I’m definitely not trying to prescribe how to think, nor am I equating reason with intelligence – there are plenty of reasonable people that don’t have 2 brain cells to rub together, as well as absolute irrational geniuses.

I guess what prompted the post is the ongoing nagging feeling that I have to act as an apologist or something, when that is not something that interests me at all. That, and another epic PTA meeting last night that almost devolved into a shouting match between fearmongering phobic parents and the rest of us…

You mentioned your post, so I’ll comment on that. An Automattic company rep posted a suggestion to the WP-Edu list to offer to coordinate a collaboratively written WordPress Edu WTF? document that could be shared with suits and pointy-haired bosses to explain in their language what WordPress is, and why we care. Sure, he used some business-like language, and maybe assumed that people on the list gave 2 shits about making a business case (I certainly don’t). But, instead of asking for clarification of intent, or definition of the problem, you tore into him for violating the spirit of the community (my words, not yours. paraphrasing).

I think I see where you were coming from, but the response was several orders of magnitude greater than warranted. A pause may have given you time to reword your opposition to the suggestion.

Your opposition is essential – all I’m saying is that responding to “so, should we write a document together?” with “FUCK YOU, YOU CORPORATE ASSHOLE SCUMBAG!” (my paraphrasing – sorry if that wasn’t the essence of what you meant, it’s how I interpreted it) seems a bit counterproductive.

I’m also not saying that everything needs to be reasonable, rational, measured, boring, stale, vanilla, beige. But it can’t all be nuclear mushroom clouds, either.

Think about the concept of reason and how huge the idea is, and then think about this post and it’s specificity, despite naming. Is to question not reasonable? But if some one questions to quickly or our of a whole series of events that frame their mindset why is that bad? Why does it need to be “controlled.” Why warn us of the dangers?
While at the same time leaving the dangers of reason unquestioned? I just think this post reads like a prescription for thinking that is often equivalent to an intellectual valium. The conflation of intelligence with reason is a dangerous one in my mind.

I may be wrong, but I am assuming that this is in response to a recent post I made and an email on the wp-edu list, which was a bit of a blow-up, and I freely acknowledge that. But I’m also not too concerned about it. No one pays me to think, and my ideas are not for sale nor and I worried about alienating others or tenure or making “networking.” Dare I say I could endanger my online brand?

I’m often wrong, and freely admit that, but I’m not afraid to think and question and I refuse to be held to a logic of reason and pragmatism—yet that is often the paradigm we are held to, which has centuries of momentum behind it. Why? To what end? Civility? Sure, I think that is important, and Americans were for the most part damn civil about the invasion of Iraq and the repeal of our personal freedoms, doesn’t mean we were any the better off as a people. And I don’t think my questions were attacks, but rather thinking about a space that has been sleepwalking from vendor to vendor, and feeling extremely uncomfortable about that reality. Do I communicate the wrong way? Yeah, sure, but I think we still have that right. Moreover, I’m not yelling fire in a crowded theater, and I don’t make anyone read my crap. Sure, I would have been a good man if someone had a gun to my head every minute of my life, but the Misfit misses the point that we wouldn’t have had a choice otherwise, and posts like this leave very little space for choice. There is an expected norm, and why?

Sorry to vent, D’Arcy, and you know I love you, but at the same time I hate the idea that we have to congeal around a logic and reason, that may be the death of institutions as we know them. I love it when you blow up your blog, and the absence of reason provides a space for something else, namely thought and creation.