JackSlack wrote:Without chiming in too much at this point (although remembering this HAS put me in a much more charitable mood toward Mike) I would like to walk back one thing I said.empath wrote:Indeed, Ocean Marketing isn't the ONLY example you list above that "proves that while Mike is a dick, there are far, far GREATER ones out there."Me, in one of my less impressive moments wrote:I'd put Ellison and Krahulik on a level. There's a reason I included that one in 'being a dick to people we dislike'. Ellison is very much a total dickhead. I understood this.
OK, this? This was stupid. VERY stupid, and wrong. Mike is way above Harlan Ellison. Y'know why? Because Mike never groped a woman on stage against her will, the way Harlan Ellison did. Yes, I'm prepared, pretty firmly, to put Mike as better.
I'd forgotten about that, and I apologize. Yeah. Mike? Better person than Harlan Ellison.
It's a low bar to clear, but Mike clears it quite handily.
*gulps regretfully* And you know what? I am going to give you props for this statement (honest, I am - I SWEAR), but I also respected your equating Harlan to Mike.
...because Mr. K may yet grow and age into another version of Harlan, the self-proclaimed "possibly most contentious person on Earth", Ellison.
Harlan's 79 (and pulled that shit when he was 75 and been married to his current wife for twenty-one years. What. The. ACTUAL. Fuck? O_o ) and Mike's only 35. I wasn't gonna be born for another three years when Harlan was 35, but I've been keeping an eye on him for maybe the last thirty (ever since the buzz about that fist-up at the Nebulas in the 80's - it really grabbed my teen attention that "wow, some adults I respect are NOT all dry, clinical, always-perfect behaviour exemplars, even during events of some prominence") and he's...well I can't really say he's changed, but I think he's starting to 'mellow' a little - he still kicks up a fuss, but the energy behind his feuds is more suiting his stage in life (I'm sure he still thinks about "I'm gonna kick that idiot critic's ass for panning my whole career" but then his back quickly dissuades of the idea, and instead he pulls out one of his many poison pens).
Now, is M.K. going to evolve into another "mail a dead gopher" crackpot? It's possible - I don't know any of us that are prescient, and the future still holds many surprises.
...but I'm betting not. Here's why:
The world culture around Mike today is different from that that surrounded Harlan when he was in his 30's. I feel that Ellison is 'past the point of change', so the culture around him now isn't going to have influence on him as it does on a man who's still less than a 'generation' out of his teens.
I feel the world today and the CHANGE that the culture IS undergoing will have an improving effect on Krahulik...but it's not going to happen overnight.
It's going to be gradual, and subtle, and yes - there WILL be more 'gaffes' and brou-ha-has. Something that emerges from the interpersonal interaction of MILLIONS of people has a LOT of inertia behind it, and change in it is going to be slow, potentially discouragingly so.
Don't get me wrong, I agree with you goals and I HOLD THEM DEAR AS WELL. But I'm more than half Ellison's age, and I've seen the results of MY twenty-plus years of activism.
I guess what I'm trying to say now boils down to two points:
1. Effecting change is not something that happens overnight - even with the influence of millions of people on one person,
and MORE IMPORTANTLY
2. DO NOT GIVE UP BECAUSE #1 IS A FACT.
Mike *is* changing, but you can't expect to take someone who hereto had been completely uninformed of the issues surrounding your cause and expect him jump right into the rank and file right off the bat (and also considering what I'm going to get into below).
I made effort for causes I believe in, and after a couple of decades...the world is almost the same as it was before I started. Women are NOT treated exactly the same as men, homosexual couples still do NOT have all the same benefits as heterosexual couples. Black people STILL get treated differently than whites. America STILL doesn't care for its citizenry as well as other 'less democratic' nations.
But it IS better than when I started.
Cultural stigma toward minorities will probably STILL be an issue for all of us on the day we die...and likely when our great-great-great grandchildren die, too. Don't delude yourself that you can make the problem vanish within even a long lifetime of tireless struggle...
...but don't despair and give up the cause because of that. YOU STILL HAVE AN IMPACT. You still make a difference...it's just a small, yet still measurable difference. Temper your passion with realism, and take heart in the change that you do make.
Because as I said, a culture as large and populated as what we're dealing with has a massive inertia against change.
...but inertia works both ways; resisting accelerating change (making it move from a given stance on an issue), but also resisting DEcelerating change (trying to STOP it from moving from a given stance on that issue). And all our tiny little pushes 'have begun the ball to roll'.
Now the last point I'd like to bring up (yep, there actually IS a light at the end of the tunnel - I swear!) is regarding Mike's temperament.
He's a goat.
By this I mean he's not someone you TELL to do something; the more you try to FORCE or cajole him into doing something, the more resistance you're going to experience.
The old saw "you get more flies with honey than vinegar" kind of applies here.
Because I've watched his responses over the years and they largely match mine to the same sort of stimuli.
If you ASK me to do something, I'll take this under consideration and, if it's not to my obviously detriment, likely acquiesce and do as you ask.
If you start to pepper your request with words like "SHOULD" and I get the implication that your 'suggestion' is the only correct action to take on an issue, I'm gonna narrow my eyes and start putting the whole thing through some critical analysis. And my furry goat butt is gonna stay right where it is until I'm finished thinking things over.
If you essentially DEMAND that I do this or that; that I "MUST" act as you suggest, congratulations you've just wasted your time and effort. Even if the action you propose is clearly to my benefit and in my best interests, you're going to get a LOT of resistance from me when I actually finish evaluating things and take your specified option. And if the situation neither benefits nor harms me directly? Don't expect me to do ANYTHING to help you - indeed, depending on how insistent you are, you might provoke me to take action AGAINST your goals.
...and thus far, Mike behaves the same way.
So try to remember that; and try to keep it in mind when he lashes out in a blatantly counter-productive manner...it's entirely possible that some less level-headed person went and undid all your reasonable and calmly-considered efforts with a profanity-laden demand or sarcastic, condescending belittlement or - heaven forbid - explicit threat of harm or death if he didn't acquiesce.
But don't stop being reasonable; don't stop having a positive influence.
The road ahead of you is long, and almost completely unchanging, and it's GOING to get discouraging...
...but that's no reason to not journey down it.