When I insult my friends

I too object to those terms [far-left and far-right], and avoid using them, for the reasons you state (and perhaps others as well).

Nonetheless I quote those terms from time to time, without commentary, because the task I have set for myself on social media is maximum documentation with minimal commentary.

On a related note, I will declare that I am fiercely intolerant of ad hominem attacks on the personal level. I won't have it from my friends — absolutely will not have it, and they hear from me, in public, in strong terms.

I am not speaking of you here, [Redacted]. Certain others. If you follow my comments closely, you'll know who I mean. Never before in my life have I attacked people with such vitriol. True personal insult, meant to hurt a man in his weak points, the weak points I know all too well because we have been friends for many years. If they having it coming, I write exactly what I think will hurt their feelings, evoke their shame, or better yet their self-horror.

Last point, let me make clear. True personal insult, used correctly, is not ad hominem fallacy, because insults serves as reason when condemning a man's character.

Glad I got that off my chest. For the record.

Coda

If I insult my friends and they change their ways, I have done the world a good turn.

If I insult my friends and they don't change their ways, let them be driven away from me, let them not look to me as a friend.

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Religious corollary

One more related note, for those of religious faith.

I will not stand for anti-religious dogma— attacks similar to ad hominem but launched against religion.

A small number of my friends (or former friends in progress, as they do not seem to be changing their ways) are working out their family-of-origin issues under the banner of "Christianity Bad".

I don't mind if someone gets their hard-on from reposting stories about preachers and hookers. Personally I find it unappealing, but okay, at least the fetish involves specific preachers who have names and faces and did shameful hypocritical deeds and got caught and are now the subject of global mockery. Fine.

But anyone who rants on about "Christianity Bad" is going to get an earful from me about how Christians were the first Abolitionists, Christians led the charge to abolish slavery, it was Christians who conscientiously objected to every war America ever fought, Christians who linked arms in Birmingham and sang We Shall Overcome.

I say this a secular humanist (for lack of a better term).

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Reason, logic, dispassion

Yet again, this time a proviso, an admission, a mea culpa—

I am like Spock, or try to be.

Logic, reason, the dispassionate life. (No "Pon Far" jokes, now.)

Perhaps Vulcans cannot lie, I forget where the Star Trek canon stands on this, but it's implicit, Spock tells the truth.

But—

Spock has an *agenda*. He is not neutral. He chooses some facts over others, usually those that advance the plot, but implicitly (in my imagination, anyway) those that advance the interests of logic, reason, and the dispassionate life.

Moreover, to advance those ideals, Spock advances his Starfleet career, etc.

So too me. I am not neutral, I have an agenda.

But I try, I do try, to *chronicle my time* — to record a chronicle, a record of events, not merely an autobiography; as experienced by me, of course, and allowing for agenda; yet with all the logic, reason, and dispassion that I can bring to bear.

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Fiction cross-reference

• Gnomon algorithm
• Gnomon Chronicles

External links

Social media

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