Wow! Impressive Change of Pace Bodes Well

are actually thirsting for something much more critical: self-esteem.

We all had different motives in parsing and predicting the draft. I love to watch potential and see it realized, call it a personal hobby, and I really wanted to help MHR have a stellar draftday (I grade myself at about 53% on that effort). The closer to “correct” that I could be, the smoother the MHR draftday would run (in terms of creating posts, delivering analysis, and linking to relevant info). As far as the Broncos are concerned, I had little motive, just a desire to know and enjoy some good draftday company. What the Broncos do and what I do will always be two separate things. And I enjoy them separately (with MHR as a very unique, and special, link between the two worlds.)

But I have come to the conclusion that some people only wanted to be “right.” And not just right about the draft, but right about the draft as an indictment of someone else, usually McDaniels, but easily anyone who gets in the way. Many of the posts had the tone of picking a fight, and hid behind appeals to “a fair hearing” while denying that mercy to their antitheses. I had to laugh at a thread that an editor kindly put out of its misery earlier, the kind of thread I like to call a “bank-robber.”

The general idea of a “bank-robber” is to put a great deal of effort into a post, constructing significant arguments, making numerous points, which then acts as bait to draw inquisitive, helpful posters out, only to shoot them down. I call it a “bank-robber” because it reminds me of the difference between say, someone who builds a bank, and someone who robs it: they both work extremely hard, but only one is doing something valuable. The other is a parasite. The trick to spotting a bank robber is to identify the principle guiding the post, and it is usually described by a simple dynamic, that repeats with regularity, especially on a sports blog: are they addressing an idea or a person? You can usually tell in only a few sentences which is the case, and beware the ones that pose as discussions, yet are directed at people. They are almost universally “bank-robbers.”

But what is their purpose? Well, a real bank robber is said to be after money, but that isn’t true… money is something tangible, but acquiring it dooms their ability to spend it, legitimately, which forces them into further and further crimes. They are seeking to live by an unacceptable standard, the use of force. What does it mean? It means they want to survive by doing things according to whim, not according to reality, for their wishes to trump existence itself.

A “bank-robber” thread operates on the same principle. Survival by force in this instance is properly described by their attempt to force others to their viewpoint, in a doomed search for self-esteem (and make no mistake: self-esteem is critical to survival), in the form of being “right” about something. It is debateable (and inconsequential) whether they even care about what it is they are trying to be right about. The force comes in all the classic forms: the form of tricking people (i.e. obfuscating facts, particularly stats on a sportsblog, a form of fraud), the form of “argument from intimidation” and its sub-form, the “argument from authority” (i.e. attacking someone until they are cowed, or saying that if it is so and so’s opinion it must be fact), the standard issue forms of the “straw-man” and “shifting premises” (both exhibited as instances of irrelevant issues being used to fan the flames of antagonism and constant renewal of antagonism through new and equally irrelevant issues.) The end result is a persistent give and take, where the antagonizer gives just enough slack to keep victims on the line, then tries to suck a litle more unearned respect/aquiescence/fear before finally draining the victim’s patience (usually once they have grown fat on self-indulgence and had the gall to demand that their victim be impressed with their mighty intellect/credentials/manhood/whatever). When that happens, the antagonizer has a “moment of realization” which baits the hook and draws someone else in for a little while. And so it goes.

When they have roundly chastized, patronized, insulted and frustrated enough people (i.e. when they have built up their own self-image to a state of complete ethical superiority to those they have been attacking, usually having recruited a follower or two, who they will dismiss without a thought when they forget or when it is convenient, which ever comes first) they tend to fold up shop, claim the “high-road”, promise karmic justice (no doubt a projection of their own guilt-riddled conscience) and disappear, to go torment someone else once their stolen self-worth runs out.

:) Got a little carried away there…. Needless to say, I hope the best within each and every member of this communtiy takes extra care to protect itself from the waves of negativity that will always manage to penetrate informed and rational analysis, and fevered fandom. Seek the principles, and the motives, not just in those who disagree, however vitriolic, but in those who agree, however benign. Recognize and embrace euphoria for its own sake, and enshrine and elevate reason on its own merit.

Get better, but don’t change, we are all fine the way we are.

Homers and all.