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Pecking orders are feminine, insults on Usenet
Posted:
Jun 28, 2004 11:12 AM
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One of the things that I've thought about over the years is how odd it
is that on sci.math and sci.physics there is a reliance on insults to
try and establish a social hierarchy--a pecking order.
Let's get past the weirdness of trying to create a social hierarchy on
Usenet, or the oddity of some posters who apparently consider
themselves top hens in that pecking order down to the reality of
pecking orders in general: they are feminine.
Guys just don't get excited about insults, unless there's something
physical involved. Insults are mostly just for fun with guys, like
trash talking on the basketball court, or putting down the other guy's
team.
It's not a serious way to establish social dominance. It's just too,
feminine.
There's even a recent major motion picture that highlights my point:
"Mean Girls"
It deals with a pecking order at a high school.
Guys beat up nerds. They don't just call them names. Sure, yeah,
they call them names, but also they push them around and get physical
with them.
Can you imagine jocks and nerds standing around trading insults as the
jocks insult the nerds into submission?
It's just too weird. Granted on Usenet there's not much else you can
do, I guess, but still, insults?
Some posters here are insult queens, having spent YEARS working
diligently to establish their little imaginary queendoms on sci.math
and sci.physics, using, primarily, insults.
Now some might take my own posting here to be insult based and that's
the difference between masculine and feminine thinking. I'm a guy. I
find feminine behavior to be fascinating, and often odd, but I don't
put it down, I simply objectively note it.
Women are great. I love women. I don't mind femine behavior either,
expecially when I make sure I stay well clear of it. But on sci.math
and sci.physics, you can't.
These posters who are pecking at you with insults are as mad as a
woman wronged.
They keep after you, year after year, after year, after year, keeping
at the insults, working at their pecking order, peck, peck, pecking
away.
I've had these people put up webpages. Recently some on sci.math
emailed a math journal to get a paper of mine censored.
That behavior is not guy behavior. Guys just don't get that excited
to track at some person like that so obsessively, especially when
there's nothing important involved. Throw in sex or sports or money,
and yeah, guys can get very obsessive, but math?
I'm all for more masculine behavior on Usenet. More objective
arguments. More fighting it out with ideas versus insults. More
fighting, yeah, but let's have it be more like the way guys do it. If
anyone wants to get emotional, at least let it be about something
interesting, like sex, sports or money.
James Harris
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