(At lunch yesterday we discussed the subject of my continuing pursuit of a certificate as a special education classroom assistant.)
Well, the thing about working in the school environment is, the pay is so bad and the conditions sufficiently stressful that nobody would do it if they didn't really want to do it, and like children and stuff. Which is maybe why they're all suchdipsticks dippy hugberts1 except me -
(Brother Metal: The kids?)
- no, my classmates2!
It's the kind of place where they'll surprise you by passing around a badly xeroxed copy of a rhyming poem about what special little flowers children are.
(Around the table: :O, :O, D:, DX)
...Which brings me to how I've been contemplating the total stomach-turning dippiness lurking everywhere in this particular line of vocational training, and also the nature of dippiness itself. Why, exactly, is it so stomach-turning? What is it about dippy hugbertism that is so inherently offputting to me? The reaction is instant and visceral, and I have trouble articulating it to myself. So far I have come to:
Dippiness is:
Is this a cultural thing?
I know that I certainly was raised by my parents to be anti-dippy, but on the other hand, I was surrounded by other people of similar regional, ethnic, and socio-economic class backgrounds with the opposite viewpoint as well as quite a few with the same viewpoint (Unitarian Universalism is, or at least in my childhood congregation was, an intense battleground between the pro- and anti-dippy forces, and one where everyone's views on the matter tended to come out). That doesn't mean it's not cultural at all, of course, but certainly the cultures in question are then much more narrow and specific than the ones usually alluded to by phrases like "cultural difference" and "culture barrier".
Is it perhaps a question of introversion/extroversion?
Is it related to that old fandom meta distinction between "Warm Fuzzy" and "Cold Prickly"?
1. I think most of us know what is referred to by "dippy". A dippy person is typically referred to as a "dipstick" in my language/dialect group, but occasionally as a "dipshit" such that I formed the impression that "dipstick" was merely a euphemism for "dipshit".![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
waxjism, however, pointed out the common usage of "dipshit" as a close-to-all-purpose-epithet for someone who acts like an asshole, gets in the way or is generally annoying/useless, so it's obviously not a useful term. "Dippy hugbert" was my own coinage to make my meaning clear to her, but I enjoy the fact that it incorporates the dreaded hug-happiness of the Madeleine-Basset-esque dippy movement.
2. Or at least they appear to be, but the second-to-last property of dippiness means that non-hugberts are systematically shamed into keeping their mouths shut about it in environments where dippy hugberts manage to seize the floor, in the name of preventing "cynicism", aka reason or a distaste for bad rhyming poetry or interpretive dance, from supposedly "ruining [the unspecified] It for everybody". From my UU experience, I guess at least 1 or 2 out of every group our size are non-hugberts silently fuming about the whole mess.
Well, the thing about working in the school environment is, the pay is so bad and the conditions sufficiently stressful that nobody would do it if they didn't really want to do it, and like children and stuff. Which is maybe why they're all such
(Brother Metal: The kids?)
- no, my classmates2!
It's the kind of place where they'll surprise you by passing around a badly xeroxed copy of a rhyming poem about what special little flowers children are.
(Around the table: :O, :O, D:, DX)
...Which brings me to how I've been contemplating the total stomach-turning dippiness lurking everywhere in this particular line of vocational training, and also the nature of dippiness itself. Why, exactly, is it so stomach-turning? What is it about dippy hugbertism that is so inherently offputting to me? The reaction is instant and visceral, and I have trouble articulating it to myself. So far I have come to:
Dippiness is:
- trite, clichéd
- sort of twee
- sentimentality, not sentiment
- like a Hallmark store
- like Precious Moments (shudder)
- expressed within a strictly prescribed language of earnestness/sincerity which by its very prefabricated nature is lacking in earnestness/sincerity
- embarrassing to witness, in that it is inherently lacking in self-awareness
Is this a cultural thing?
I know that I certainly was raised by my parents to be anti-dippy, but on the other hand, I was surrounded by other people of similar regional, ethnic, and socio-economic class backgrounds with the opposite viewpoint as well as quite a few with the same viewpoint (Unitarian Universalism is, or at least in my childhood congregation was, an intense battleground between the pro- and anti-dippy forces, and one where everyone's views on the matter tended to come out). That doesn't mean it's not cultural at all, of course, but certainly the cultures in question are then much more narrow and specific than the ones usually alluded to by phrases like "cultural difference" and "culture barrier".
Is it perhaps a question of introversion/extroversion?
Is it related to that old fandom meta distinction between "Warm Fuzzy" and "Cold Prickly"?
1. I think most of us know what is referred to by "dippy". A dippy person is typically referred to as a "dipstick" in my language/dialect group, but occasionally as a "dipshit" such that I formed the impression that "dipstick" was merely a euphemism for "dipshit".
waxjism, however, pointed out the common usage of "dipshit" as a close-to-all-purpose-epithet for someone who acts like an asshole, gets in the way or is generally annoying/useless, so it's obviously not a useful term. "Dippy hugbert" was my own coinage to make my meaning clear to her, but I enjoy the fact that it incorporates the dreaded hug-happiness of the Madeleine-Basset-esque dippy movement.2. Or at least they appear to be, but the second-to-last property of dippiness means that non-hugberts are systematically shamed into keeping their mouths shut about it in environments where dippy hugberts manage to seize the floor, in the name of preventing "cynicism", aka reason or a distaste for bad rhyming poetry or interpretive dance, from supposedly "ruining [the unspecified] It for everybody". From my UU experience, I guess at least 1 or 2 out of every group our size are non-hugberts silently fuming about the whole mess.
