Advice to someone who's been attacked on the Internet.
More than one person has marveled at my thick skin in regards to shenanigans on the Internet. Particularly when it comes to Pagans. I have often found that people you thought you were friends with, who you've even met and talked with, can suddenly decide you're the devil (which Pagans don't believe in, of course) and say some pretty unkind and ( Read more... )
I should have learned something from Irish myth in this regard. Cú Chulainn, at the very end of his life, was threatened with satire, and he responded accordingly several times. The threats escalated each time, until finally the satirists involved were threatening to satirize his entire tribe. This he could not stand, so he threw his last spear at the satirist in question; and though the spear killed the satirist, it was the spear Lugaid mac Con Roi used to fatally wound Cú Chulainn. Some of the Akins & Co. ass-hats were saying that my degree from UCC (which they didn't even recognize) was fraudulent, and that because UCC is in Cork, and there are known to be New Age Travelers elsewhere in Cork, therefore all of Cork is filled with New Age nonsense, and I must therefore be of the same mindset. Of course, not only "no" but "fuck no" on all counts...And yet, the honor of my university and my department--which is the best in the world as far as Irish medieval literature is concerned--almost lead me back into attempting to talk some sense into these idiots as a question of honor. While it may not have killed me, it certainly wouldn't have made my life better or helped me in any way.
I do hate, as an educator and as a human being, having to write certain people off entirely as hopeless and irredeemable cases of ignorance, and had to do so in the case of that whole pile of people.
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