I’m not sure what you or Rain mean by elitist. I’m inclined to think Rain is overreacting, but “elitist” in the bad sense is a matter of emotional tone. The major tool we have for judging emotional tone is our own emotions, and they’re quite a bunch of rubber rulers.
It wouldn’t surprise me if there’s a little unhealthy smugness here that I can’t see because I share it. It also wouldn’t surprise me if people who have a bad reaction to LW are mostly playing out ideas about their own intelligence that they’d picked up long before they’d encountered LW.
It also wouldn’t surprise me if people who have a bad reaction to LW are mostly playing out ideas about their own intelligence that they’d picked up long before they’d encountered LW.
Hmm, I’m curious, what do you mean by “playing out ideas”, and what sorts?
I mean that they’d been told they were stupid—too stupid to get respect from smart people and/or could only expect to be harassed for being stupid. And when I say “told”, I mean active efforts to lower their status, not an abstract proposition.
If a person whose been treated that way accepts that they can’t function well and/or will be treated badly, they’re going to have a lot of background anger which can get foregrounded if they think about taking part in an intelligent community, even if it isn’t actually hostile to them.
I’m not sure what you or Rain mean by elitist. I’m inclined to think Rain is overreacting, but “elitist” in the bad sense is a matter of emotional tone. The major tool we have for judging emotional tone is our own emotions, and they’re quite a bunch of rubber rulers.
It wouldn’t surprise me if there’s a little unhealthy smugness here that I can’t see because I share it. It also wouldn’t surprise me if people who have a bad reaction to LW are mostly playing out ideas about their own intelligence that they’d picked up long before they’d encountered LW.
Hmm, I’m curious, what do you mean by “playing out ideas”, and what sorts?
I mean that they’d been told they were stupid—too stupid to get respect from smart people and/or could only expect to be harassed for being stupid. And when I say “told”, I mean active efforts to lower their status, not an abstract proposition.
If a person whose been treated that way accepts that they can’t function well and/or will be treated badly, they’re going to have a lot of background anger which can get foregrounded if they think about taking part in an intelligent community, even if it isn’t actually hostile to them.