the kind of bullshit I hate

I've ranted about this topic before, but here we are again: I hate it when someone writes a comment, then some asshole comes along and tries to show himself off as intellectually superior by one-upping the comment. As linguist Deborah Tannen has noted, this is primarily male behavior because men are status-seeking whereas women are more connection-seeking. It's a bit of a stereotype, but one rooted in reality, and in Tannen's various books, she has the data to back this observation up. Here's an example of what I mean (click to enlarge):

A bit of context: the Dr. Kranky Instapundit comment was in response to a tweet, probably by a liberal, who observed that "to live in Texas is to live surrounded by guns." Dr. Kranky's response astutely notes that guns are, in fact, everywhere, but not always in the possession of parties who care about you. Along comes commenter JimS, who tries to one-up Dr. Kranky's comment, and it's exactly the sort of unenlightened shit that annoys me.

If JimS had come along to supplement Dr. Kranky's comment, I might not have been quite as annoyed. Instead, JimS did the typical one-upsman thing and full-on contradicted Dr. Kranky's comment. This is like being the second person to reach the top of a hill, then pushing the first person off and claiming the top for yourself. And really, even supplementing the comment would have struck me as obnoxious. A lot of guys play that hand: "Not only that, but..." or "But the real point is..."—as a way of showing they know more, are somehow more profound, etc. It's all one-upsmanship, and I hate it.

We have one commenter on the Instapundit threads who thinks he's enforcing ideological purity. Someone writes, "Well, that's a typically leftist thing to do," then this chump swoops in and commands, "Don't say 'leftist.' Call them what they are: Marxists." Jesus, dude, lighten the fuck up and take the stick out of your ass. We're all on the same side. Give some consideration to the guy's intent and maybe try to honor that instead of bulldozing the guy's comment just so you can make your stupid point.

And of course, I can imagine some smartass coming along and saying, "But isn't Dr. Kranky guilty of what you're ranting about? Why does he get a pass?" First off, Dr. Kranky isn't on the side of the liberal, so some level of confrontationalism is to be expected. Second, I don't see Dr. Kranky's comment as contradicting the original tweet. By adding information, by supplementing the tweet, it's possible that Dr. Kranky is being annoying, but his action is not as annoying as outright contradicting the tweeter would have been.

Lastly, someone might point out the hypocrisy that I myself have been guilty of acting just like JimS. I admit it's very likely that I have, and my commenters are free to call me out for such behavior. If they can do so without risking their own hypocrisy.