Something happened yesterday that motivated me to tap out this post. I wanted to do it right away, but yesterday was not a day to do that.
I wait no more.
My post yesterday (A Small Tradition), which is a re-post I put up every year, received a share from a blogger I will leave unnamed. His position on topics is not the motivation for this post. While I disagree with some, but not all, of his points, he seems to be an apt writer.
What has motivated this post is something I find particularly annoying.
My post was lumped into almost 100 posts which the Author is using to imply legitimacy to his point of view. (I read his post, which led me to throw this flag on the play, but not just at him.)
This approach of linking to anything and everything is what makes me angry… It’s an absurd, college freshman tactic, to appear educated and well read. (Some of us have been called onto the carpet for such behavior by a very specific Nun who was teaching a very specific English History 100 class.) That being said, I doubt this blogger has read more than one or two of the posts he linked to.
But he’s not trying to educate himself, he’s trying to shut down dissent. He doesn’t want to actually read the information he has linked to (read ‘cite’), he wants it to APPEAR he has read the 100+ posts and materials he has linked to.
I have a particular distaste for those who cite materials they haven’t read for two reasons… First, Someone has actually taken the time, and paid enough respect to the Author, to read that material. Second, on almost every circumstance the Elitist A-Hole citing said material fails to understand the Author’s point and thus makes the citation in a way that seems to bolster their point when in fact the Author, if alive, would probably have issued a cease and desist out of sheer anger. (For the record, I have received a number of “certifications” provided by Individuals who quote Authors from Clausewitz to Jesus but had clearly not read the line before or the line after the citations they used to make their often insipidly incorrect points. In other words, this foolishness extends beyond drunk monkeys posting their excrement because you’re all too far away to forcefully throw it in your direction.)
The practice is common, from the fools at Handgun Inc. writing completely bogus articles with no back-up what-so-ever, getting them published by their hack friends, and then “citing” those articles as fact 3-4 months later… to Ass Hats like this guy who does not want to genuinely think about what he is saying but wants you to think he thinks about what he’s saying. He wants you to digest what his tapped pap with no critical thought.
Just Lap Up and then Shut Up.
In order for this Individual to appear informed and elevate himself above challenge, and suspicion, he links to everything that comes up on his preferred search engine employing nothing more than a few key strokes. This is supposed to pass for effort, research and understanding. It’s supposed to convey Depth and Intelligence.
It’s Hogwash.
But we are to blame.
We allow this to happen…
because we allow the tactic to work.
We allow this tactic to work…
because we also do not read anything, ever.
Believing these Charlatans…
Is Easier than Reading, Thinking and Understanding.
It’s Easier than makinganeffort.
Well, some of us do read.
Some of us do Listen Carefully.
Some of us promote Discourse and Challenge.
We should all strive to be those people.
makeaneffort 