So? You might be well-versed in Klingon or Welsh, it doesn't automatically qualify you for anything except the ability to converse with people who speak the same language.
Sure. So other people (like me and I can safely assume a few others here) who knew what HMLT was talking about and have read Lacan and Zizek often appreciated his posts. They were often (not always, but often) insightful and I've publicly pointed out several paragraphs HMLT wrote that were particularly eloquent. I remember in particular a few excellent comments he made about "stress", a concept I've been thinking a lot about since I worked with a few of the prominent researchers into the causes and potential management of stress a few years ago.
If others weren't well-versed or knowledgeable enough about the sorts of reference points necessary in order to fully appreciate HMLT's posts, that was not his fault. When he brought up a point of view that he felt especially strongly about, more often than not he was sure to include plenty of links and other useful and constructive conversational material. It's utterly ridiculous to single him out or insinuate that the person who wrote his posts was "mentally ill" because he had strong political views that you or other happen not to relate to. I'm not going to say he didn't get overly worked up and needlessly resort to ad hominem attacks, but he was neither the only one here who did so, nor was he the only one with extreme views.
This dismissive and patronizing attitude that IdleRich frequently exhibits and that you and Vimothy seemed to echo in many discussions -- which amounts to ad hominem attacks in its own right--toward HMLT's and others more intense/extreme views didn't make HMLT, Lacan, critical theory, or any of the other fans of theory here look stupid, they made IdleRich look just as immature as as HMLT at times. Funnily enough, what IdleRich seems to rely upon as the gold standard of universal ideals regarding things like "who's winning a political debate" or "what sorts of philosophical viewpoitns are appropriately levelheaded and therefore unassailable" are far from it. There were often very legitimate counterpoints to be made to HMLT's views, but IdleRich was rarely if ever the one who did so articulately. Tate was really far better at disagreeing with HMLT on legitimate (read: literate) and civilized grounds.
Not to be too inflammatory here, but IdleRich can go ahead and hurl these weird half-assed accusations at the far leftists here insinuating that they somehow
must be mentally ill or imbalanced (of course, this in and of itself automatically makes him seem like the litmus test for sanity) by virtue of their heated rhetorical posting style alone. He's also fond of waiting until a thread has died and then going into another thread to declare loudly that his side had *obviously* won the debate, and that he somehow spoke for the general consensus in making this declaration--usually this has something to do with how "above" ad hominem attacks he was. Ironically enough, I've never even bothered boring people with my blind, internet-interaction based judgments regarding IdleRich's state-of-mind, sanity, and personality. Me, the one who "can't *win* an argument" or even make one to IdleRich's exacting requirements! To think that in my complete lack of internet debate skill I forgot to bother making personal attacks on IdleRich. For shame!
I could've long ago admitted that IdleRich strikes me as a barely reformed fratboy whose tastes and interests are aesthetically the equivalent of those of a freshman in college who just had their "intellectual" revelation last month and decided he'd become more of the "poetic art faggy type" to compensate for having spent most of his very young life kicking around a football. From there it was Camus and
A Clockwork Orange, mindblowing stuff like that. I'd have admitted that he seems like he probably grew up in the worst sort of bourgie upper middle class household, had everything handed down to him, and of course this is why his "political" views (if you want to call them that) aligned themselves with the sort of white-male-old-Empire sorts of privilege because, well, why wouldn't they? He has nothing to do but gain from politics and the workings of the "system." But I never bothered trying to "construct" a personality or psychological stability level for a stranger on a message board.
