Tuesday, September 06, 2011

Why is this comment left by a reader so offensive? By Geniusofdespair

Clearly the people who read this blog are miserable and lonely people who can't appreciate real change when it is happening or someone who is just trying to do the right thing for the county. Nothing is good enough for you people is it. Why don't you people run your selves or just shut up and stop complaing for the sake of complaining. Appreciate what some of these few but good politicians sacrifice in there personal lives to try and help the public. It's getting pretty old, get a life, accept parts of the process and then maybe some day we can unify together as cohesive community. - September 03, 2011
I am reading "Blink". In it author Malcolm Gladwell outlines the work of Professor John Gottman, who also published the book "The Mathematics of Divorce." Gottman found in his research the greatest predictor of a divorce:
"You would think that criticism would be the worst because criticism is a global condemnation of a person's character. Yet contempt is qualitatively different from criticism. With criticism I might say to my wife, 'you never listen, you are really selfish and insensitive' Well, she's going to respond defensively to that. That's not very good for our problem solving and interaction. But if I speak from a superior plane, that is far more damaging, and contempt is any statement made from a higher level. ...it's trying to put that person on a lower plane than you. It's hierarchical."
Okay, now lets look at that comment again. It reeks with hierarchical statements or 'contempt'. This person believes he is on a higher plane as he/she talks down to the rest of us. Why? Simply because some people leaving comments (a few) disagreed with the way the Mayor did the organizing of the 25 departments. The people who left comments did not criticize the Mayor directly, only the policy. The comment above does not contain any rebuttal to the arguments of readers. The author of the above comment instead lumped thousands of our readers together (stereotyping all of our readers, including me - who voiced no opinion since it was a 3 line post of Gimleteye) saying he/she is better than all of us. We are "You People" (he/she said that twice) and we all don't have a life as he/she suggested "We get a life." That is implying he does have a life (superior). He also said we were "miserable" and "lonely" (implying he is neither since he is not one of "You People").

I do not like 'contempt'. I never realized before why I hated this sort of comment so much. Criticism when it is laced with contempt is friggin' annoying. I finally understand why I throw out some critical statements and not others, it is the contempt included. At the end of the comment above the writer says "Let's unify together" - Is he/she kidding? After you insulted us in numerous ways and told us you are not one of us twice, who wants to be in your camp?

I bet the person who left this comment also has a marriage in trouble because as Professor Gottman said, contempt is the best predictor of a divorce to come, and I would put money on it that the comment came from a lobbyist.

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

Do you think the Mayor or a staff member wrote that comment? Who else would care this much?

Anonymous said...

That was a snap response to a few comments on that thread (possibly from the same person) that falsely suggested the county would have all sorts of costs that would offset the benefits of department consolidation.

The hypersensitive commentator should know that it is not only taxpayers who welcome the changes to the department structure, county employees do, too.

The most arrogant people and the biggest obstacles to change in the government are the county executives who were appointed by Burgess and Alvarez simply because they were their friends. Gimenez's department consolidation plan gives us hope that those cronies will finally be purged from the system. I hope this makes that commentator feel better.

Anonymous said...

That individual is full of crap. The comment smells of someone evil, not for the sake of evil, but evil arising out fear and anger for not being able to control a situation. Maybe the individual senses he/she is not mainstream and needs to justify what he/she is doing. Some people can't be happy unless they are punishing others for being "good".

When bad people can't control those around them, then they radiate darkness. They are dangerous to those whose paths they cross as they want to remove any aura of light and ease the guilt they carry for their questionable actions by transforming (in their own mind) the other people who are their targets into "bad people".

The mayor has lobbyists on the inside... So, there could be a relationship...or it could be Homestead.

Geniusofdespair said...

Anonymous who said this is a "Snap Comment". That is the point of the book. Things can be known from the quick response that snap decision.

It is the first response that is important - the book is called BLINK after all.

TerreG said...

He must drink vinegar instead of Coca-cola or Pepsi as a refreshment.

Anonymous said...

Sounds like something out of professional victim Bell's big bag of tricks.

Probably not, considering the use of multiple syllable words and the absence of spelling and grammatical errors...

Anonymous said...

G.O.D., do you feel any of your own criticisms are laced with contempt?

Geniusofdespair said...

Good question thanks for asking.

No -- except with honesty. I think I might be superior to a lot of people in this town as far as honesty goes. I certainly don't feel superior to people in other respects. I think a lot of the people I write about are smart (smarter than me) -- like Ron Book and Miguel DeGrandy -- but smart in a devious manipulative way again like Ron Book and Miguel DeGrandy and not like me.

I am critical, but I do support most of my criticism with WHY I am critical...and then if you have followed my posts...I use a shorthand thereafter when referring to the criticism.

Much of my hyperbolic stuff is to get a blog reader to read -- I only have about two seconds with today's busy people to hook them into a read.

i.e. Natacha is Vile (I did explain why I called her that at one time) is better than Natacha is disrespectful (yawn).

Anonymous said...

Speaking of the Vile One...I have to confess that I miss her. She had a lot of fight in her and did not give a damn what the Herald or the blogs said about her. With the exception of Jordan, the current crop of commissioners are only interested in keeping their jobs. They are afraid to stick their necks out for anyone. Like scared sheep, they keep their ears alert for any sounds of Master Braman's voice. Gimenez will roll this Board by simply dropping Norman's name. What a shame. We spend over $10 million a year for these doormats.

Anonymous said...

I kinda agree with the person who wrote the mildly offensive comment. It seems that whatever you Gimlet & Genius write, the comments are brown-nosers, agreeing all the time. When one disagrees (without comtempt) the comment is removed.
I think that there is so much negativity ..you want everything 'green', no development, save the swamps, etc. Miami has to move forward!

Geniusofdespair said...

Mildly offensive? You don't get it do you.

Do me a favor read the Miami Herald...they leave up most every comment unless you say shit or fuck. Ours really isn't the blog for you. We are editorial...it is a blog. OUR blog. Not the public's.

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Geniusofdespair said...

person deleted ---

"...you are...so what am I?"
Pewee Herman
----------------
Do you not understand "Do not attack the bloggers?"

One rule and you choose to challenge it.

To disprove your theory, you might go to Coconut Grove Grapevine, they gave up with comments and it hasn't hurt their numbers, it probably helped them with advertisers.

Linda Gong said...

There are so many lobbyists reading this blog and they are just getting frustrated because they can't get their way for once in their life. That clueless person doesn't even understand that the comment you referred to was very offensive. He probably wrote it.

They are angry that they are not in control. I laugh every time I read what they write. Give them Hell!

Anonymous said...

..there you go ...brown-nosing again. BTW, I am not a lobbyist AND I didn't write the original MILDLY offensive comment.
If you want a Blog reader to get hooked and read, then you have to be open to everyone's opinions.

Geniusofdespair said...

Brown nosing? Do you even know what that means, because it doesn't make sense in your context. You are insulting the blogger by the way...

I don't think I need you to tell me how to hook a blog reader. And, I also don't have to be open to everyone's opinion. They can create their own blog and express their opinion all they want.

When our numbers stop growing, I will give up the blog and that will be it. So you can help get rid of me by not reading the blog.

Geniusofdespair said...

Oh, just so you know, you are done.