Anatomy of a smug comment

A few days ago I talked about smugness and asked you loyal readers to let me know if I said something smug. Many of you were very complimentary and told me I never said anything smug, which was nice to hear. Even though I knew it was wrong.

My last post was about politicians who don't get the power of the Internet, mostly Ted Stevens. But I also made a quick comment about George Bush and basically said he was a 'dumb dog who couldn't learn new tricks.' Someone left me a nice, but short, comment that pointed out that statement was smug. Unfortunately, because the company that hosts this blog had some tech issues yesterday that comment, along with at least one other one got deleted. I had tried to leave a comment thanking the person who took the time to point out that my comment about President Bush was smug.

Oh, well. It's better to talk about this in a post. I'm sure a lot of people will disagree and say that my comment wasn't smug; most of those people will be people who agree that George Bush is not too bright. Let's not let ourselves get bogged down in a political discussion. We're striving for insight here.

My comment was smug. Trust me. I'm the one who wrote it, so, now that I've thought about it, I can see that it was written in an offhand "I assume every right-minded person will agree that Bush is a moron" kind of way. If that's not a smug comment, then I don't know what is. I'm really thankful to the anonymous commenter who pointed out that the comment was smug.

So what point was I trying to make? That there are people who don't get the Internet. Not exactly heavy lifting if you are a blogger writing for people who read weblogs. I didn't need to bash the President to make my point, so why did I? Because I got carried away and assumed everyone would agree with me. A lot of smugness is that way. Seriously. Stop and think about it.

And then ask yourself if the same message can be conveyed without the unecessary attitude of superiority. I'm sure I'll forget this lesson again. So, by all means feel free to leave me more comments when I do. Thanks.

Comments

[Marco]

It's Shrub not Bush. How's that for smug?

[Sophmom]

Mine was one of the comments that was deleted. I don't know if being pissed at having a president who's "eat up with dumbass" is smug or not, but I don't think there's much room at the top of the leadership ladder for folks who don't understand technology and I'm still betting that we're seeing the last of them. If he's nothing else, he's a dinosaur and I don't care if that's smug. Peace.