Rodney O. Lain - 1999.11.24
This article was originally published on
MacSimple, a site which no longer exists. It is copyright 1999 by
The Linton Media Company, which also seems to no longer exist. It
is thus reprinted here without permission (which we would gladly
obtain if possible.) Links have been retained when possible, but
many go to the Internet
Wayback Machine.
[Note: After feedback from my boss and from
MacSimple readers (you know who you are), I agreed that the label
"Angry Mac Man" doesn't quite convey the image I desire, nor does
it conform with MacSimple's mission - which I wholeheartedly
embrace. Consult your dictionary, though, and I think you will
agree that "iconoclast" is a more fitting title for this column.
Now, back to your regularly scheduled programming....]
Rarely do we find men [or women!] who willingly
engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest
for half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than
having to think.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
We have to let go of the notion that for Apple to
win, Microsoft has to lose.
- Steve Jobs, August 1997
I wish there were a law that would require politicians to
conduct themselves as follows:
Whenever a person from any particular political party is elected
to high office, like, say, president, every other political party
must be required from that point on to throw 100 percent of their
support behind that elected official in order to fulfill the common
good of "we, the people" (I hope our non-American readers will
forgive me for quoting from one of our historical documents).
Now, this doesn't mean that legislators should disavow their
ideology once their party loses an election. Actually, they should
be encouraged to maintain their differing views, since theirs would
be sorely needed, more than it was before.
This is applicable to Mac users. Read on....
Utopia is nowhere . . . no, really
The opposition is indispensable. A good statesman,
like any sensible human being, always learns more from his
opposition than from his fervent supporters.
- Walter Lippmann
I am not a professional etymologist (one who studies the origins
of words), but I own a dictionary. I remember once looking up the
word "utopia," seeing that its original meaning is literally "no
place." Maybe I should keep that in mind as I dream a world peopled
with the aforementioned politicians, but I remain undaunted
nevertheless....
A funny thing happened to me today at CompUSA. After doing my
time, we were going through the motions of cleaning up the store. I
was in my usual spot, the Apple section, trying to create order out
of chaos. Nearby, I heard an argument between two of the younger
sales people:
First salesman: "Man, you are crazy! A G4 will
always beat a PC!
Second salesman: "Maybe at Photoshop or
Illustrator. But, the Athlon is running at 733 megahertz."
I was feeling contrary, so I played devil's advocate with them.
I told them - in more colorful, sailor-esque terms than I'd care to
repeat - that both arguments were irrelevant and that they should
dispense with their sophomoric pseudo-phallic comparisons, since
both the Mac and the PC are good machines, not to mention the fact
that neither person will dissuade the other. These two know me as
the one who is always boostering the Mac at every opportunity, so I
know they were probably surprised to hear me talk in such unbiased
terms about burying the platform hatchet.
After that, they were both pretty cool, and I actually felt
better than I would have after one-upping a PC user in a Mac/PC war
of the words.
Imagine that.
I reminded myself of my namesake, who pled a few years ago, "Can
we all just get along?"
"Getting along" is a laudable goal to strive for between
historically at-odds groups, but should we aspire for a truce
between the Mac and PC "world religions"? I think that we should -
and I'm finding out that mine is not a lonely opinion.
Even if it were, it still shouldn't sound utopian....
Why Mac users should learn to use Windows
Hold your friends close . . . hold your enemies
closer.
- The Godfather
Love your enemies.
- Jesus of Nazareth
One of the most interesting learning experiences of my life
occurred when I started listening to Rush Limbaugh. Would you
believe that I, at the time a self-professed "damned lib'rel,"
actually learned something from his show?
I was amazed. Now, I don't remember exactly what it was that I
learned, but I remember that I did learn something. Subsequently, I
began to do something that not too long ago, I would have
considered a total waste of hard-earned money: I began to buy and
read conservative writings.
In the past, I devoured only liberal scholarship like Alvin
Toffler's The Third Wave (which I still consider a good read);
today, however, my reading tastes have broadened to include works
like David Horowitz's ideological-coming-of-age autobiography
Radical Son - in which this former "hippy liberal" describes his
epiphanic disillusionment with American liberalism after working
closely with the infamous Black Panthers in the midst of their
heyday.
I hasten to add that I don't just read conservative pundits, but
I also read the "marginal" writers - arguably some of the greatest
people you've never heard of.
On the computing side of things, I happen to spend more time
nowadays learning tidbits about Windows. So should you. Here's
why....
Heresy or sound advice?
With Ender, we have to strike a delicate balance.
Isolate him enough that he remains creative - otherwise he'll adopt
the system here and we'll lose him. At the same time, we need to
make sure he keeps a strong ability to lead.
- From Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
There are several reasons why you should learn some of the
Windows basics. They're the same reasons why you should try to
learn from your "enemies" or "ideological opposites":
- "When in Rome..." and we find ourselves strangers in Rome more
than we'd like, eh? We should at least know how to speak the lingo
of our "enemies."
- Opposing views emphasize where your view is correct.
- They point out where your view is incorrect.
- They help you to grow, by showing you #'s 2 and 3.
- They give you greater appreciation of your view (that the Mac
is the ruler by which all personal computers should be
measured).
Don't worry; I'm not going soft on you. I'm not selling out to
Bill Gates. I still think Windows is an aberration. I still think
the Mac would do more for the average person than any PC would, and
I would still recommend a Mac over a PC. But, before you can win a
person over, you have to understand that person. However, I'm not
trying to encourage you to learn Windows in order to improve your
techniques for converting Wintel acolytes to Macintosh users
(though, that's not a bad idea). I'm encouraging you to learn
Windows in order to understand the PC user and to accept the PC
user. As Mac users, our fondest wish is for the Macintosh to be
accepted into the greater PC community. In order for the Mac to be
accepted, maybe we need to work first on getting the Mac user to be
more accepting.
This isn't a change of tactic. It's a change of heart. I wonder
how many people are turned off from Macintosh because they don't
feel welcome into the Mac community? Maybe the Mac community needs
that change of heart more than Apple needs a slick advertising
campaign.
Don't you ever get tired of being an elitist? Don't you ever
wonder what goes through a person's mind when we tell them, on one
hand, that the Mac is the "computer for the rest of us," while on
the other hand, they sense vibes of arrogance from us? These
conflicting messages gives some people a major case of cognitive
dissonance (a useless attempt to wrap one's mind around two
opposing views).
Maybe it's time we stopped that. Maybe it's time we passed a law
requiring Mac users to become kinder, gentler evangelists. Before
you can persuade someone, you must show them that you understand
them. Maybe these are aspects of "Think Different" that we need to
ponder more often.
What do you think? Have I lost it, or have I finally started to
mature in my Mac fanaticism?
