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January 24th, 2007

Your aggression

your aggression

I regularly read blogs which express extreme opinions about both ’sides’ in the various debates that are going on within the Anglican church at the moment. I find that the websites portraying extreme liberal and extreme conservative positions are amongst the best sources available to give me the material I need in order to do my drawings.

I find that the persuasiveness of any individual site depends largely upon the way that they put their message across. If you express your views aggressively and without respect for your opponents as fellow human beings I will be quite likely to dismiss your opinions and, for repeated offenders, your RSS feed.

Some of these websites hide behind humour as a way to make their aggressive point. Sorry, but you do not fool me.

I suspect though that sometimes I am as guilty of these crimes as the next weblogger. Feel free to give me a knowing look in the comments when that is the case.

Apologies that today’s drawing is rubbish. I, like my fellow tax returnees, am devoting my energy today to my paperwork.

Update: Apologies that todays post appeared and then disappeared. There seems to be some sort of bug in the latest Wordpress that makes a post automatically and suddenly mark itself ‘private’ for no reason at all a while after it is written. This has happened a couple of times now since I upgraded and never before then. I’ll look into it. … 5 minutes later… It seems that I am not alone.

The code to publish this cartoon on your blog:

<img src="http://www.weblogcartoons.com/cb/your-aggression.gif" alt="cartoon from www.weblogcartoons.com" />
<p>Cartoon by <a href="http://www.cartoonchurch.com/blog/">Dave Walker</a>. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at <a href="http://www.weblogcartoons.com/">We Blog Cartoons</a>.</p>

19 Comments »



This is a single Cartoon Blog entry, posted by Dave on Wednesday, January 24th, 2007 at 10:24 am.

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19 Responses to “Your aggression”


  1. Richard Hall says:

    Feeling smug because I got my tax return in today — a whole week befoe the deadline! Who says I only do things at the last moment?!

    January 25th, 2007 at 12:13 am
  2. MadPriest says:

    If you are refering to me then I would like to point out that you attack people on your own level of power eg. PCCs and those churchgoers who act in ways in church that you think is unChristian. My humour is vicious but it always aims upwards at the powerful and never at the people I share my life with at the local level. Sometimes Dave, your “holier than thou” attitude is a little bit too smug. And it’s bad form to attack other blogs, unless they attack you first – if you don’t like them, ignore them.

    January 25th, 2007 at 12:55 am
  3. Baptist Church Web Site Guru says:

    I don’t think it’s so bad to mask something in humor. it is better than being brash, and maybe will get people to listen instead of being offended. Humor is a good tactic in my opinion in conveying debatable issues.

    January 25th, 2007 at 4:18 am
  4. Dave says:

    Richard – well done. Hopefully I will do the same today. Or tomorrow. Or…

    Madpriest – what makes you think I’m referring to you? If the cap fits, wear it. If it doesn’t find a cap which does. I am sorry that you do not like my attitude. I will try to be a better person from now on.

    Baptist Guru – welcome. I’m talking about online aggression and failure to treat opponents as human beings. Humour itself is of course a good thing, but as a cloak for hatred – less so.

    January 25th, 2007 at 8:55 am
  5. MadPriest says:

    My humour is aggresive. I use it to fight other peoples’ battles. I also have strong opinions. Therefore the cap fits (you attacked everybody who wears such a cap). I have no problems with the cap, in fact, I wear it with pride. What I do have problems with is one humourist having a go at his peers and one blogger attacking other bloggers on vague issues, not arguing specific points with specific individuals on their sites. All humour has targets. My targets have the power to ruin my life whilst the old lady who always sits in the same pew at the back of church has no power to ruin yours. There is aggression and there is passive aggression. The Church as a whole tends to employ passive aggression in its arguments (the martyr syndrome). I don’t.
    I really do think you have crossed a line on this post, Dave. It was bad mannered.

    January 25th, 2007 at 10:36 am
  6. Chris Clark says:

    The old preacher had underlined in his notes “argument weak here, shout louder”. I think your point is well made.

    January 25th, 2007 at 11:29 am
  7. David Keen says:

    Dave, I don’t think you have crossed a line. There’s nothing wrong with making a general point about the tone of various blogs. I enjoy MadPriests blog for what it is, and I enjoy this blog for what it is.

    There are also plenty of cartoons here targeting bigots, pharisees, people who think that they’re right and so nobody else is entitled to an opinion, etc. . Those sort of people are capable of ruining lives too.

    January 25th, 2007 at 1:45 pm
  8. Mary says:

    Dave,

    I like your cartoon. I find aggressive arguing intimidating and your cartoon sums it up nicely, and humourously. And no, MadPriest, I’m not having a go at you! I think it can be applied to all manner of situations, not just blogs.

    January 25th, 2007 at 4:30 pm
  9. Dave says:

    MadPriest,

    My post is about those who express their views ‘aggressively (ie attacking without being provoked) and without respect for (their) opponents as fellow human beings’.

    I made no comment about any specific sites.

    To me ‘Love your enemy’ (and your neighbour) is the heart of the Christian message. That is the whole point of it. Blogging without any respect for your enemy is the exact opposite of this as I see it. I do not pretend to live up to this ideal all the time of course, but that is what I believe.

    I do not post on every site I find disagreeable because if I did so I would spend my entire life in online arguments. I do not have the time and energy for such things. I kept my post vague for the same reason. I do not think that posting a list of sites I find objectionable would be a particularly constructive thing to do.

    I do not understand the line I have crossed here.

    January 25th, 2007 at 5:51 pm
  10. David says:

    I have to say I find it absolutely fascinating that MadPriest assumed Dave was talking about him so swiftly with no apparent reason for doing so… unless I am missing something; a prior moment somewhere where Dave has transgressed???

    January 25th, 2007 at 9:10 pm
  11. si says:

    [he's just got the hump 'cos your blog's funnier than his, dave ;-)
    smiley winky thing]

    January 25th, 2007 at 9:10 pm
  12. Steve says:

    Hi,

    Excellent cartoon – even when i may have agreed with someone, I find agression makes me want to find an alternative!

    Steve

    January 25th, 2007 at 9:31 pm
  13. Mandylion says:

    Any person following a leader who talked about planks in eyes should quickly come to understand the meanings of irony and satire. Blog cartoon vs blog cartoon? I declare the contest drawn.

    January 25th, 2007 at 9:36 pm
  14. si says:

    seriously though, a very wise vicar once taught me this lesson – that even if what you say is absolutely honest, if it’s the truth, if it is totally the right thing to say, if it’s said without grace then you are in the wrong. [and that would seem to me to be what dave's original post was all about.]

    January 25th, 2007 at 9:38 pm
  15. Karin says:

    All I can say is that being familiar with MadPriest’s blog it did not spring to mind when reading what Dave has written here.

    January 25th, 2007 at 10:34 pm
  16. MadPriest says:

    When a blogger writes “you know who you are” he is accusing everybody who might fall within the description of those he/she is accusing.

    I am called MadPriest because I am clinically mad (and a priest) which I have to accept is a likely reason I projected myself into Dave’s comments.

    I get attacked all the while (as those who know my blog would no doubt guess). I don’t even mention it on my blog let alone reply on the offending blogs. But Dave has been on my blogroll from the begining and so for the first time ever I got cross on somebody else’s site.

    There are so few humourous Christian blog sites that use aggresive satire (The Door isn’t a blog) and The Ship Of Fools isn’t humourous (OK JOKE!) that I must assume Dave was talking about me. I mean, if you know of one other site like mine please let me know because it would be fun to visit it.

    January 26th, 2007 at 12:24 am
  17. Dave says:

    MadPriest,

    See my e-mail.

    Dave

    January 26th, 2007 at 1:15 am
  18. Tiffer says:

    It’s all very very hard.

    January 26th, 2007 at 1:28 am
  19. Jack the Lass says:

    I think this sentence: “If you express your views aggressively and without respect for your opponents as fellow human beings I will be quite likely to dismiss your opinions…” is the crucial one – personally I link aggression to lack of respect, which is why I can cope with much of the rantiness over at (say) Ship of Fools or on MadPriest’s blog (on the few occasions when I’ve taken a peek therein), because behind the strong words and strong sentiments there does seem to be a genuine attempt to find understanding of the other person’s position, even if you still don’t agree with it. I find snidey blogs (or other opinion pieces) where it’s all terribly polite but where there are particular undercurrents of “if you disagree with me you’re obviously at best deluded and at worst heretic, but either way you’re off to hell in a handbasket no mistake sonny, but don’t blame me I did try to point out your error” kind of thing much more aggressive and disturbing.

    January 27th, 2007 at 11:59 am