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Comment by Geogre

Ackoz believes that I was being arrogant, and he's certainly entitled to that feeling -- no one can weigh feelings in a pan. On AN/I, there were links to several places where Ackoz had insulted the intelligence of his interlocutor and mounted what came down to pseudo-intellectual pronouncements, in my opinion. I meant what I said much more literally than he believes: when people are educated and striving to support their claims and miss but who then turn around to the rest of the room and shout out everyone else is a dolt, it's much worse than the uneducated person who strives ignorantly to do modest things. In other words, being a highly educated person myself, I have always found it horribly gauche to point out my credentials or to try to bully anyone with how learned I am. To me, that sort of behavior is particularly offensive. The rest of what I said was, indeed, an attempt at ameliorating. My feeling was that he was upset and that his anger was leading him to corrosive actions, that he only needed some time to cool off, not a ban. In other words, I thought he had some solid contributions, had lost his cool, and was now in danger of cascading into self-immolation.

As for my response to Ackoz coming to my page to tell me what a horrible person I was, I make no apology. I dismissed his comment and would not, will not, and believe should not get into tit-for-tat arguments. When someone is upset, I'm not going to try to prove to him that he shouldn't be: nothing good comes from such a thing. When someone tells you that you're wretched and that he will never speak to you again, what kind of response is possible? Mine was, "Oh, well." If Ackoz is over his anger ("irae brevis furor est", Horace said), then I have no objection to his returning -- never did. I really do hope that he doesn't insist on everyone acknowledging his cleverness, though, as that respect and praise is better gotten without solicitation than with coercion. Geogre 00:18, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation, Geogre. Maybe a non-virtual Valium would do the job too, sometimes. Ackoz 07:28, 31 August 2006 (UTC)