The thing about dishonesty

The thing about dishonesty (and what I have in mind specifically is intellectual dishonesty) is that it cannot be segregated to one little aspect of one's life; it is the nature of dishonesty to spread and take over all it touches.

This is another post about the silliness (and foolish wickedness) called 'Game;' though, it's more indirectly about that. What this post is directly about is illustrating for Gentle Reader how the conscious disinclination to reason correctly and rigorously about the things we *want* to believe to be true must inevitably lead us into outright lying about things which anyone see are otherwise.

The blogger who goes by 'Aunt Haley' posted something earlier today which sounds very reasonable ... until one knows that back-story. Here is that post:

I’m tired of reading comments where posters are calling each other names like idiot, sweetheart, moron, bitch, or any of that ilk.

From now on, I’m just going to start deleting comments with name-calling insults. It’s ridiculous that grown men can’t get through a discussion without puerile mudslinging. If you want to play the neener-neener game and call each other names, take it off the blog.

Here is what I said to her in response:

Will you now?

Aren’t you at all curious as to what’s going on in your own mind?

What I mean is this — these … what was the phrase, again? … “grown men” … have been directing that sort of thing at me for days, and you only just now, after I have mildly (but effectively, and humorously) turned a couple of the intended insults back upon their owners, appear to disapprove of their behavior. AND then, to make matters worse (from my point of view), you “even-handedly” seek to lump my mild (and humorous!), and much delayed, responses in with their provocations.

Really: would you *ever* have written this post had I not finally turned some of those provocations back upon their owners? To be more blunt, had I not, with a few simple-and-non-obscene words, turned what was intended to be a group-effort mockery of me into unanswerable ridicule of the original poster, would you have said *anything* at all?

Partly, I wrote this because I am *very* well acquainted with this sort of dishonest "even-handedness."

Even one of her fellow 'Game' proponents (*) appears to get the point I was making about "even-handedness:" "It’s a well-known fact of the schoolyard that it’s the reprisal punch that gets punished."

(*) Yes, I know he has claimed in a comment on this this blog that he is not an advocate of it (even as he was defending it), but his behavior when with the gang says otherwise.


Here is Haley's dishonest response to what I said to her about her "even-handedness:"

Ilion, when you post nine replies in a row and start sounding emotionally hysterical, which you did the other day, I have little compunction about nipping that kind of behavior in the bud when it starts to cross over into schoolyard insults.

Cool down and write like a grown-up, and others will treat you like a grown-up.

Don't you just love passive-aggression? I know I do!

And, lastly, here is the back-story -- in which (unless she's the sort of person who is going to delete the evidence, now that I've written this post) anyone can see that she has seriously misrepresented both me and her gang of fellow adherents of 'Game.'

Should one choose to wade through all the comments in that last thread, one will not find me initiating "schoolyard insults" -- though, one will find me eventually responding to some of the "schoolyard insults" that had been directed my way ... and really, my responses were several grades above "schoolyard." I'd almost take insult at having my insults characterized as "schoolyard insults," except that I've already conclued that Miss Haley suffers a severe lack of discernment.

Goodness! As far as I can tell she cannot even see what is "off" about this odd statement someone made on her blog not too long ago: "Ultimately, if I were seeking advice, I would look for empirically based observations given by someone with a discerning spirit of wisdom. Like Citizen Renegade."

Nor will one find me "sounding emotionally hysterical" -- but one *will* see some of Miss Haley's fellow 'Game' proponents "sounding emotionally hysterical" (apparently because I'm presenting them arguments to establish its falsehood and/or lack of worth); and one will see a 'Game' proponent (whom I do not hesitate to judge as a quite wicked man, and whom I suspect was a bully when he was chronologically young enough for the schoolyard) seeking to goad me into "sounding emotionally hysterical" (as though he could!) and one will see that person repeatedly waving his hands to dismiss what I'd been saying as "sounding emotionally hysterical."

Shesh! Can't she even come up with her own false tropes?


Edit: In response to Miss Haley's dishonest characterization of the interaction between me and her fellow advocates of 'Game,' I said to her: " You’re dishonest, aren’t you?" (and, if you know/understand me, you realize that that was me being "nice" or non-blunt).

And her response was: " I’m not, and your further comments are going in moderation for the time being." (My point here is not that denies being dishonest.)

There are reasons, Gentle Reader, that men sometimes refer to some women as 'bitches.' And this sort of passive-aggressive dishonesty is a prime example.