A very nice, very nasty image about an unpleasant person

[womzilla]

I've met Will Shetterly in person once. He was pleasant in person. He and I have friends in common, but are not by any stretch friends.

I've met him online dozens of times, dating back at least a decade. He wasn't pleasant, there, though he had the surfaces of it correct, and he's gotten worse and worse over the years.

papersky just said:

Will Shetterly is a toxic person. It's easier for me to say that than for some people, because he's never been my friend.

Also, seriously -- if you find yourself on the same side of an argument with Will Shetterly it's time to reconsider your position.

Thinking of Shetterly's online actions as "toxic" brought to mind a further helpful image: he generates sort of a stereoisomer of correctness--not just not right, but not right in a way which looks deceptively like being right. And as with all stereoisomers, it's harder to separate from the thing you actually want than it would be to separate out something that is just plain completely not the thing you want.

[Very minor edit to the final paragraph to change the phrasing--I want to practice thinking of people not as "is toxic" or "is good", but "does toxic things in context A" or "does good things in context B". A chance recollection this afternoon reminded me of someone whose online participation has ranged from amusing to batshit insane, but who unmistakably did a great mitzvah to someone he barely knew, at significant cost to himself, simply because it was the right thing to do.]

Comments

[avram]

I've had arguments with Shetterly in which, in retrospect, I decided that he actually had a worthwhile point, but he'd been so astonishingly obnoxious while making that point that he drove everyone off anyway.

[akicif.livejournal.com]

I used to work on the resolution of stereoisomers - we tended to use strychnine. Just sayin'....

srterioisomers

[dmsherwood53.livejournal.com]

Seems simular to my reaction to Chesterton (GK the Father Brown bloke) How can someone argue so welll & be so utterly WRONG.

Re: srterioisomers

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Tentative theory: because it's very easy to be wrong, and arguing well doesn't have much to do with it.

What's worse is that Chesterton was interested in the world. He was interested in identifying blind spots. He wasn't wrong all the time. And he was *still* wrong a lot.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

pnh (who among other things, got drawn into an argument with WS over Katrina) had an incredibly apt description of WS's arguing style that I regret to report I have forgotten.

Rationalation

[dmsherwood53.livejournal.com]

Man is a rationalising animal not a rational one
RA Heinlein.

Simulat thots on CS Lewis. DON'T LIKE IT mainly because i want a simple rule to prevent one from realiasing on ones death bed that one has been a complete Arse. There isn't one I'm sorry to say. BOO HISS.