"How being a dick probably saved my life," by PZ Myers

[Ian David]

I see that the don't-be-a-dick tone debate is still going on — I've been totally unimpressed with the arguments from the side of nice, not because I disagree with the idea that positive approaches work, but because they ignore the complexity of the problem and don't offer any solutions but only complaints (what are they going to do, break the fingers and gag anyone they judge as 'harming the cause'?) I side with Richard Dawkins' comment on the issue. We don't need to be trivially abusive, but on subjects we care about deeply, we should express ourselves with passion.

<snip>

This whole hospitalization mess started a few weeks ago, when I was on my daily walk, and I'd gone a little farther and longer than I usually do. I was on my way home, and I felt a dull ache in my chest — nothing severe, nothing acute, just a soreness that spread into my left arm. And I stopped on the sidewalk, and looked ahead, where I was only a couple of blocks from home, and I looked to my right, where the hospital was located only a couple of blocks away. And the ache immediately receded, and I had a little internal debate between the nice angel on my left shoulder, and the dickish devil on my right.

<snip>

And the devil replied with the potent one-two punch of reason and abuse: "You teach human physiology, you moron — you know this is one of the warning signs of heart disease. You'd have to be incredibly stupid to ignore this and hope it goes away…until a heart attack comes along to blow your heart up. Jerk. This isn't even a choice."

<snip>

That is the virtue of dickishness. It provides the social and psychological penalties that counter the draw of complacency. It's so easy to go with the flow, to pretend that a thousand issues, whether it's homeopathy or religion or transcendental meditation or an absence of critical thinking or a lack of concern about our health, are OK because they make people happy, and it's even easier to demonize the cranky Cassandras and make them the problem, because they make people uncomfortable.

More:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/08/how_being_a_dick_probably_save.php