Ranting to /dev/null

Ryan, you're such a dork.

But seriously, what about "geeks." There's a distinction there I think might stand. There's something infinitely different between the "dork" that does rennaisance re-enacting and never has any inclinations beyond feeding that particular fetish/interest, and that geek/dork who well, thinks inventively/creatively and actually does get around to contributing to society in someway.

OK, so what's wrong with football?

Yeah, I'm not really recognizing a distinction between "geek" and "dork" except that the former has more to do with interest in the detailed aspects of a given pursuit and the latter has more to do with being a social outcast. Two sides of the same coin, since the former generally produces the latter pretty quickly.

What's wrong with football? What's wrong with it is the same thing that's wrong with most forms of entertainment today. We've taken what was previously a fairly low status/compensation pursuit and turned idolized it. These people can only do what they do because rich people - the geeks and dorks for the most part - are bankrolling their asses. The lives of geeks make the lives of jocks possible.

On the proverbial other hand, the most obnoxious, self-righteous, cynical people I have ever met have all been dorks. I got the opportunity over the last three summers to re-visit high school by counseling for 13-to-18 year olds at a summer camp. My expectation was that there would be a lot of bullying of geeks by jocks , since "the jocks know that the dorks they beat up really are better then they are." This is not what I found. Instead, I found that most of the athletic, jocky kids were pretty nice guys: a little rowdy, occassionally a bit condescending on the sports field, but nice. The dorks, on the other hand, were seething with resentment and arrogance. They mocked the jocks at every opportunity, and subtly manuevered lunch table conversations to topics where they could flaunt their superiority. They had identified themselves by their intelligence, knew that it made them different, and made that into a defining chasm between themselves and anybody who could, say, throw a football. They were some of the worst examples of pride I had ever seen.

I'm not sure that the jock/dork distinction is particularly helpful, especially once you finish high school. In fact, the only people I see using it after high school are those who felt they got the short end of the stick back then. Defining yourself by a social group like that is usually a sign of grievence warped into pride -- a sin that I think the more intelligent among us are prone to. Maybe it's better to just look at people as people, not members of some social set from when we were 17. And even if some of those distinctions hold true throughout life, I don't see why the rich geek is inherently a better person than the poor jock.

And as for football, the lives of jocks make the lives of geeks happy. In the words of one Lucky's waitress regarding Peyton Manning, "I think he's earned everything he's got."

Mesh: it's worth noting that the opportunity you had to spend with high school kids is far from the normative environment for such activities. Worldview Academy is not the public school cafeteria. In the former, the intellectual is provided some kind of environment where his abilities are valued, but not so in the latter. If a dork tried to manuver "lunch table conversations to topics where they could flaunt their superiority" in the cafeteria, he'd probably get persecuted for it. In any case, I maintain that both jocks and geeks possess equal potential to become assholes, but that in normal high school settings, the jocks get far more opportunity to do so. Read the second article I linked to for more on the subject.

As far as the jock/dork distinction being of value beyond high school, I don't know. I know quite a few people around here who look as if they hit their glory days in high school and spend most of their time trying to get back there and bring everyone else with them. And yes, the whole "looking at people as people" thing, but come on. You categorize people, I categorize people, everyone categorizes people: it's an essential academic tool if you want to talk about anything but specific individuals. And your bringing it up at this particular point does not seem to advance the conversation as much as bring it to a screeching halt.

And as far as your attempt to deconstruct my argument, that's pretty low. I can do that too, but I won't get that personal in a forum like this. Your entire response seems to fall into the "You're not wrong, Walter..." category. Frankly, I'm far more interested in hearing some kind of critique of my ideas about social outcasts being the ultimate leaders in society than in being called an arrogant bastard. I am one, but that seems to be irrelevant at this point, no?

Oddly enough, I didn't think you were being an asshole at all. I just thought you were wrong. I'm sorry I came across as "deconstructing" your argument by calling you an arrogant bastard. That wasn't what I was trying to get at (although, for what it's worth, I too am an arrogant bastard). But I think that it's really, really hard to separate this discussion from our own memories of high school, and I felt like you were venting frustration. That might not have been the case at all. I'm really sorry if I overstepped the bounds you want for this blog in my response.

Anyhow, point immediately granted that we all categorize. My "people as people" comment was inane. That said, I think some categories are more helpful than others, and I think the "dork/jock" distinction is especially unhelpful. Much like the categories "yuppie" or "hippie," "jock" and "dork" feel like really loaded terms to me. I think these terms leave the door open for making one group inherently superior to the other very quickly, especially since most of us belonged to one group or the other, and as I said, many of our memories (or at least mine) of being a part of that group are still ugly and raw.

So when you offer up an observation like "I think it's because deep down, the jocks know that the dorks they beat up really are better then they are, and that they'd best get their shots in while they still can," I don't really hear an academic, sociological observation. I hear a value judgement, and I don't think it's fair. If you said that the dorks were going to make more money and drive nicer cars, I agree. But -- and this may be the start of a longer and deeper divide in our thinking -- I don't think this increased likihood of economic superiority actually makes the dorks any more inherently superior in any way that matters. But maybe we're missing each other on terminology, or I'm equivocating, or something. Let me know.

But you have a very interesting contention to discuss -- that social outcasts often become societal leaders -- and I confess that I need a little time to think about it. I just wrote a couple paragraphs and promptly deleted them. They were utter tripe. Give me some time to mull, and maybe we can get this conversation moving in an exciting direction. Your post has a lot to offer for conversation.

I think you're both dork-holes

You think you're so cool and the gang, just 'cause you're married.

I watched "Pulp Fiction" again yesterday, and I really wanted to use "cool and the gang" in a sentence.

Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.