Stupid People Make Me Angry
May. 2nd, 2006 04:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackofallgeeksNot unrelated to earlier posts...
There's this girl, we'll call her Mary, who I met on one of these sites and began talking to. At first things went pretty well, but after a while... At first it seemed like a strange Curtis-esque social inability, in that it seemed she could speak of nothing expect in that it had moral or theological implications. Which is all well and good, but as with Curtis and video games and random geekiness, there's more to the world than just that. Things got slightly worse as her grandfather became ill and later died, whereby she seemed to expect I knew exactly what she was talking about, even though she was making very little sense at all, and treated my like a complete imbecile when I couldn't find the Newport News Obituaries online.
In case any of you weren't aware, being treated like an idiot is something I can't abide.
So we stopped talking for a long while. I mostly figured it was just her dealing with grief and while a friend doesn't pull back when their friends hit rough times, I was only just getting to know her, and I thought it best to wait until things settled down before continuing.
So I IMed her last night, and withing five minutes I knew it was a mistake. She started questioning why I never had quotes from this saint or that pope, because those were usually more inspiring -- to which I said (1) I simply haven't stumbled upon anything I felt pertinent from them (nor have I looked, really) and (2) it's not really my intent to 'inspire' so much as to get people to think, or at the least convey my mood.
This morning I left the last lines of T.S. Eliot's poem "The Hollow Men" (this is the way the world ends/ not with a bang but a whimper) as my away message. I came home and found two messages from Mary: "t.s. eliot was very antichristian was he not" and "i don't think he had the rapture in mind did he".
This is a great example of what I was saying in point one, with the Curtis-esque ineptitude! Yes, yes, the words do say something about the end of the world, but... Gah! I really don't think Eliot was talking about the literal end of the world there, for one thing, and what does that have to do with being antichristian even if he was? I don't think there's anything particularly antichristian by saying the world will literally end in silent despair. But even on top of that... The man wrote "Murder in the Cathedral," and at the very least that was 'non-antichristian' enough for my highschool (which was particularly Catholic) to require it as required reading. So I have to wonder, has she ever read anything by or about Eliot, or is she just attacking him (rather pointedly, too) because of the one line that I quoted in my message?
Just... rahr, the anger.
There's this girl, we'll call her Mary, who I met on one of these sites and began talking to. At first things went pretty well, but after a while... At first it seemed like a strange Curtis-esque social inability, in that it seemed she could speak of nothing expect in that it had moral or theological implications. Which is all well and good, but as with Curtis and video games and random geekiness, there's more to the world than just that. Things got slightly worse as her grandfather became ill and later died, whereby she seemed to expect I knew exactly what she was talking about, even though she was making very little sense at all, and treated my like a complete imbecile when I couldn't find the Newport News Obituaries online.
In case any of you weren't aware, being treated like an idiot is something I can't abide.
So we stopped talking for a long while. I mostly figured it was just her dealing with grief and while a friend doesn't pull back when their friends hit rough times, I was only just getting to know her, and I thought it best to wait until things settled down before continuing.
So I IMed her last night, and withing five minutes I knew it was a mistake. She started questioning why I never had quotes from this saint or that pope, because those were usually more inspiring -- to which I said (1) I simply haven't stumbled upon anything I felt pertinent from them (nor have I looked, really) and (2) it's not really my intent to 'inspire' so much as to get people to think, or at the least convey my mood.
This morning I left the last lines of T.S. Eliot's poem "The Hollow Men" (this is the way the world ends/ not with a bang but a whimper) as my away message. I came home and found two messages from Mary: "t.s. eliot was very antichristian was he not" and "i don't think he had the rapture in mind did he".
This is a great example of what I was saying in point one, with the Curtis-esque ineptitude! Yes, yes, the words do say something about the end of the world, but... Gah! I really don't think Eliot was talking about the literal end of the world there, for one thing, and what does that have to do with being antichristian even if he was? I don't think there's anything particularly antichristian by saying the world will literally end in silent despair. But even on top of that... The man wrote "Murder in the Cathedral," and at the very least that was 'non-antichristian' enough for my highschool (which was particularly Catholic) to require it as required reading. So I have to wonder, has she ever read anything by or about Eliot, or is she just attacking him (rather pointedly, too) because of the one line that I quoted in my message?
Just... rahr, the anger.
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no subject
Date: 2006-05-03 03:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-03 05:58 am (UTC)We've exchanged a few messages back and forth this evening, mostly me saying, "I'm pretty sure you've got the wrong guy; check out his play, 'Murder in the Cathedral," etc., and her coming back and saying "Google and Wikipedia," the sources I cited, because they're convenient, "aren't always the most reliable sources," a point which I noted even before I began my argument in the first place, "and I don't need you quoting from searches that I could easily do myself. I was more wondering what you knew or felt about the line you quoted," a claim, which if true, marks her as even less worth my time; ie, she can't get straight the difference between asking "why did you choose that quote" and "isn't Eliot anti-Christian?"
So. Yes. Exchanging notes to clear up her muddled head, but not feeling hopeful, and not expecting our correspondence in general to continue much more.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-03 04:01 am (UTC)i always liked "the hollow men." i haven't read it in quite some time though...
no subject
Date: 2006-05-03 05:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-03 04:20 am (UTC)"As a young man he suffered a religious crisis and a nervous breakdown before regaining his emotional equillibrium and Christian faith."
So... perhaps not at anti-Christian as she thought? Yeah, his works question it alot, but in the Post WWI era Britain, everyone was questioning the entirety of their existence. Also, he was a part of the Modernist Literature era, which is partially defined by the appearance of themes like the questioning of reality, the search for meaning in a world without God, critique of traditional views, etc. Post war was a tumultuous time... he was a man of his era. :-)
Good luck with the crazy girl!
no subject
Date: 2006-05-03 06:07 am (UTC)She noted that Eliot was in a time between World Wars, and that society had lost a lot of hope and faith in the wake of the horrors of war, and "isn't it so great that we had people like X and Y to pull us from that malaise." Yeah, that line gagged me for the sugariness -- not a direct quote from her, but very nearly. I responded that he was a man wounded by war, in a time wounded by war, and that the worst that could be said is that he didn't have a lot of happy things to say -- but that doesn't make him a bad person, nor does it make the truths he speaks any less true.
And, frankly, I don't think there's anything "anti-christian" about doubt or questioning or any of that. but that's a whole 'nother conversation for a whole 'nother time.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-03 02:53 pm (UTC)Just so. ::nods::
no subject
Date: 2006-05-04 05:17 am (UTC)Excuse me.
Eliot, in fact, after his first wife was institutionalized and later died, had a breakdown of his own. He came out of this period with strong Anglican beliefs that can be CLEARLY seen in poems like Ash Wednesday, the Four Quartets, and the Sweeney poems (particularly Sweeney Among the Nightengales). If anything Eliot has been criticized for being OVERLY Christian, to the point of holding anti-semitic beliefs. The Hollow Men doesn't even broach the subject of religion. It is a modernist comment on the ravages of World War I on society-- particularly the fall of the high power structure ("Mistah Kurtz- he dead." Is a line from Conrad's Heart of Darkness. Kurtz is a self-proclaimed dictator with a band of blind, loyal followers. And if Mary sees that as religion, then she's very not Christian, now is she?) For Eliot, the world has become so rundown in part because it is godless. Maybe she should check her facts a little more before presenting a grossly inaccurate opinion.
Sorry.
That really, really irritated the hell out of me.
Love you, Andrew.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-04 05:27 am (UTC)That's something I've come to realize about this girl that I can't stand -- it seems any opposition to her stand or worldview (like when I couldn't find the obituaries) is, at best, a personal attack on her. I can't have a conversation with her because it always becomes a confrontation. That and the fact that she seems to find negative emotions (anger, sadness, doubt, etc) to be inherently wrong, which is an opinion I simply can not abide.
I love you, too, Nifer.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-04 02:45 pm (UTC)Interesting that most people will summarize the poem by calling it a narrative of a soul looking for redemption. Eliot also makes EXTENSIVE use of Biblical allusions, paraphrases of Dante, and material from St. Augustine's Confessions.
I'm a fanatic. I do apologize. But this girl is a complete tard. I don't even know why you associate with her. If you do talk to her again, tell her I would suggest that she take a survey of American literature course before she tries to talk about anything academic ever again.
Feel my English major wrath.
Nothing wrong with a little healthy fanaticism...
Date: 2006-05-04 03:49 pm (UTC)As noted, I don't either. i'm fairly sure we've seen the last of her.