The subject of National Review’s Corner came up today in an e-mail exchange. I mentioned that I’ve stopped reading it pretty generally.
This was a sad departure for me. Ever since 9/11, the Corner was my favorite online hangout. Intelligent conversation from smart, well-informed people who knew a lot of stuff. What could be better? I even e-mailed the columnists and got replies once or twice. And one time Jonah Goldberg posted a Norwegian translation I did for him.
But the grape has raisined. Nowadays, you go to the Corner to get a good depression on, as an excuse for binge drinking. First I started being irritated with John Derbyshire’s knee-jerk pessimism and Anglican-tinged lukewarm religion, blended with fervent scientism.
Then Heather MacDonald started coming in to attack theism.
And Jonah Goldberg doesn’t seem to show up much anymore. And when he does he’s not as funny.
And they’ve all decided the war is lost.
Spare me.
If I want dysphoria I have a large stock of my own, thank you very much.
Also a little depressing: an interview Dennis Prager did today. It was with Marianne Legato, professor of clinical medicine at Columbia University and author of Why Men Never Remember and Women Never Forget. Her theory is that men and women’s brains (in general) work very differently, and that in order to get along they need to take those differences into account.
Overall, I like this thesis very much. Any defense of innate sexual differences is Gershwin to my ears. No problem there.
The problem was in something she said about how men and women argue differently. Women, she said, play arguments over and over in their heads after it’s done, and tend to get angrier. Men, once they’ve blown off their steam, walk away and forget about it. They actually feel better, having enjoyed a nice spritz of adrenalin.
Here’s my problem: I’m just like a woman in this. I don’t feel better after arguments. I obsess over what the other person said, and what I’m sure they meant, and what I should have said.
Guys, help me out here! Is she right? Do you forget arguments as soon as they’re done? Do you in fact feel better afterwards?
Tell me I’m not an utter wuss.
Blast. Still a couple weeks until my next chance for live steel combat. And that’ll probably be the last one of the year.
I do feel better after that kind of fight.
Hit me with an axe, somebody.
According to that theory, I am a good example of a man. And of a woman.
Maybe she’s talking about broad trends, so maybe most women replay arguements and most men forget. I don’t. I tend to replay arguements and worry about my lack of compassion or intellect. Once I lead a Sunday School class because the regular teacher was out, and I thought it was a disaster. That’s been hard to forget–what I said, how I felt, the preceived slights by others. The fact that I lead a successful class discussion impromptu another time doesn’t change the hurt of the failure.
Lars, you’re dead right about the Corner. Derbyshire teed me off terminally with his stupid broadsides against the Intelligent Design folks. I honestly don’t know who has the better of the argument, but the way the super-Darwin team engages reeks of bad faith (no pun intended).
He doesn’t like C.S. Lewis either (said the blogger, a look of horror on his face).
And he claims to have outgrown Tolkien and Star Trek, and he didn’t like Serenity (which managed to distill most of what I liked about Firefly without the annoying stuff). I’d say anathema sit, but he did have a bit part in a Bruce Lee movie.
Personally I think the Corner’s starting to recover a bit from what it was at its nadir, a week or so back, FWIW.
Lars: have you tried Roger L. Simon’s blog? rogerlsimon.com . Last time I checked in on him he was still in (relatively) Happy Warrior mode.
No. Thanks for the referral.
I’m not a guy, obviously. But I do know that people with ADD – of which I am majorly one – tend to obsess over even non-argumentative conversations. I know every time I leave a social function I am plagued by the intense feeling that I must have said something wrong to someone. I’ve learned to just wait it out…I get distracted by something (look! A chicken!) after awhile.
Oh – and I love a Gershwin tune… (actually I love almost all Gershwin tunes)
Yeah, I replay arguments in my head, too. Mostly thinking about what I said wrong and how mean I was, though. Certainly no cheery adrenaline rush.
I abandoned the Corner a while back for basically the same reasons… I actually did it early enough that I missed the onset of Ms. McDonald, at least. Still like National Review offline quite a bit, though.