Friday Is Out Of Context

Yeah man, who cares. Like, tell me about it.

What's even better: the full title is officially listed at a site you could purchase it from as:

Who Cares About Elderly People ? ((Who Cares Ser.))

Of course "Ser. means the "series" it's a part of – see also – but am I the only person who instinctively reads the full list title as:

Who Cares About Elderly People ? ((Who Cares, Seriously.))

This Friday Is Out Of Context Thoapsl Says: A rhetorical question is not always questionable?

A long and tiring week

"You have ten questions," she said.
"Don't you mean twenty?" I asked.
"No. Ten."
"Why ten?"
"It's the shortest number," she replied, "all the other ones take forever."
That's true, I thought. But I didn't say so aloud. Rules! Always with the rules, she is. Damn her and damn her tongue.
"Damn you and damn your tongue! Is everything a game to you?" I asked.

(I might have been a bit loud. I was trying to let a little frustration slip through in my voice - but subtly, yeah?)

"No. Everything is not a game."
"Yeah? Badminton?"
"Yes. It's a sport."
So she didn't know what she was talking about. Honestly, I wasn't too impressed with any of her answers. But it was a sunny day - can you believe that? And I was soaking wet from arm to ankle. This was a worry.
"Do you realise what this looks like?" I asked.
"Yes."
"Really?"
"Yes. Really."
I wasn't sure if she really was really sure, though. She looked a bit shifty that second time. You know how sometimes you have to say things more than once? It was a bit like that. Yeah.

Anyhow, it was time to close things down. To think. Like a brick through the windows of her argument, you know. And there were all these vegetables I was trying to carry with me, too; it was kind of difficult. Not that I'm complaining. I mean, I'm not complaining or anything. Heck no.
"So," I said – there might have been some pointing involved, too – "if you're right, then why do I keep running out of ice cubes?"
"Right about what?"
"Aha! You just asked me a question! Does that mean I win?"

"No," she told me. "And that's why I still have all your old Metallica albums. Now hand over the vegetables and get out of here."

So it's like, every week it's something like this. Forget about it.

Next time I'll bring something sharp.

What I Did On My Lunch Break

Dentist came in slinking, low and sneezy. I've been talking to your teeth. That's what she said, I think like I'm pretty sure. So okay? Your teeth are good. Very good. No decay, or, other bad things of any descrip', it's all sweet without the bad sweet. No cavities. Nothing else. I looked at the whiteness and it shone, it shone like gold. Smooth and supple. I leaned in close and the mirror reflected only perfection. Like, honest. The saliva glistened. Alive. The calcium was so firm and solid, the structure so perfect, the balance! Oh lord the balance was sacred. Like geometry of pyramids, or crop circles or broken angels tinkling into a whiskey bottle. Oh it was delicious. Your teeth are awesome. Seriously, I love them. I think about them at night. I lie there in the dark, and there's something that feels so right. I curl up under the blanket and I'm going to recommend no change to your current dental regimen. Perfection is. Don't worry about it, yeah. Your teeth are awesome.

Okay'm, I said. No fillings then.

No way man, said dentist. I lifted her fingers out of my mouth and collapsed next to the chair. That's okay, I was sleepy anyway. The next morning I caught my teeth writing a farewell letter, or it might have been a suicide note – I didn't read it more than once. I tossed it into the fire and showed my teeth the back of my hand. How dare you! I said. It was a rhetorical question. If you wrote it down, you wouldn't even put a question mark at the end. My teeth started weeping. I found them hiding in the attic later that night. It was pretty dark, but I'm pretty sure that's who it was. They seemed kind of busy, so I decided not to disturb them.

The next day, the dentist was back in my mouth again. I tried to remove her fingers but it wasn't as easy this time. There were more of them, so it took longer. So maybe it wasn't less easy, it was just more, like time-consuming? Whatever. Totally sick of the dentist. I told her, seriously, I'm pretty sure this consultation was over a short while ago. But she was all like yeah but, housecalls and chalk dissolving in milk and there's teeth cancer going around, kids want the pox but the sick shop was all out so they gave them the teeth cancer instead. At a discount, though? I went to the shop but then my lunch break was over so I had to stop

You Are Wrong

So, I'm all for disagreement and protest and whatnot. And if someone is making a speech (or whatever) that you vehemently disagree with, it's good to be able to express that somehow. Case in point: Brendan Nelson's speech today (following Kevin Rudd's historic "Sorry" proclamation), which a ton of people apparently booed, turned their backs on, disconnected the broadcast of, etc etc. Now I'm not a fan of Nelson's speech myself, so I find it hard to be against what people did here. But there's something about that method of protest in general that irks me.

Isn't refusing to listen to the people you disagree with the absolute worst thing that you can do, in an argument? For one thing, how can you expect the other people to listen to you in return? For another: if you want your own stance to be the best one, shouldn't you listen to as many opposing views as possible, in order to refine your own arguments against them? Shouting over someone rather than listening to them turns a discussion into not-a-discussion, into something else. It just becomes a kind of performance, a visceral sort of declaration of us-vs-them.

(It also reminds me too much of the far-left groups I knew at university, and why they tended to annoy and upset me: because, fundamentally, I agree with them. I share most of their dislikes and their aims, I just hated the ham-fisted, dogmatic & overly-aggressive way they usually went about them).

If I said that "arguments are not fights", then it would sound like a truism. But what about "arguments are not wars", or "arguments are not battles"? Doesn't sound quite right, does it? People are used to treating arguments and disagreements as if they really are wars. It's way too easy to slip into the rhetoric of attack, into that same sort of aggressive, confrontational behaviour. But while that's a lot of fun and often cathartic (especially if it seems like you 'win' at the end), I've come to think that it just doesn't work. Nobody is convinced that they are wrong because they were yelled at and not listened to. As a protestor, what do you really want do – make a righteous symbolic action against your enemy, or turn your enemy into your friend?

(on the other hand... is it ironic that I'm arguing against an example of people who were making a symbolic protest against an aspect of an event – the "Sorry" speech – that was, in itself, important for its symbolism more than anything else?)

I know, I know, this is all naive bullshit; some people can't be reasoned with, can't be argued with, you have to be tough and uncompromising to get results blah blah etc. But I don't think that's entirely so, to be honest. And I'd say that the fact that so many people appear to be immune to changing their minds or allegiances (eg, the seemingly intractable red/blue social divide in the US) must be related to the modes of discourse that they are living in (& ps: even if so inclined, please don't stop reading just because I used the word 'discourse'). People's minds can be changed, but sometimes – most of the time – it has to happen slowly and with care. Right?

Early on in Dead Poet's Society, Robin Williams' character tells his students to rip out the introduction to their poetry textbook, because it's spouting a whole bunch of crap about what supposedly makes a good poem. But if it's wrong, why not just ignore it? Why not keep it there, as a reminder of how easy it is to be authoritative and wrong? Why bother to damage the binding of your book? (Because it's otherwise not an effective spectacle, it doesn't catch your attention and it's much less dramatic). If arguments are bad, let them stand up for their minute so that you can remember how to knock them down next time.

Ah, if you're not convinced of what I'm saying by now you never will be. Go read something else, you stupid loser.