Ain't It Awful?

Kate Orman

News From the House of Sticks

Ain't It Awful?

12th-Feb-2008 06:10 pm

It must have been twenty years since I read the well-known self-help book I'm OK - You're OK by Eric Berne. The one thing I've never forgotten from it is the game "Ain't It Awful?". Well goodness - I've just realised that I have seen this game played many times, right here on Livejournal.

Berne gives a simple example of Ain't It Awful, one I've encountered IRL and I'll bet you have too. Two women on the bus:

Lady 1: (looks at watch, sighs)
Lady 2: (sighs back, looks at her watch)
Lady 1: Looks like we're going to be late again.
Lady 2: Never fails.
Lady 1: You ever see a bus on time - ever?
Lady 2: Never have.
Lady 1: You never get service any more like you used to.
Lady 2: It's a sign of the times.

And so on, for ten minutes.

In this game, both women have taken on the role of Parent. This is the part of our mind, explains Berne, in which "are recorded all the admonitions and rules and laws that the child heard from his (sic) parents and saw in their living." The Parent is the part of us that admonishes us - and judges others - as unworthy.

The bus wasn't late, of course, but as Berne says: "[They] enjoyed recounting the 'awfuls' more than they would have enjoyed getting the facts. This is because of the good feeling that somes from blaming and finding fault... Finding someone to agree with you, and play the game, produces a feeling well-nigh omnipotent... Someone who is enjoying a game of 'Ain't It Awful' does not welcome the intrusion of facts."

What a relief to remember this! Jon and I spend a lot of time "fact-bombing" fans; there's no need and no point when fans are simply playing the game, reinforcing each other's moral outrage in a mutual orgy of bitterness. (Similarly, the game explains some remarks I saw recently in an anti-racist activist's blog.)

This new understanding only allows me to chill out even more than I have done in the past week or so. w00t.

Tags:fandom, it's the mind

Comments

12th-Feb-2008 08:00 am (UTC)

nostalgia_lj

*headdesk*

12th-Feb-2008 08:05 am (UTC)

kateorman

I fear I have seen this in your LJ. It has to be said, though, that you yourself are open to changing your mind.

12th-Feb-2008 08:09 am (UTC)

nostalgia_lj

I feel "fact-bombing" is not really that possible when everyone works from the same facts but interprets them differently (like your, erm, "unique" view that the Doctor hated Rose).

12th-Feb-2008 09:10 am (UTC)

kateorman

My view that the Doctor hated Rose...? Nos, don't talk such utter bullshit. Frankly, it's beneath someone of your intelligence to stoop to that crap.

You're right that the Rose vs Martha shipwar is almost entirely a matter of personal interpretation. From time to time the facts have got fucked up, as when Martha Freeman's words were misattributed to Paul Cornell. But on the whole it's not an arena for fact-bombing - more one for questioning what the evidence actually is.

12th-Feb-2008 10:21 am (UTC)

dinosaurcostume

Most arguments of interpretation are never going to be won, but I think 'fact-bombing' works in times of doom-saying such as 'Dr Who won't get recommissioned after these bad ratings/a year of specials/this story I hated.'

12th-Feb-2008 10:38 am (UTC)

kateorman

Jon's speciality!

("Martha Freeman"?! Man, I need sleep.)

12th-Feb-2008 03:20 pm (UTC)

nostalgia_lj

I was hyperboleying. But my point be that you have a niche view on that one and we're all working from the same facts. Also the fact-bombing tends to come across as telling us all off for being Wrong And Silly :(

12th-Feb-2008 08:54 pm (UTC)

kateorman

*gives you a hug, just on general principles*

I got a phancy phrase for you. "Argumentum ad populem".

12th-Feb-2008 09:57 pm (UTC)

nostalgia_lj

Argumentum ad ratingz n radw.

12th-Feb-2008 10:17 pm (UTC)

kateorman

What?

12th-Feb-2008 10:58 pm (UTC)

nostalgia_lj

Yus.

13th-Feb-2008 12:09 am (UTC)

kateorman

I figured you'd either know the phrase or would Google it.

Argumentum ad populum is a technical term for the dodgy argument "all my mates agree" or "everybody thinks so". In fact, how many people hold a belief is irrelevant to whether that opinion is true or false. A belief can be popular and false (Creationism), popular and true ("Earth goes round the sun"), unpopular and false ("The Earth is flat."), and unpopular and true ("You're just as likely to win the lottery with the numbers 1,2,3,4,5,6 as any other six numbers.").

btw, we're probably bumping into a definitional problem. When I say the Doctor couldn't or wouldn't reciprocate Rose's or Martha's "romantic interest", I mean specifically that he wouldn't have sex with them or become domestic with them - not the degree to which he loved them. IMHO the former is a matter of fact and the latter is a matter of interpretation.

13th-Feb-2008 12:50 am (UTC)

nostalgia_lj

I worked it out but don't generally pay much attention to people throwing debate terms into things.

When I say the Doctor couldn't or wouldn't reciprocate Rose's or Martha's "romantic interest",
the former is a matter of fact and the latter is a matter of interpretation.

Which I disagree with in terms of using it against people when they're only going along with all the intent and a lot of the text itself.

13th-Feb-2008 01:51 am (UTC)

kateorman

Sorry, what?

13th-Feb-2008 01:58 am (UTC)

nostalgia_lj

Err, all that "fact"-bombing against people just going along with what they're meant to think is Not That Convincing.

13th-Feb-2008 02:17 am (UTC)

kateorman

Is "what they're meant to think" a fact or an interpretation?

Would you agree with my comment above - that the Doctor's lack of sexual/domestic interest in Rose is basically a fact?

13th-Feb-2008 02:22 am (UTC)

nostalgia_lj

Is "what they're meant to think" a fact or an interpretation?

Based on all the external things that tell us what to think.

Would you agree with my comment above - that the Doctor's lack of sexual/domestic interest in Rose is basically a fact?

In-text possibly, if it's specifically "sexual" rather than "romantic." Otherwise it's subjective. We know what we're meant to take from it, the only argument is whether it's a) convincingly translated to the text and b) a good idea or a bad one.

13th-Feb-2008 02:31 am (UTC)

kateorman

Based on all the external things that tell us what to think.

Do you mean it's an interpretation? Ultimately interpretations are subjective matters of opinion and people just have to agree to disagree; but our interpretations have to be based on facts and logic too.

So interpretations are also subject to the "argumentum ad populum" hoo hah - they can be strongly supported by the evidence, or weakly supported by the evidence, and the number of people who hold the interpretation has got nothing to do with it.

13th-Feb-2008 02:36 am (UTC)

nostalgia_lj

Do you mean it's an interpretation?

Based on Rusty & co outright telling us what to think of things in Confidentials and all over the place. Martha being "second-best" might be a popular take, but it's also apparently the intent so it could well be steering fandom in that sense. In case anyone had a unique take on Doctor/Rose we had the Doomsday Confidential to tell us exactly how to take it, and S3 to glamourise the dregs of S2.

I... don't actually get why you be picking on fandom for thinking and arguing about what the creators themselves told us is the one true way. Doctor/Rose was (fuck, is, since they won't let a bad idea die) a tedious unconvincing pile of shit that may have fucked the series' central dynamics up for a long time to come, but we were supposed to be down with it as romantic love.

13th-Feb-2008 03:21 am (UTC)

kateorman

If the show's makers really told us that Martha was "second best", then that would be a fact. Since they haven't done so, "the show is trying to tell us that Martha really was second best" is an interpretation, open to dispute.

There's also the slippery use of "second best" to mean two completely different things, and "romantic love" to mean I know not what.

I gotta tell you, btw, that this thread is the last time I'm going round and round with you on this subject!

Edited at 2008-02-13 03:24 am (UTC)

13th-Feb-2008 03:34 am (UTC)

nostalgia_lj

If the show's makers really told us that Martha was "second best"

He did, though. You even posted about how LOLs it was to you that he did so! And then b& me. I srsly do not get what you're on about with all this stuff other than maybe telling off the fangirls for not liking something :(

There's also the slippery use of "second best" to mean two completely different things, and "romantic love" to mean I know not what.

Okay!

13th-Feb-2008 05:05 am (UTC)

kateorman

I could be wrong, but let me tell you what I think is going on here: you're pissed off that the Doctor loves a character you don't. That predates Martha by a long shot; remember your reaction to the end of Doomsday? Now I can lecture you about logic and remind you of the facts until the cows come home; but (a) people are entitled to their personal responses and neither can, nor should, be argued with about them; and (b) if the arguments you put forward is really an expression of that reaction, then facts and logic are irrelevant.

So, if I'm right, it's not my job, nor my place, nor even possible to talk you out of your misery; all we're doing is cracking our skulls together, as with religious discussions, and we really ought to just stop.

13th-Feb-2008 05:35 am (UTC)

nostalgia_lj

I could be wrong, but let me tell you what I think is going on here: you're pissed off that the Doctor loves a character you don't. That predates Martha by a long shot; remember your reaction to the end of Doomsday?

So you have now changed your mind re: Their Love? Oh, the confusion. I mind not the love per se (Astrid is tedious, for instance) but the way it fucked everything else up. But true the OTP thing has never convinced me because who the fuck would pair him with that as his one true love? (Someone vastly in love with their own creation, apparently.) Still, you're exaggerating that to belittle and hope to get rid of me not liking something RTD did.

But I am trying to be zen about that fact that I, who foolishly liked Martha and thought the series could Move The Fuck On, am not wanted on voyage due to watching it wrong. It's not about characters loving each other, it's about me not being wanted because I don't love St Rose enough to sit through The Rose Tyler Show for another season. I hope to come back when Rusty goes, assuming he doesn't kill the entire thing before that.

13th-Feb-2008 05:39 am (UTC)

nostalgia_lj

you're pissed off that the Doctor loves a character you don't. That predates Martha by a long shot; remember your reaction to the end of Doomsday? Now I can lecture you about logic and remind you of the facts until the cows come home; but

Also, how the fuck would facts stop me thinking something if you think I'm annoyed at the facts? That makes no fucking sense.

13th-Feb-2008 07:32 am (UTC)

kateorman

fwiw, here's the entire article in which the phrase "second best" appeared:

http://community.livejournal.com/doctorwho/2433537.html

As you can see, RTD doesn't use the phrase; the interviewer appears to be using it as shorthand for the Doctor not falling in love with Martha, which isn't how Martha herself uses it in Last of the Time Lords, where she's referring to her 1337 skillz.

12th-Feb-2008 08:22 am (UTC)

acelightning

my natural tendency, when someone starts playing a game of "Ain't It Awful?" is to do exactly what you call "fact-bombing":

stranger: (looks at watch and sighs)
me: (looks at watch) the bus should be here in about three minutes.
stranger: this damn bus is never on time!
me: i've never seen it more than a minute or two late, and occasionally it's even early.
stranger: what, a city bus running on time? hah! that'll be the day!
me: hey, look, here comes the bus now! (boards bus)
stranger: what the fuck? (a lot farther back in the queue boarding the bus).

i've never quite understood people who seem to complain just for the sake of complaining. i get far more of Berne's "good feeling" from having the facts than i do from finding fault. there is obviously something wrong with me.

12th-Feb-2008 11:02 am (UTC)

mrteufel

No, you're like me, in that you value "I'm right and you're wrong" more than you value "Ain't It Awful?". It's actually mildly antisocial; a perfectly reasonable reaction to strangers, but something one learns isn't always a positive at a party or other social gathering where you actually want to bond.

I try to overcome this by only playing "Ain't It Awful?" where the facts actually support that interpretation. Politics is a fertile ground for this.

:)

12th-Feb-2008 01:18 pm (UTC)

acelightning

it's not even "i'm right and you're wrong"; more like "accurate and correct information is more important than how people feel about it, including me". i read the book myself, a very long time ago, and i've tried ever since not to play any of the games if i can help it. (i also dislike being predictable.)

12th-Feb-2008 03:09 pm (UTC)

antikythera

Heh. I do that too, with the full knowledge that I'm ruining someone's game of Ain't It Awful. It's probably a bad habit, but I get a perverse pleasure out of it. ^^;;

13th-Feb-2008 08:52 am (UTC)

acelightning

well, yes, ruining someone else's game of "Ain't It Awful" is fun. that game in particular has always struck me as something that old people do, akin to "when i was your age, we walked twenty miles every day to school and back, in the snow, barefoot, and uphill both ways!" - kvetch, kvetch, kvetch!

16th-Mar-2008 09:27 pm (UTC) - Okay.

i_dreamed_i_was

Except in this case, the bus was late. The bus is always late, when it bothers to come at all.

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