In case you were ever curious which (still-living) celebrity I resemble most....

[aureantes]

I think it's still James Spader, both visually and in general tone.

Sure, I'm a fair bit younger than him, so perhaps think from Stargate to Secretary rather than the past few years of Boston Legal.....but that series certainly has given much opportunity to hear Alan Shore in full spate of courtroom rhetoric -- exhaustively articulate rhetoric -- and I think it gives a fair idea of my tone of voice (at least as it probably sounds to others) and use of words.   I embrace my verbal dexterity, even though I am often accused of being an arrogant smartass windbag intellectual elitist type (you silly English knnnnniggits!) when I whip out the word-stick and use it aggressively.  And I don't see much way of getting around that, save by Zen-like enigmatism or by silence altogether: when I have a case to make, I make it thoroughly...sometimes even excruciatingly, I daresay.

The thing is, though, I do think very much like a lawyer, or like a scientist -- like someone who, when he states something, knows that he needs to be able to back it up from all angles and anticipate and deal with any possible objections.  Growing up in a very intellectual yet dysfunctional house'll do that, I suppose -- when your only defense against arbitrary authority is to argue it into submission or a draw, it's natural to get very good at arguing.

And at solving arguments, though that's not something that one can necessarily do in the heat of one's own battles....it's still part of it, though, growing up in an atmosphere of debate and critical thinking, to be able to apply it dissectly and constructively and not always with ascendency being the goal.  Actually, I don't think I ever really thought of arguing as being a matter of "winning" so much as not losing -- that is, of making sure I wasn't being trodden upon or blamed unfairly, and no definite ambitions for the rest of it.  That is, though, an innately defensive position -- and no one has more motivation to fight fiercely and definitively than someone who is in the (perceived) defensive position and who 'must' beat off his opponent rather than simply ceasing to attack/assert.

And that's where the infamous ginsus come in, as they are the most vicious and methodically unsparing weaponry of one mind against a group, a clique, a mob....or heaven help 'em, an individual opponent  who actually gets the full assault leveled against them.  I do not claim to be a nice person when it comes to argument...far to the contrary, I know that I can be consciously and deliberately a lot meaner than the vast majority of people I'm likely to run into online.  Afterall, I've had a lot of practice sharpening my tools.

But then again, I'm not (though I've been accused of it on several topical forums) trying to suppress anyone or prevent them from expressing themselves.  What sets me off and tempts me to confrontation is excess, rather -- occasions of self-righteousness, or overgeneralization, of prejudice or of grandiose and unsupported claims...or of their opposite extremes, of ultra-skepticism, hyper-relativism and total subjectivity, or the kneejerk perversity, id-wallowing, lust for violence and selfishness/exploitativeness that I put under the general heading of 'Satanism.'  If someone is overreaching the bounds of common sense or of ethics or social diplomacy, those are the times when I tend to take a stand, even if the entire rest of the room sides against me and assumes that I'm being the arrogant and overbearing one.

Though of course, many people (especially in certain circles...) don't even understand what ethics and social diplomacy are or ought to be in online forums, even with all the ground rules and bylaws and "moderation" that they impose.   And those are the forums I tend not to follow anymore, because of the strain of holding my tongue/picking my battles with all the rampant stupidity and/or egotism that gets floated about with total self-assurance. 

But yeah....that legalistic, case-presenting, logic-employing, rarely-very-'emotional' (though encompassing "passionate," "mischievous" and "pissed") way of going about things in the way of disagreement.....if you have watched Boston Legal, I think you'll see where that resemblances lies.  And it's a bit of a disconcerting thing too, when I think about it, that I could argue opposite to myself with equal facility, even though not truly believing it -- just that amount of circumspection and rhetoric to make for insinuation and propaganda the likes of which I despise.  I could.....but I prefer not to. 

Unless it's for the sake of satire...or perhaps sneaking in under the radar of extremely religious-conservative people who want to believe I'm on their side and/or always was.



I could say more about that last....but not right now.  Right now I had better be getting my insufferable smartass into bed already. 

_

Comments

[massagediva.livejournal.com]

You could still go into law...

[aureantes.livejournal.com]

I suppose I could, though I think now that that would be a detour from my own agenda, to focus on arguing other people's cases. I see myself more in the pro se category of representation, or at least choosing my own battles in the sociopolitical arena. My main interest in law as a child was for the purpose of effecting positive change as a politician, rather than as a career in itself.

And, really (this is where I admittedly might sound a bit full of myself), I don't want to be so diversified with things that I can do that I don't focus on what I should do (and what no one else is likely or able to do). My dad in his life, for example, has amassed a vast amount of amateur/apprentice experience in multiple areas, yet has done very poorly when it comes to parlaying all that into a cogent and reasonably-stable career. I'm certainly not looking to sell my soul to a lucrative profession, but neither do I want to be a weathercock to every whim that blows through my mind -- I have to pull it all together somehow, rather than letting it pull my energies apart.