Us vs Them.
Jul. 11th, 2008 04:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
swestrupIts not always about Us vs Them. Today I got into a, perhaps, pointless argument with ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
archdiva. Other than the fact that I worry he might have interpreted my stance as an attack on him personally, the details are irrelevant.
Its just that this isn't the first time I've gotten into such an argument. You see, when there is a cause I care passionately about, it matters very dearly to me that my 'side' be scrupulously correct. Thus, I point out flaws wherever I see them. Very often this is interpreted as me being in some other camp and holding to values that I don't actually have.
About a month ago I got into an argument with someone about user interface issues in Linux. There are things in Linux GUIs that are simply hard to use and things that should be configurable that aren't. I was happy to discover during that last argument that one of the things that Linux traditionally sucked at has been fixed. I don't mind being wrong in such circumstances, far from it! The thing I minded was the assumption that I was somehow a Microsoft supporter because I was able to point out things that MS got right that Linux got wrong. This would be a gross distortion of my views. I cannot wait for the day that MS either embraces open source or (more likely) dies an ignominious death.
But it doesn't follow that because MS is evil, that everything they did is wrong and that there are no useful ideas to steal from Windows. Yet, that very often seems to the attitude I run into in the Open Source camps. Is it really so necessary for everyone to polarize into Us and Them camps, instead of just looking at both sides of the issues dispassionately and accepting that either side in a conflict can have good and bad points?
Maybe it is. I remember a seminal study I was reading on the question of what it takes to get a homogeneous group of people (in this case boys at summer camp) to divide themselves into 'us' and 'them' camps. They started out by dividing the boys randomly into two separate bunk houses ... and that was enough. The two bunk houses spontaneously formed cliques, named themselves, and formed rivalries with each other. This included each side assuming they could do no wrong and that the other side could do no good.
Note that I'm not saying that any of this was behind my argument with Drew. I don't know what motivates my own actions most of the time, never mind someone else's, and I do respect his intellectual integrity, or I wouldn't have gotten into the argument in the first place. (I never argue with folks I don't respect, as I don't see the point).
Its just that the argument had me once again feeling like an outsider, rejected by my own camp because I saw a problem that (as far as I can tell) most in the camp refuse to acknowledge. Maybe this is a flaw in my own perceptions. Maybe I've made the cardinal mistake of pointing to the elephant in the corner. I dunno. Sometimes I think I would have been better off as some other species than 'human'.
archdiva. Other than the fact that I worry he might have interpreted my stance as an attack on him personally, the details are irrelevant.Its just that this isn't the first time I've gotten into such an argument. You see, when there is a cause I care passionately about, it matters very dearly to me that my 'side' be scrupulously correct. Thus, I point out flaws wherever I see them. Very often this is interpreted as me being in some other camp and holding to values that I don't actually have.
About a month ago I got into an argument with someone about user interface issues in Linux. There are things in Linux GUIs that are simply hard to use and things that should be configurable that aren't. I was happy to discover during that last argument that one of the things that Linux traditionally sucked at has been fixed. I don't mind being wrong in such circumstances, far from it! The thing I minded was the assumption that I was somehow a Microsoft supporter because I was able to point out things that MS got right that Linux got wrong. This would be a gross distortion of my views. I cannot wait for the day that MS either embraces open source or (more likely) dies an ignominious death.
But it doesn't follow that because MS is evil, that everything they did is wrong and that there are no useful ideas to steal from Windows. Yet, that very often seems to the attitude I run into in the Open Source camps. Is it really so necessary for everyone to polarize into Us and Them camps, instead of just looking at both sides of the issues dispassionately and accepting that either side in a conflict can have good and bad points?
Maybe it is. I remember a seminal study I was reading on the question of what it takes to get a homogeneous group of people (in this case boys at summer camp) to divide themselves into 'us' and 'them' camps. They started out by dividing the boys randomly into two separate bunk houses ... and that was enough. The two bunk houses spontaneously formed cliques, named themselves, and formed rivalries with each other. This included each side assuming they could do no wrong and that the other side could do no good.
Note that I'm not saying that any of this was behind my argument with Drew. I don't know what motivates my own actions most of the time, never mind someone else's, and I do respect his intellectual integrity, or I wouldn't have gotten into the argument in the first place. (I never argue with folks I don't respect, as I don't see the point).
Its just that the argument had me once again feeling like an outsider, rejected by my own camp because I saw a problem that (as far as I can tell) most in the camp refuse to acknowledge. Maybe this is a flaw in my own perceptions. Maybe I've made the cardinal mistake of pointing to the elephant in the corner. I dunno. Sometimes I think I would have been better off as some other species than 'human'.
