It was billed as a place to "bitch, moan and let off steam" - much like College Misery - but within two or three comments it became an exercise in discovering to just what depths of pettiness, sarcasm and self-congratulation "professional" classicists could sink if given anonymity and an audience.
[Don't think that the irony was lost on me as I, as an anonymous classicist with an audience, wrote that.]
Some of my favorites so far?
"Well, if archaeologists could teach languages then maybe they could get jobs in departments that get half their revenues from language teaching. After all, when you can hire one person who can teach most of the courses your department offers or another who could teach in his own field and nothing else, isn't the decision obvious?"
"Classics - white people who think way too highly of themselves both intellectually and teleologically. Go dig a ditch and contribute to society. Naw, that's too long. Classics - the other, other, other white meat."I'm not sure what spawned the intense philologist vs. archaeologist vitriol over there, but it's ugly and vicious. I suppose I could take this opportunity to expound on why we should all just get along, but no one would listen - and I've witnessed first-hand some of the asinine logic that goes into convincing oneself that his/her chosen subfield really is so much better than someone else's chosen subfield.
You're all equally important, equally irrelevant, and equally uninformed about each other.
And that's okay. Archaeologists, philologists, art historians - you name it, we're all in this together. We're all passionate about very similar things. Chillax.
Just be thankful you're not a numismatist. Fuck coins, am I right?*
Anyhow, the thread then devolved into a rhetorical pissing contest where participants fought to one-up each other with feats of pedantry and condescension. And since it's only September, this shit gets to go on for at least another six months.
I'd like to think that it's just the stress of the market that brings out the worst in people, but I can't help wondering if some of them are truly this horrible in their day-to-day lives.
*Sorry, numismatists - you're important, too. I just can't stand looking at coins all day. Just be thankful you're not paleobotanists.**
**Sorry, paleobotanists - you're important, too. Just be thankful you're not the guy who wrote a dissertation on verbs with dental stems in Homer.***
***Sorry, guy who wrote a dissertation on verbs with dental stems in Homer. I've got nothing for you.
9 comments:
I think it's more that anonymity brings out the worst in people. (And by that, I mean the sort of radical anonymity you get on a wiki, not something like Blogger, where people have a consistent identity even if it's not attached to their real name.) Pretty much every site I've ever seen where people are allowed to comment without registration has degenerated into a complete mudbath.
I realize the jobs wiki has to be radically anonymous to work the way it's supposed to, but it's definitely a feature that brings out an appallingly ugly side of people.
LOL Harker. "Fuck coins, am I right?" I'm dying here.
Agreed with FP. The anonymity factor allows people to uncensor. It's frequently fairly disgusting.
Your little notes made me laugh. :) Thank you!
The web does, indeed, bring out the worst in people, you stinking so and so*
*That was supposed to be funny!
Fretful - I suppose that's a fair distinction. At least with Blogger we've got some long-running identities associated with our names, not simply a tag of "Anonymous." And you're right, the Wiki requires the utmost anonymity, unfortunately at the cost of decency, it would appear.
Fie! - I was expecting better from folks out of higher education... I am somewhat saddened to have been proven wrong.
Bardiac - Why you little!!!!
I love this post!
Alas, I am too spent to write a clever comment, but, as I drive home and then work on dinner preparations, I'll be trying to think of something clever so that I can come back and one-up everybody else.
Couldn't resist bringing this up:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/3/19/
Affects even Classicists.
Hey you metal-dissing wanker lit twits, send me your phucken coins! I'm a scientist. At least I can add. :)
unicorn, who loves counting cha-ching
My advice is to not stick around there for too long. I used to go to /sci/, 4chan's science board, and my depression actually got worse. Just like this forum has a divide between philologists and archaeologists, /sci/ loved to take verbal shits on engineers.
Sigh. I fled the field 25 years ago because of this kind of divisive crap between barely-distinguishable disciplines. So what do I do for a living? Make archeologically inspired artwork. For a hobby? Write fiction about in-fighting between archeologists and philologists. And read your excellent blog, which only reinforces my conviction that nothing's changed in the field since the chalcolithic. Like I said, sigh.
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