Wednesday, July 07, 2004
ACADEMIC TO TROLLS: BRING IT ON!
Spitbull doesn't have a comments feature because we're lazy (gotta find where they hid that screwy comments box and then check it to activate 'em) and fearful (at first no one came to our parties either ... until we wised up and stopped throwing parties). Comment bullying isn't really a factor. Plus, our hero Daniel Drezner thinks everyone is being a wuss about comment civility anyway:
UPDATE: The King does care. Looks like comment trolls may simply be academics honing their flame-throwing skills ...
Look, I'm an academic, and this stuff is nothing. I've attended seminars where the paper presenter ran out of the room because s/he was crying. I've presented papers that have been likened to poor undergratuate theses. I've had papers rejected by top journals because they were "narrow and without much theoretical interest." I've heard cruelties uttered that will be burned in people's psyches until the day they die. In other words, I'm used to a pretty high standard of criticism. Compared to that, a line like "Hey, Drezner, let's outsource your job, you f***ing a@#hole!" -- or letters like these -- just come off as histrionic nonsense.Care to comment, O King of the Ivory Tower?
UPDATE: The King does care. Looks like comment trolls may simply be academics honing their flame-throwing skills ...
