Learning is for losers

by | November 2, 2015

I learned a new word on the Internet the other day: crybullies.
My understanding of its usage as it relates to the endless flamewars that are so common on the Internet, is that it refers to people who use their own victimhood as an excuse to abuse… bully.. others. Somewhat amusingly, given the context, those using it seem to lack an understanding of irony.

But from what I have read on the subject, bullying behaviour and being bullied have a high correlation, we are what we eat?

Not that I’m claiming any high ground here, war may be hell, but it can also be a helluva lot of fun… If you win.

2 thoughts on “Learning is for losers

  1. Corwin

    That video is a little odd in starting with only three “models” of argumentation: arguments as wars, arguments as proofs, and arguments as performances. What about arguments as collaborative exercises in trying to discover the truth of the matter at hand? The speaker seemed to be advocating that concept towards the end of the talk, but I think it’s already established as a fourth model that has at least as much credibility as the others in Western culture.

    I like and shall remember the term “crybullies”, though it doesn’t capture the subtler but at least equally common phenomenon in which victimhood is used to manipulate rather than to browbeat.

    Reply
    1. Joe Post author

      I think his point was that… In normal conversation, people default to the war model. The more dialectical model certainly has a history, but even Socrates was essentially warring with the sophists. And they killed him for it.

      Wouldn’t crybaby cover the other?

      Reply

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