Dustin over at Engaged Marriage did a blog entry on the TIME piece, “Green Sex, anyone?”, which has yielded more than a couple comments, most profusely visited upon by commenter named crow who, among his many words, recommends natural abortafacients to his pro-life audience, copies and pastes from 4th-hand source web sites for his evidence and proof, and manages not to address the problem of falling fertility rates that are imploding the world’s economies.
I’d be much more interested in “dialogue” (generous term, Dustin–listening to crow is like trying to drink out of a fire hose spewing rocks) if commenters like crow 1) cited actual scientific sources, 2) addressed the issue of falling fertility rates, and 3) acknowledged that pro-fertility and pro-family people might actually know something about environmental causes and care about them.
Dustin’s more patient than I am. At this point, crow’s just being a combox rioter, throwing his links like rocks over the fence, not really caring what’s happening on the other side or who he’s inflicting with his myopic opinions. Hey, I’m all about recycling, buying locally grown food, sustainable construction, new fuel technologies, saving water and everything associated with being a good steward, but when you can’t even address what people are saying to you and listen–human beings, like yourself, born of a woman–that’s the end of the conversation and the continuation of prayer and fasting.
8 Responses to Interesting Conversation at Engaged Marriage
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I saw that, and also thought how patient Dustin must be! This actually prevented me from commenting on that post – after seeing this guy “spewing rocks” as you so aptly described, I decided it wouldn’t be worth the agony of him (as opposed to Dustin or any other reasonable person) possibly responding to me. Disappointing.
Wow. Talk about flaming. There’s a certain etiquette we’ve lost on the web. Can you imagine this person in real life doing that? Definitely would not be invited to parties … perhaps that might be why (s)he’s spending so much time on the internet?
But there’s not much you can do against that, and I think Dustin took the right track. Most people reading will either (a) ignore it absolutely, (b) realize this person is being insistently obtuse, or (c) already be on crow’s side and maybe add a few flames of their own. Trying to rationalize on the internet across a comment board is like yelling at someone through a wall of jell-o. It’ll get messy no matter what you do.
Yup. Kat’s got a good insight to his point of view/ motivations below.
Good analysis, Kat. I like your phrase “insistently obtuse.” You’re right, though; Dustin’s done a good job dealing with it overall. You’re right in the end: combox convo’s can get messy. (As we found out in the Childfree melee of ’07).
Thanks for the kind words! As you can probably tell, I tried to have an intelligent discourse with “crow” just as long as I could stand it. I finally decided to quit responding and figured she would go away. Of course, that hasn’t happened yet, and I could delete her comments, but I try to support open discourse even when I don’t agree with it. This is by far the most commented post on Engaged Marriage.
Please feel free to stop by and fire back, though!
Good for you. I’ll think about it, but I’ll take a break from my crow discourse for now….
In my experience the Childfree/ Overpopulation folks are the most , shall we say, passionate commenters, which tend to fire up the conversation. They also tend to be the most vitriolic and less balanced.
OK, I couldn’t take it anymore! I just responded to Crow in response to her latest challenge against the reasoning for bringing children into this world. If you are interested it’s (for now) the latest comment on the Green Sex, Anyone? post.
Saw it. Boy oh, boy. Good response: “To live is to love.” That’s it. Love is fruitful. At some point one has to stop rationalizing about the environment and speak about love.