(1) We'd be happy to show you that thread, but the ever censorious Stephanie Cass, monitor of the board, deleted it before we could copy it down. Knowingly destroying evidence whenever it casts one's organization in a negative light isn't terribly ethical behavior, either. This thread would have spoken to Nonk's motivation for being, shall we say, less than completely honest. The argument was about the rightness of Iowa City's decision to deny the use of tax-supported public facilities to the local Boy Scout chapter, on the basis that the Boy Scouts of America wouldn't "hire" gay scoutmasters. "Nonk" went for the politically correct position. Antistoicus, as usual, had the bad taste to persist in making sense, and Nonk never forgave him.

The best that we can do is either show you some of Antistoicus' posts from that thread, which he did manage to save copies of, or a synopsis of the thread, as best we can remember it. Neither will cast Nonk, or the House, in an especially good light.

Did we mention that the House prides itself on being a "scholarly" organization? Sigh. As a side note, let us point out, somewhat intriguingly, that Nonk shows up on KittyCat's list of favorite people, according to KittyCat's own page, over at Amazon.com. "KittyCat" was one of the kooks that Antistoicus was flamed by, after he denied that the pharoahs had harnessed electricity. Did one bit of trolling motivate the others, or is this merely lunatics of a feather flocking together?

(return to "Groupthink in Action")

(2) In the Midwestern United States, we have an expression for this kind of stunt. We call it "being sweetly venomous". We understand that Southerners have a similar term. It works in some circles here, because let's face it, the typical "mainstream culture" American is an idiot and proud of it, and his idiocy has proved contagious. From the "egghead" bashing of the 1950s through the postmodernism of the 1990s and early 2000s, an infantile rebellion against reason and good sense has often been the rule here, not the exception, in this half-century.

Common sense should tell one that leaving a misleading impression is no different from lying. It should also tell one that we've all seen actors before, and not all of their performances take place on a stage. A malicious individual can easily feign concern. Even so, there are those who demand that one not show any sign of knowing this, and will act as if one is being terribly harsh to a kind, well meaning person when one takes issue with such passive aggressive behavior. Why, this demand that others put on a front of willful stupidity?

Etiquette, the conformist's substitute for common sense.

The local conception of "etiquette", very often, is rigid to the point of absurdity, a la Emily Post. This is the country that invented the "American style" of silverware usage. If you're reading this elsewhere, ready for this? Picture yourself sitting at the dinner table. What's the first thing that you picture yourself doing? "Picking up my knife and fork?", you ask. If so, then in the eyes of the "mainstream" subculture, you've just committed a horrible breach of etiquette. What you're "supposed to do" is pick up your knife in your right hand, cut a piece of meat off (apparently by bracing it against the raised lip of the plate, because you're not allowed to use your fork for support), put your knife down, pick up your fork, spear a piece of meat on it, raise it to your mouth, chew, put your fork down, pick up your knife again, cut off another piece of meat ... did I mention that those pieces have to all be of an uniformly small size, the same as those of your neighbor? This you continue to do, until all but a small portion of your food is gone, and you're slowly chewing the last ice cold morsel.

Or, if you're from the South Side of Chicago, the neighborhood gossips will graciously allow you to pick up both knife and fork at the same time, which does solve some of the mechanical problems, but you're still required to switch your knife and your fork between your two hands every time that you take a bite, never lifting your fork or cutting with your knife using the left hand. This does have the virtue of allowing one to finish one's dinner while it's still at least lukewarm. Some call this the "Anglo-Saxon Wannabee Tabletop Two Step", although nobody has come out with dance music for it yet.

The reason given for this odd ritual, when the czars of fashion deign to give us one at all, is that most people are right handed, so using one's left hand at all is very poor etiquette. This custom was adhered to with such tenacity in the past that more than a few American servicemen ended up in prisoner of war camps during World War Two, because of it. These morons would end up behind enemy lines, already knowing that people in Europe didn't engage in this practice. There they would be, slowly working their way back to friendly territory, trying to blend in. They would step one foot into an inn, get dinner, and by God, they weren't going to budge. Down came the knife, up came the fork, and over would come the Gestapo. The Germans would have another prisoner.

These are my neighbors. Pray for us.

The point of this illustration is not that a "good American" will allow this rigidity to overrule his reason and common sense. The point is that this rigidity has left him so accustomed to making all decisions as matters of reflex that thought never occurs, and he has no reason or common sense for rigid social convention to overcome. He is a robot, trapped in the body of a man.

Is it any wonder that appeals to fair play and reasonability so often fall on deaf ears, in this country? Try arguing with a piece of industrial equipment and see where it gets you. Paradoxically, though, one should make the attempt precisely because it is so unlikely to prove effective. When practicing a habit becomes comfortable, that habit is reinforced. The only way to bring about change, in the long run, is to deny the comformist his comfort when he allows his lack of thought to lead him to behave in an unjust fashion. If he wishes to "go along to get along", let him learn that the going will be easier when it leads in the right direction.

(return to "Groupthink in Action")

(3) Again, as mentioned on her website. (Click here to return to "Groupthink in Action").

(4) The same homepage was listed in Kai's profile at the time of this writing as was listed in does Djed's.

Checking the publicly available registration information for their domain name using a "whois search" over at Network Solutions, one finds that the billing, administrative and technical contact listed for that domain is somebody with the same last name as "Kai", both individuals being listed in their profiles as living in West Jordan, Utah in the United States. We are not going on such a slender limb when we guess that these two are members of the same family.

Before they acknowledged as much on the boards, Antistoicus guessed that Kai was Djed's husband, judging from the following entry in the latter's weblog. The misspellings and ellipses are all hers, aside from the renamings we introduce:

" Last night I had a dream I had a baby- this is typically night mare for me. The baby was early (which proves it wasn't mine... if anything I am over due) a tiny little Premie... "

(some material cut)

" I didn't know what to feed it., so I sent Kai to the store to by some Similac (or was it Enfamil?) I was nervous about the formula. The wrong thing could probably cause enough stomach distress to kill it. "

This sounded more like an errand for a husband than a child (the task is too important) or brother (who wouldn't be there). Further, Kai listed as his place of origin, not anywhere in Utah, but Bedford, England, while Djed listed no such out-of-hemisphere origin, scarcely what one would expect out of brother and sister. Finally, Utah is not the most liberal of places, and even in San Francisco, a woman about to give birth would be most unlikely to write a publicly accessible web entry about such a dream, if it were about anybody but her husband. People would talk, to say the least, especially given the fact that she linked directly to it from her House of Netjer profile. Such an act would border on a blood level insult to her own husband (who was alluded to, as we recall), making the natural assumption that this child would be legitimate. (We were not in a position to directly know, one way or another, but such would usually be the case, especially in Utah).

Conclusion reached by Antistoicus: Kai and Djed appeared to be husband and wife. Note how when Djed would post a misrepresentation of what Antistoicus had said, and Antistoicus would correct it, Kai would jump in with a misrepresentation of his own, referring to Antistoicus' rebuttal of Djed's (his wife's?) misrepresentations as being "overly defensive", without feeling the need to mention his personal connection with the person he's siding with. Ah! Partners in libel as well as love. How charmingly sleazy, and how very typical of what went on, on these boards. (They did later acknowledge being married, implying that those "impressions" of theirs were hardly impartially arrived at, some time after this discussion took place).

(return to "Groupthink in Action")

(5) Note : "PC" is an abbreviation for "Political Correctness" or "Politically Correct", depending on how it is used, grammatically. (Click here to return to "Groupthink in Action").

(6) Note : today, as I (Antistoicus) write this, is March 8, 2002. (Click here to return to "Groupthink in Action").