I wrote nothing about him that I didn’t write to him when he was around to respond. But my point in writing about him wasn’t to say anything about his character, but to make a point about the Calvinists who cheered him on whenever he attacked Catholicism, ignoring the fact that his beliefs were, in fact, were so bizarre and conspiratorial as to suggest insanity.
And I told him he was writing like a schizo, and like a true schizo, he didn’t reply to that directly, but went on further insane ramblings about still greater conspiracies.
Seriously:
If you tell most people that they are sounding insane, they typically will scale back their arguments to the core discussion at hand, trying to maintain credibility. Not Quix. If you question why Bede would be referring in England to a long-dead religious belief from the Bering Straits, he’d tell you about how the Sphinx was really white with red polka dots, and how the Smurfs, Santa Claus and Catholicism were a giant conspiracy to make people worship Babylonian Gods!
I’m not exaggerating. I’ve had this conversation with him a few times. (I’m sorta fascinated with the way schizos minds work, and whether they can be reasoned with within their delusions.)
That’s the hallmark of a schizo: Most people care about maintaining credibility. Schizos are desperately looking for that one person who will believe their own personal theories that no-one before has ever figured out.
But again: my concern in writing that isn’t Quix; it’s the Calvinists who congratulated him and egged him on, but then never reigned in his insanity. He filled their purpose, and that was all they cared about.