities at least partly because he believed people unlike him were terrifying monstrosities. Scott Adams seems another creative whose work is informed by his own awful personality... but then I've met some other famous creatives with prominent character flaws - it's just now in the era of The Internet and Personal Blogs and Web Communities that they become much more public much sooner.

He's one of the most successful cartoonists of the last quarter-century, possibly second to Jim Davis.
As the newspaper 'funny pages' continue to shrink, Garfield and Dilbert (and Peanuts reruns) will be all that's left in 5 years.
posted by oneswellfoop at 1:12 PM on December 13, 2015 [9 favorites]


H.R. Lovecraft

I think I worked in that office once. Rumor had it that reading the full employee orientation manual inevitably led to a mental health disability claim. On the plus side there was only one incident of sexual harassment, ever.
posted by idiopath at 1:26 PM on December 13, 2015 [32 favorites]


I had a recent conversation about H.R. Lovecraft about his xenophobia and his creativity, and someone suggested that he created such terrifying monstrosities at least partly because he believed people unlike him were terrifying monstrosities.

Well, he was also terrified of seafood and most vegetables, and lived on a diet consisting almost entirely of baked beans and candy. He was probably hallucinating constantly from malnutrition.
posted by kafziel at 1:32 PM on December 13, 2015 [4 favorites]


Employment is a hideous thing, and from the background behind what we know of it peer daemoniacal hints of truth which make it sometimes a thousandfold more hideous. Your employment contract, already oppressive with its shocking revelations, will perhaps be the ultimate exterminator of our human species — if separate species we be — for its reserve of unguessed horrors could never be borne by mortal brains if loosed upon the world.
posted by idiopath at 1:35 PM on December 13, 2015 [8 favorites]


Thus concludes this episode of Hat Facts.

Hat Check!, surely.

I think I worked in that office once.

I believe you are thinking of H.R. Puffncraft, the Sid and Marty Krofft series that had to be seriously rewritten as Sigmund and the Sea Mosters because the test audiences kept having terrible, wonderful dreams. And getting taken to the Moon by cats.
posted by GenjiandProust at 1:39 PM on December 13, 2015 [13 favorites]


So I assume I'm not the only one clicking on everyone's profile here to see if they're Scott Adams
posted by shakespeherian at 1:41 PM on December 13, 2015 [12 favorites]


I don't think he'd come here again. He's waaaaaaay too smart for that. Or for this website, for that matter.
posted by charred husk at 1:45 PM on December 13, 2015 [13 favorites]


Oh well played charred husk, well played.
posted by Pink Frost at 1:47 PM on December 13, 2015 [6 favorites]


Also so handsome
posted by shakespeherian at 1:48 PM on December 13, 2015 [3 favorites]


He's not angry. Actually he's laughing that you think he's angry right now.
posted by Jimbob at 1:49 PM on December 13, 2015 [8 favorites]


Maybe we are all Scott Adams, a little bit. Maybe the true Scott Adams is the friendships we made along the way.
posted by naju at 1:52 PM on December 13, 2015 [34 favorites]


I try to see the Scott Adams in everyone.
posted by bongo_x at 2:03 PM on December 13, 2015


I try to see the Scott Adams in everyone.

Funny, often I feel like I can't stop seeing the Scott Adams in everyone.
posted by Pope Guilty at 2:06 PM on December 13, 2015 [19 favorites]


I'm surprised nobody has done a Lovecraft/Pufnstuf pastiche already.
posted by acb at 2:06 PM on December 13, 2015 [5 favorites]


I still think Dilbert is mildly funny.

He's kept a decent hit rate over the years by having a simple but effective fomula for jokes, from memory something like 'pick two of cute, weird, recognisable or mean then throw them together until you feel a physical reaction.'

He also gave advice for writing dialogue in fiction which I still follow - people never actually talk to each other, they talk around, against, and in spite of each other.
posted by Sebmojo at 2:16 PM on December 13, 2015 [2 favorites]


Weirdly, I found these comics to read as much more reasonable and defensible than when they're in context in his blog. Like, there's just enough of a reasonable set-up for most of them, and the twist of asshole works well with the three-panel format, so much that you can almost think, "Well, this is the humorous exaggeration of a crank." But since I remember most of these from actually reading his blog about the time of his MeTa meltdown, I really think they soft pedal what a self-obsessed asshole he is and how much of that translates into e.g. sexism. So much so that I kind of wondered if the comic was being made by an actual MRA ideologue seeking to rehabilitate Adams.
posted by klangklangston at 2:18 PM on December 13, 2015 [2 favorites]


I liked the Dilbert TV series. Sorry.
posted by Apocryphon at 2:34 PM on December 13, 2015 [2 favorites]


He may even be an embarrassment to Addamses.
posted by reprise the theme song and roll the credits at 2:50 PM on December 13, 2015 [1 favorite]


guys thanks for the notes on proper hat nomenclature

it sure means a lot to me
posted by DoctorFedora at 2:55 PM on December 13, 2015 [26 favorites]


I liked the one Hitler painting I saw too

Really? The most generous thing that one could say for the young Hitler's artistic talents is that maybe he had potential, which could have been realised with practice. But his actual artistic career was not particularly good in itself.
posted by acb at 3:04 PM on December 13, 2015 [2 favorites]


If Hitler had not gone into politics, I think that, art-wise, he would have been a passable motel-room-art artist, at best. I think that Norman Spinrad got right what Hitler's real artistic métier would have been.
posted by Halloween Jack at 3:16 PM on December 13, 2015 [4 favorites]


It's humbling to look at the work of artistic geniuses, to be sure.
posted by Drastic at 3:29 PM on December 13, 2015 [2 favorites]


I suppose this is our Two Minutes Hate for today, but I dunno... I just...

He makes amusing cartoons. Why the hell what I care what he has to say about social issues?

It's like... I don't know what my mechanic's thoughts on tax policy are, I don't give a toss what the programmer who wrote my e-mail client thinks about US/Israel relations, and I don't care what my cartoonist(s) think about gender issues. It's not their field, so why the hell should I let what they think bother me?
posted by -1 at 4:03 PM on December 13, 2015 [2 favorites]


Did you mechanic create sockpuppet accounts across the internet to pretend to be a disinterested 3rd party calling himself a genius, or has he published on a widely-read blog that women should be treated like children and that if they withhold sex from men, men can be expected to murder people?
posted by shakespeherian at 4:19 PM on December 13, 2015 [38 favorites]


yes
posted by DoctorFedora at 5:00 PM on December 13, 2015 [14 favorites]


ever wonder why so many defenders of i-just-like-the-art-who-cares-about-the-artist people end up in threads about the artist? shouldn't they all be out there enjoying art to its fullest, unburden by thoughts of who might have created it? but no, their very important message of i-just-don't-care-about-this-and-neither-should-you always manages to find its way out into the open. it's a wonder they have time with all that art enjoying they busy themselves with.
posted by nadawi at 5:24 PM on December 13, 2015 [34 favorites]


Surely there's enough art out there with unassailable creators that none of us should have time to comment on MetaFilter.
posted by ODiV at 5:47 PM on December 13, 2015 [2 favorites]


Same reason as why people were happy to say he's an asshole (well, other than him being one) and stopped reading Dilbert?
posted by lmfsilva at 5:47 PM on December 13, 2015 [2 favorites]


Actually, the crazy thing is that the fedora was named after a play in which the titular character was played by Sarah Bernhardt...

Oh man, tobascodagama, this could totally be a FPP, no need to bury the lead.
posted by wormwood23 at 5:50 PM on December 13, 2015 [1 favorite]


in the particular case of Dilbert, knowing about the creator's obnoxious personality helps the reader (for values of the reader equal to "this guy") get why Dilbert always seemed so off back in the day. but ymmv.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 5:58 PM on December 13, 2015 [2 favorites]


I try to see the Scott Adams in everyone.
Funny, often I feel like I can't stop seeing the Scott Adams in everyone.


I just ordered a Toto for when I have some Scott Adams in me.
posted by ctmf at 6:08 PM on December 13, 2015


If I had to choose a monster that was inside all of us a little bit, I think I'd much rather it be Godzilla, thanks.
posted by tocts at 6:10 PM on December 13, 2015 [4 favorites]


I don't know what my mechanic's thoughts on tax policy are, I don't give a toss what the programmer who wrote my e-mail client thinks about US/Israel relations, and I don't care what my cartoonist(s) think about gender issues. It's not their field, so why the hell should I let what they think bother me?

It's rather a bit different when they make a point of volunteering those opinions, and even more so when they do so in a public forum. Scott Adams wants you to know what he thinks about gender issues; he's gone out of his way to do so.
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:13 PM on December 13, 2015 [2 favorites]


So if we get one more popular guy named Scott writing about gender issues, do we have a pattern?

Because Scott Aaronson made an ass of himself too.
posted by emptythought at 6:37 PM on December 13, 2015


Something about No True Scotts, man.
posted by bongo_x at 6:40 PM on December 13, 2015 [61 favorites]


*swoons from admiration for bongo_x*
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 7:17 PM on December 13, 2015 [5 favorites]


No one tell me the truth about bongo_x, because I want to love that comment forever.
posted by ODiV at 7:18 PM on December 13, 2015 [6 favorites]


I for one think he’s brilliant. Wait, which account am I signed into...
posted by bongo_x at 7:32 PM on December 13, 2015 [16 favorites]


"ever wonder why so many defenders of i-just-like-the-art-who-cares-about-the-artist people end up in threads about the artist? shouldn't they all be out there enjoying art to its fullest, unburden by thoughts of who might have created it? but no, their very important message of i-just-don't-care-about-this-and-neither-should-you always manages to find its way out into the open. it's a wonder they have time with all that art enjoying they busy themselves with."

No, not really. Because a lot of people ascribe to the autobiographical fallacy, and it's often arguable about how much being an asshole is connected to the artist's work. With Adams, it seems a lot more connected than with, say, Miles Davis. Then there's folks like Picasso and Dali, who were also giant assholes, and whose assholery certainly impacted their work, but are usually seen as overcoming it to still be worthwhile. And it's a fair cop to argue that part of that is probably because most of their egregious bullshit was aimed at women, and the art world was (is) male-dominated, and because the backstory of their images is less salient than, say, William S. Burroughs killing his wife.

So, yeah, while an empty don't-care-not-important comment is pretty worthless, it's not like there isn't an open question there about the relationship of creators and their works. There's also the general subtext of consumer liberalism that your tastes define your identity, so liking problematic works aligns your values with those works. Which is mostly bunk, but why I try to avoid buying New Balance shoes — the owner wants to deny his female employees birth control coverage in his insurance plan. Whether or not I buy the shoes has no real effect on those policies, but I just don't feel comfortable giving him money.

And honestly, it's weird that "mechanic" was brought up, because I really care a lot more about that than about an artist — I'm less likely to interact with an artist personally, and the main reason that we have the mechanic we currently do is because our previous mechanics were sexist assholes to my wife and another female MeFite recommended these guys as specifically not treating her like a moron despite not knowing a ton about cars.
posted by klangklangston at 7:58 PM on December 13, 2015 [14 favorites]


Good points Mr. Klangston. I can say I liked Hitler’s paintings without endorsing evil, but I can’t wear a Hitler tshirt and claim it’s just about the art. Saying I’m a Dilbert fan is different than saying I’m a Scott Adams fan. People don’t tend to make that distinction a lot.

On the other hand, I’m not giving him any of my money. Because that money doesn’t go to Dilbert.

The New Balance thing kind of bums me out since they are one of the only American made shoes you can buy. Shit is complicated.
posted by bongo_x at 8:12 PM on December 13, 2015 [2 favorites]


As far as the artist/asshole dichotomy, Scott Adams isn't even on the same planet as an artist as Miles Davis, Picasso or Dali, much less the same league. Some artists are given a bit of a pass because their art is utterly transcendent, genre-defining, and they are truly unique talents. When your art changes the world, that can outweigh the crappy things you say or think aside from the art.

I'm not saying artists should be forgiven - any asshole should rightfully be called out for their asshollery, but in those rare cases (I'd include Lennon & Günter Grass as well) the art stands on its own as a thing because of its intrinsic value to society.

Adams deserves no such pass for his art in any way, shape or form. He's a middling talent somewhere above hack, but not even on a plane with real cartoonists, like Watterson, Breathed or Shelton. He's a middling talent with an interesting schtick that totally let his fame go to his head.
posted by Devils Rancher at 8:27 PM on December 13, 2015 [5 favorites]


And yeah, my favorite mechanic was not only a genius with cars, but also was patient, friendly & generous with sage automotive advice, had a psychology minor, was unopologetically politically liberal & was kind, honest & respectful to my wife, so he earned my business in more ways than one. I miss that guy!
posted by Devils Rancher at 8:31 PM on December 13, 2015 [3 favorites]


Halloween Jack: "It's rather a bit different when they make a point of volunteering those opinions, and even more so when they do so in a public forum."

Well a lot of those guys probably are volunteering those opinions on Facebook, Tumblr, assorted boards, Reddit et. al. however because they don't have an audience or highly elevated platform from which to speak one doesn't hear about it.

Personally I'm avoiding any sort of biographical or philosophical writings of any one involved in any art I like as a matter of policy. Because it seems like half the artists/philosophers whose opinions I am aware of are just horrible people. And I'd rather just not know. EG: I'm about a 1/4 the way through Hardcore History and Dan has been flogging his political blog in it. And I'm all "Nope, Nope, Nope. Not going to touch it with a ten foot pole on the off chance his political views taint my enjoyment of Hardcore History".
posted by Mitheral at 9:20 PM on December 13, 2015


I try to avoid buying New Balance shoes

"Try"? Is it hard to do?

(On preview: I'm just glad to now have a self-righteous excuse for disliking NBs)
posted by Joseph Gurl at 9:48 PM on December 13, 2015


Oh man, tobascodagama, this could totally be a FPP, no need to bury the lead.

Now that I know we have a DoctorFedora around, I'd feel bad stepping into their territory.
posted by tobascodagama at 10:57 PM on December 13, 2015


don't worry about me (I am a fraud)
posted by DoctorFedora at 12:21 AM on December 14, 2015 [1 favorite]


You mean you don't actually have a Doctorate of Millinery degree?

I am disappoint
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 12:32 AM on December 14, 2015 [7 favorites]


""Try"? Is it hard to do?"

New Balance and Merrill use a lot of the same lasts, and a couple years back (before the Obamacare bullshit), I found a pair of New Balance that just fit amazingly, something I'm not used to with gym shoes. So I try to buy Merrills, but Merrill has an obnoxious habit of discontinuing every shoe I like and replacing them with a new, tweaked product line, including sometimes swapping lasts so the continuity isn't assured. I usually find out when I search for my old shoes and see them listed for $400 on Amazon (because maybe there are some basic-ass sneakerheads out there). Complicating it is that right after I bought my first pair, Merrill settled a lawsuit over their dubious health claims for the Vibram soles stuff. I ended up getting mailed a $3 check and they promised to not pretend that running in zero-drop Vibram soles shielded runners from toxins or whatever.

"As far as the artist/asshole dichotomy, Scott Adams isn't even on the same planet as an artist as Miles Davis, Picasso or Dali, much less the same league. Some artists are given a bit of a pass because their art is utterly transcendent, genre-defining, and they are truly unique talents. When your art changes the world, that can outweigh the crappy things you say or think aside from the art."

That's kinda circular, though. Like, it matters for everybody unless you're really good, then being a shit is outweighed by being good — I mean, Hitler's a shitty painter and Adams is a mediocre cartoonist, but Leni Riefenstahl made horrible films that look gorgeous, and "Birth of the Nation" is basically unwatchable because of the heavily pro-slavery racist propaganda. Saying that it just has to be good enough isn't answering how much repugnant views (or shitty personal actions) affect viewing work outside their creators. At what point does an artist become a Picasso or Miles Davis?

But that's kind of tangential to the point I was trying to make, which is one of the differences for me is that Adams' work embodies a lot of his asshole tendencies in a way that makes the distinction of artist versus art less important. Or to take another one of those Scott Adams+Talent examples, Jerry Seinfeld. His comedic persona is about being a self-obsessed jerk. The more he ages, the more cranky bullshit he trots out about political correctness and kids-these-days. That distinction between performer and person gets more and more collapsed the more he dwells on it. Woody Allen is someone for whom it has largely collapsed — any film with him and a younger woman love interest ends up being pretty gross to watch, at least for me.

Dilbert is Scott Adams playing himself. And the more Scott Adams does smug prances, the more of an asshole Dilbert seems.

"You mean you don't actually have a Doctorate of Millinery degree?

I am disappoint
"

it was an unaccredited correspondence haberdashery.
posted by klangklangston at 12:46 AM on December 14, 2015 [2 favorites]


At what point does an artist become a Picasso or Miles Davis?

Roughly twice a century. It's not a shrugging of he shoulders. I was hugely disappointed in Günter Grass' revelations about his Nazi past, but at least he was contrite. I didn't forgive him so much as I re-evaluated him, and found the books themselves to still be important. I see them through a different lens now, for sure.
posted by Devils Rancher at 5:56 AM on December 14, 2015


It's like Bill Watterson coming out as a Trump fan or something

America's best remaining hope for good government is that Watterson has been spending the past decade quietly preparing to succeed Norton I as Emperor of the United States.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 8:20 AM on December 14, 2015 [7 favorites]


When I worked in a soul-crushing cubicles-and-fluorescent-tubes job, I loved the Dilbert strip and The Dilbert Principle. Years ago I happened to exchange some emails with Scott Adams, and without provocation he offered to do something very kind for me personally, and he actually followed through. He could have easily brushed me off, but instead he was kind and generous.

Later, when I exited the cubicle, I stopped following his writings and strips, only because they reminded me of bleaker times. Therefore until quite recently I was unaware of some of his subsequent...evolution.

It all makes me so sad and weary.
posted by Hot Pastrami! at 10:24 AM on December 14, 2015 [5 favorites]


So, yeah, while an empty don't-care-not-important comment is pretty worthless, it's not like there isn't an open question there about the relationship of creators and their works.

I think people are going to fall on one side of this or the other depending on two factors: how much they like the artist's work, and how they feel about the artist's opinions and actions. Put these two factors on either end of the scales and see which way they tip.

This is why I don't particularly enjoy being scolded that I should "learn" to separate an artist from their work. I already know how to do this. I already do this with plenty of artists. Over like half my music collection would already be in the garbage if I didn't. But in some cases, I've decided that an artist's actions are too terrible to make up for their artistic output, or their artistic output isn't great enough to make up for the artist's actions. Such is the case with Adams, who I think is a mediocre artist with really repugnant opinions who engages with his critics in a deceitful, arrogant manner.

And let's not forget the "discussion" Adams is taking part in isn't a one way street. He chooses to write what he does on his blog. He engages with responses, on his blog and elsewhere. He welcomes responses from others, so being told to shut up and larf at the funny comix isn't even in keeping with what Adams wants, either.
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 11:21 AM on December 14, 2015 [9 favorites]


Eh Aya, I'll go you one further: separating the art from the artist is total bullshit designed solely so people don't have to think about the consequences of the things they like, and the consequences of putting more dollars and a bigger megaphone in front of assholes.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 11:37 AM on December 14, 2015 [1 favorite]


At least originally, the point of the death of the author was nothing of the sort, fffm. If it's used that way, that's both a pity and dumb, but outside of the misunderstood cliché, the point was entirely different.
posted by Pyrogenesis at 2:06 PM on December 14, 2015 [4 favorites]


Yes, I don't agree with that position. Context matters. And in everyday discussion, separating art from artist is really only about people assuaging their consciences. See e.g. Michael Jackson, Bill Cosby, Roman Polanski. "But their work stands on its own!"

Yeah no, it doesn't. The context of what they are doing matters, as does the fact that in all three cases continuing to support them directly puts (past tense for MJ) money in the hands of rapists.

So too with Adams and Dilbert. Continuing to support his (no longer funny or insightful) comics directly contributes to the megaphone he has for promulgating his vile opinions about women.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 2:27 PM on December 14, 2015 [1 favorite]


Haha "artist"
posted by Joseph Gurl at 2:57 PM on December 14, 2015 [2 favorites]


Continuing to support his (no longer funny or insightful) comics directly contributes to the megaphone he has for promulgating his vile opinions about women.

That’s what I said. Saying you think Dilbert is funny is not the same as buying a Scott Adams book. There IS a difference in judging the work vs the creator. That isn’t the same as supporting the creator based only on the work and ignoring the context.

"I think New Balance shoes are good, but I won’t buy them because I don’t like the owners politics" is a perfectly reasonable position. You don’t have to say the shoes are bad, but many seem to think you do.
posted by bongo_x at 3:09 PM on December 14, 2015 [2 favorites]


"I think New Balance shoes are good, but I won’t buy them because I don’t like the owners politics" is a perfectly reasonable position. You don’t have to say the shoes are bad, but many seem to think you do.

This, but really why do we even have to have the creator/work meta-discussion for the thousandth time right now? This thread is about why Scott Adams, the guy, kinda sucks. You don't need to apologize or defend yourself because you used to/still do think Dilbert was funny.
posted by atoxyl at 3:27 PM on December 14, 2015 [1 favorite]


I thought that was where a branch of the discussion had headed, did it get in the way of the hate fest? People are talking about something you’ve already formed an opinion on? I don’t really understand your objection.

If you think I’m apologizing or defending I have not made myself very clear.
posted by bongo_x at 6:44 PM on December 14, 2015


Are you under the impression that I am arguing with you in particular? I'm not, you actually stated my personal opinion on the general topic of separating a creator from their work more succinctly than anyone. I was expressing my disinterest in the discussion proceeding toward that conversation, simply because I feel like it has been exhaustively and exhaustingly discussed. A thread like this will always have an assortment of people who have different personal feelings about it. But I don't own MeFi and I am perhaps being unnecessarily grouchy if people are enjoying having the conversation.
posted by atoxyl at 7:23 PM on December 14, 2015 [1 favorite]


Are you under the impression that I am arguing with you in particular?

Yes, I was, because you quoted me in that comment. Didn’t realize it was meant in general.
posted by bongo_x at 7:50 PM on December 14, 2015


But I don't own MeFi and I am perhaps being unnecessarily grouchy if people are enjoying having the conversation.
The problem with that discussion is that, very often, it ends up turning into some sort of moral absolutist Voigt-Kampff.
The artist is a terrible person, yet you still watch and enjoy his works. Why is that, Leon? Are you a horrible person?
posted by lmfsilva at 8:01 AM on December 15, 2015 [5 favorites]


Speaking of the Voigt-Kampff test, here's a modern take.
posted by ODiV at 8:18 AM on December 15, 2015 [5 favorites]


I don't know what my mechanic's thoughts on tax policy are, I don't give a toss what the programmer who wrote my e-mail client thinks about US/Israel relations, and I don't care what my cartoonist(s) think about gender issues.

I mean this in a gentlest way possible, but why are you here in these comments? Why should anyone be here? :-)
posted by smidgen at 11:14 AM on December 15, 2015 [4 favorites]


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