Block is Facebook’s Best Feature

Ignorance and arrogance are equally fatal to reason

For years, I’ve used Facebook as part of my marketing strategy. Facebook always tells you to only add people you actually know, but who cares what Facebook thinks? I have thousands of friends, and I like to make provocative posts to stir up the hornet’s nest.

Sometimes, reading comments on Facebook allows me to frame up an outline for an interesting essay. Comments give you a preview of the inane counter-arguments you’re likely to encounter once your article is published, so you can respond to them in the body of your composition. It doesn’t really matter because most people don’t read more than the title anyway, but it allows you to provide snarky quotes from your own article as you berate people for commenting without reading.

The doctor

For years, I’ve been followed by this college professor. He’s got a PhD, but lately I’d noticed that my provocative posts seemed to be getting under his skin. As a professor, he should be aware of the Socratic method of asking leading/provocative questions. Although my method of implementing this tactic leans heavily on the “provocative,” it’s necessary because that’s how you cultivate engagement on the internet.

Ignorance always makes me angry, but arrogance and entitlement make me absolutely furious. There is no excuse for hubris, and the consequences of hubris can be devastating (examples include a political party using perceived hatred of a criminal candidate to ignore the interests of voters and attempt to nudge a party more to the right…remember how that worked out?).

Snarky

Sadly, this professor and I slipped into a downward spiral. Some of the people you meet online are so amazingly odd. For some reason, he seemed extremely drawn to my posts and would always hurry along to comment. However, he behaved like one of those teachers that scour every assignment for something, anything, they could use to berate the student.

For him it was more important to find something wrong than to perceive the underlying point. He would have failed Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” for being impractical.

This professor’s favorite tactic seemed to be to interpret my posts as if I were making a statement in an academic paper. Anyone who assigns that kind of significance to a Facebook post is delusional. Writing online is casting lines into a sea overcrowded with fishermen. Maybe this professor was just jealous that my line was actually getting strikes while his sat flaccid (I’m patting myself on the back for the use of the word ‘flaccid’ there).

He confesses a sexual harassment case

About a year ago, I happened to see one of the professor’s posts. He was throwing a pity party about how one of his students had “unjustly” accused him of some sort of sexual impropriety. Obviously, he was writing this post about how he was the victim, but based on my casual interactions with the guy on Facebook, I felt myself inclined to believe the accuser.

It’s weird how in semi-anonymous digital interactions, you can sometimes brush shoulders with predators. I don’t have evidence that this guy was a predator, but my first thought after reading his post was “I bet there’s more to this story than this guy is letting on.” Mainly, I just filed the information away because I figured I could use it to step on a nerve if he really started to annoy me (and I was right).

Ignorance and arrogance

I often get into online fights with both liberals and conservatives. What I’ve discovered is that the Achilles’ heel of conservatives is ignorance, and the Achilles’ heel of liberals is arrogance. My conclusion is that both ignorance and arrogance are equally fatal to reason.

We started to argue about the primaries after I objected to the DNC argument that the voting public had “rejected” the progressive movement. At the time, Bernie Sanders was in a virtual tie with Biden, and all I was doing was pointing out that it was factually incorrect to state the voters had “rejected” him when he’d won close to 50% of the votes.

You don’t understand the scientific method

Somehow, my professor friend tried to use that as an argument to tell me I didn’t understand the scientific method. I explained that I had a pretty solid piece of evidence for my hypothesis, but he was in full on dismissal mode. Then he started wadding up his degrees and throwing them at me.

It’s always comical when you incite a guy with a PhD into a hissy fit. That’s half the reason I wrote this article about how scholarly journals are self-published.

I like to compare higher education to self-publishing because it makes them so angry. As far as understanding the scientific method, I don’t have a lofty PhD, but I do have a Bachelor of Science with a minor in Physics and I am licensed to teach Physics. So, no, I’m not quite to content to sit there and concede I “don’t understand the scientific method,” especially when it’s pretty easy to see the evidence I’m supplying to support my position.

He attacks AOC

The last straw came when I posted a comment congratulating Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on her primary win. Once again, the DNC showed an unendurable level of hypocrisy by spending money on a primary challenger to the AOC campaign, even though they themselves stated money spent on primaries would be better spent opposing Donald Trump. The “do as I say, not as I do” attitude has always grated me.

Despite the fact that AOC’s challenger raised over 2 million dollars, AOC won with 75% of the vote, which is yet another piece of evidence that there is widespread support for the progressive movement within the Democratic voter base.

On my post, the professor made some dismissive comment about how AOC says things that don’t make sense. My reply was simple:

“Don’t mind the professor, he’s basically a misogynist and his position can be dismissed out of hand.”

The private message

I was pushing for a response, and I got one. A few days later, I logged into Facebook and saw a private message from the professor:

“I want you to take down that misogynist comment…”

Again, the arrogance of the phrasing struck me. I’ve received a lot of these style emails throughout my life. Even when asking for a favor, the phrasing is in the form of a command. These people can’t separate themselves from their own perception of authority even when asking for a favor. For the record, a better phrasing would have been:

“I recognize that my comment was out of line, could you please take down the ‘misogynist’ statement? I’ll try to do better.”

The other thing that’s funny is that my “misogynist” comment was in a response, which meant he could have deleted his original comment and removed the word. I guess big brain power PhD doesn’t know how commenting works. Maybe he was sick that day for big, fancy, PhD school?

My response

I did take down the comment. I also told the guy that he needs to be a bit smarter. AOC is a human being, and she’s going to pick a poor phrasing or stumble over a word from time to time. But a person with a PhD should be able to recognize that she does it far less than people like Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell, Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham, and even Joe Biden. Focusing on her represents either age or gender bias.

Furthermore, the media subjects AOC’s missteps to greater scrutiny because she’s just about the only politician who isn’t bought and paid for, so she’s facing a smear campaign financed by both political parties.

Also, she’s about the only politician I know of that routinely goes after companies that overcharge the American taxpayer. Watch this video for an example, you won’t find a video of McConnel, Cruz, Graham, or anyone going after big corporations like this:

When you make your assessment of AOC in the correct context, you’ll see her achievements are truly remarkable.

There is nothing worse that when intelligent people allow themselves to be programmed and start repeating propaganda without even questioning it. A good example is how people routinely say, “The Packers have wasted Aaron Rodgers,” even though Rodgers is 1–3 in NFC Championship games. People start saying things, and if you don’t them on it, it’s hard to overwrite their sense that it is true.

The blast and block

But there was no thank you or contrition from my professor friend. He just wrote back, “‘AOC is on the only politician who works for us’? Come on…” Then he said:

“Your perception of her reminds me of how I looked at my girlfriend when she was 17, it didn’t turn out well.”

Again, the ARROGANCE! It’s just another example of dismissing my well-considered position as he waits for his next opportunity to haughtily applaud himself.

He should have been saying, “thanks for removing that post,” but instead he doubled down. When somebody doubles down after I’ve already made a concession (I removed the post after all), they’re dead to me.

So, I wrote back:

“Maybe your relationship didn’t work out because you’re a misogynist, I think you should take a long hard look in the mirror and try a little self-evaluation. Otherwise, you’re doomed to die alone as you deserve to. Good bye forever!”

Then I blocked the A-hole.

Blocking in the election season

I find it highly unlikely that I’ll have many Facebook friends left after the 2020 election. But if there’s one thing the recent political landscape has taught me, it’s that we can’t afford to hold our tongue on matters of importance. The rules of social decorum tell us that there are some things that we shouldn’t discuss publicly, but my perception is that our silence only serves to aid our opponents.

I usually don’t block people, even when my other friends urge me to do so. I have a conservative acquaintance who often leaves despicable comments on my posts, but he’s useful in that he offers an insight into the deranged operation of the right-wing mind. I can endure his nonsense.

However, I truly can’t stand educated people that become blinded by their own hubris and arrogance. There’s not even the slightest peripheral advantage to engaging with such lost souls. Blocked. Good-bye. Good riddance.