EPTIf you didn't really explain your intention asking him (like: "Someone replied with this to a blog of mine and I don't get it, what do you make of it?") but just threw that phrase at him (like: "Hey, what do you think of this: 'The demystification of the present is the precondition of praxis, which is necessarily future-oriented and would be impossible if the future were wholly unknowable'?) it might have come of as you playing around with big words you don't really know the meaning of, which might have provoked a reaction like the one he delivered.
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RubiksCube
Germany259 Posts
If you didn't really explain your intention asking him (like: "Someone replied with this to a blog of mine and I don't get it, what do you make of it?") but just threw that phrase at him (like: "Hey, what do you think of this: 'The demystification of the present is the precondition of praxis, which is necessarily future-oriented and would be impossible if the future were wholly unknowable'?) it might have come of as you playing around with big words you don't really know the meaning of, which might have provoked a reaction like the one he delivered. | ||
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TheKwas
Iceland372 Posts
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Azera
3800 Posts
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thoraxe
United States1449 Posts
On April 02 2012 20:39 TheKwas wrote: I'm quoting this because it is the best response so far in this thread. The quote you posted was complete nonsense, especially without context (and even in context, I would argue that whoever wrote it is terrible at writing). There's no defending just how bad of a sentence that is. Whatever sam!zdat's excuses, that's not proper jargon and that's not how even experts talk to each other. Perhaps that's how pompous experts--calling themselves "postmodernists--talk to each other, but no one else considers them experts on anything, and for good reason. I've seen those types of convulted questions/statements (w/e they are, they don't have a question mark but want a response) in that god damn English AP exam. So many "intellectual" words put into one sentence that you have to read the question like 10 times. It's like they're trying to flush out the ones that don't have an extensive vocabulary by using the most amibigous and rare words they could find. It might not be how experts talk to each other, but it's probably how they write each other. Edit: I would have answered the OPs question/statement liek dis: "yes I guess, i mean, In order to figure what you in the present, you have to think of the future to figure out if the outcome is worth it or not." Who knows if i'm even on topic, but I gave it my best. I'd like to see how some other people would have tried to answer or what the OP thinks his friend should have answered like. | ||
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RubiksCube
Germany259 Posts
On April 02 2012 21:01 Azera wrote: I asked, "What do you think of the statement ------- ?" So you didn't make your intention clear. For all he knew you could have made that statement yourself. You should begin your discussions with a clear statement of your own state of mind, so that your friend sees you as an equivalent part of the discussion. Even if your state of mind is just a quick outline of the context ("Someone on my blog wrote x") plus your first thought of it ("and I don't really know what to make of it") and then your question ("what do you think of it?"). I think this might have resulted in a much less offensive statement. The way you did it, it was just "Tell me what you know about x" and then that cryptic message with as much elaborated words as possible. Really, whoever wrote you should start working on communication rather than knowledge was probably right  | ||
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B.I.G.
3251 Posts
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RubiksCube
Germany259 Posts
My advice, as simple as it sounds, is talking to him about. I'm guessing since he's mostly annoyed by your overly elaborated behaviour that he's still open for normal communication, so you could just explain the situation to him and see where that leads. | ||
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ImDrizzt
Norway427 Posts
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Elegance
Canada917 Posts
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Azera
3800 Posts
On April 02 2012 23:40 Elegance wrote: Man that's a lot of blogs written over the past few months. This is not intended to offend you, but it just seems that you are a typical teenager in the wild - you seem quite insecure Yup. I don't think I'm a typical teenager though. | ||
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Elegance
Canada917 Posts
On April 02 2012 23:46 Azera wrote: Yup. I don't think I'm a typical teenager though. Typical in a sense that you are going through what most people go through, not the specifics of your personality or whatever EDIT: Don't feel bad man, I was like that until pretty recently. You will hit that point one way or another | ||
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HackBenjamin
Canada1094 Posts
+ Show Spoiler + I don't have a clue what you were trying to say with your fancy college words, but praxis points are best spent on hacking-capture upgrades. It is known. | ||
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Daoism
United States84 Posts
Every summer i spend about two weeks with some friends at the beach. One of them is a massive hippie and conspiracy theroist yet someone i think is very intelligent. I am someone who enjoys thinking. Me and him both enjoy deep conversations over "mundane trivial" stuff, like you. There is also another kid. This kid ive never been friends with (we all couldnt fucking stand him at one point, he was there because he was good friends with another kid). This kid is good looking, athletic, popular, and likes to party hard. He also enjoys to talk deep and often tries to talk with my friend and sometimes me about very macroscopic topics. While my friend likes the kid (even though he annoys him alot) we both came to the same conclusions about him: 1. He dosent stop talking 2. He isnt actually that smart 3. Hes a massive suck up Now i have no idea how you or your friend act. I have no idea how smart you or your friend are. But from my own experience these are things that turn me and my friend off from this kid. While my friend puts up with him, he confessed that he dosent really enjoy it and often gets annoyed by him. However he dosen't show his annoyance (though he occasionaly yells at him to stfu). Personally i cant enjoy a conversation with the kid as its very one sided and he just parrots what others tell him, leading me to try to avoid one-on-one conversations with him. So my advice is to just reflect about your interactions with your friend and think about what you couldve done over time that possibly annoys him. I feel that you are taking a very one sided perspective in your op ( i haven't read that much of the thread so i dont know if you touch upon this sry) and not really seeing this through your friends eyes. On another note, i always tend be a very cynical towards people who like to be verbose and unnecessarily use big words. Your friend, judging by his response, is someone i would really call into question. | ||
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Dfgj
Singapore5922 Posts
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Iranon
United States983 Posts
On April 02 2012 21:01 Azera wrote: I asked, "What do you think of the statement ------- ?" I wouldn't have even bothered responding to that. Why do you think TL requires people to put some effort into an OP? Because that's the only way to actually open a meaningful discussion. A needlessly cryptic line of text (which honestly screams "academic jargon for its own ego-boosting sake") and the command "discuss" is no way to open a discussion. Maybe if you had presented your analysis of it, said why you agreed or disagreed, and asked how he felt about what YOU had to say, he might have responded differently. Edit: also, I'm pretty sure that response was sarcastic. I imagine your friend saying that with a gold monocle and a top hat, holding a brandy snifter with a cane under his arm. Nobody says "it is tedious to entreat with..." and "nincompoopery" if they're 100% serious. And if he was being serious, dear god, both of you need to be knocked down a peg or two. | ||
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zalz
Netherlands3704 Posts
The true mastery of speech is not to ask increasingly poluted questions, it is to reduce complex concepts to their basics. Fake intellectuals really do exist and they are a pain in the ass. I can spot them from a mile away. In text I can catch them most of the time, in real life conversation I can catch them a 100% of the time. A fake intellectual can be smart. Hell, a fake intellectual can even be an intellectual. The core of the problem is people who are obviously extending beyond their own ability, increasingly making their speech more poluted with words that they clearly don't fully grasp themselves. They want to be smart, desperately so. They phrase their questions in increasingly complex words for the sake of appearing more intelligent than they really are. The difference between a real and a fake intellectual lies in the desire that is underneath their questions, debates, and discussions. Do they truly want to learn? Or do they crave the title of intellectual and engage in complex issues for the sake of engaging in them. Fake intellectuals are pain in the ass because they are, despite what they might even think themselves, not truly interested in the topic, whatever the topic may be. They just want to talk about topics they perceive as intelligent, because they want the status of intellectual that clings to those subjects. These faux-intellectuals can be recognized by their whimsy, often switching to seemingly random subjects, and the usage of words which clearly do not come naturally to them. That is why I said I can catch them every time in a real-life conversation, it is the way in which they force these words into sentences in a way which is clearly not natural to them. It reveals the desire to be intelligent, rather than the desire to learn. The difference might seem subtle, but it is anything but. Once you pick up on it, any discussion seems hollow. You are no longer learning from one another, you realize that you are being used to stroke the other persons ego. | ||
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docvoc
United States5491 Posts
Now onto your relationship. Relationships generally succeed when two people are on the same level, if he holds you in a lower regard and treats you as such, then no there is no real friendship there. If he is at a higher level but doesn't treat you like a lackey, then yeah sure friendships can abound in that situation. This guy was an ass when he responded to you, but he may not have been completely false (though a fail grammatically speaking) when he talked of Faux intellectualism, if you were discussing the complex natures of the universe at a young age where you still have a lot to learn in the basic subjects. I can't say i know you personally, but from your name I'm going to guess you are Jewish or have some semitic descent (Ezra) and that you aren't graduated from college yet (neither am i). Now my point here is that you might not be at fault at all, and he may be, for lack of a better term, an asshat; however in the event that he isn't completely wrong, or that you just want to learn from the event, you can look back at what you talked to him about and see if you could have known more about it rather than both of you not having any kind of clue what you are talking about and just shooting the breeze. Also its possible you knew more than him, were varacious intellectually and no matter how book smart he is, he may have been scared off by that. If that is true, that could be his point in the last phrase about having the will to learn in his letter. If i'm completely off, I'm very sorry for that, but hopefully some of what i said rings with you . | ||
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Azera
3800 Posts
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itsjustatank
Hong Kong9179 Posts
On April 03 2012 16:33 Azera wrote: Ok guys, many things happened. He actually googled the quote and found this blog. He then apologised for his actions and I guess we cleared things up. Awkward. Guess that's one way to learn to stop being pompous. | ||
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Azera
3800 Posts
On April 03 2012 18:06 itsjustatank wrote: Awkward. Guess that's one way to learn to stop being pompous. No doubt | ||
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