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I learned and always thought that the phrase "tilting at windmills" meant, aside from what you wrote about "to attack...out of a delusional sense of righteousne

I learned and always thought that the phrase "tilting at windmills" meant, aside from what you wrote about "to attack...out of a delusional sense of righteousness," more like a futile task or something that wouldn't succeed regardless of your efforts. Because of that, I interpreted the previous comment not as someone who is creating enemies out of nowhere against oneself, but rather someone who is doing something (telling others that "The Digital Native is a Myth") that is a more-or-less hopeless, or mostly impossible task. They're close, but to me there's a distinction between the two.

j9461701 9y ago
Don Quixote is a pathetic, vainglorious egotist with mental problems, whose attack on windmills is just one of his many feats of remarkably willful stupidity. He isn't fighting a good battle that is unlikely to be won, he's inventing battles out of nothing so he can feel special and important when really all he's doing is being irritating and getting beaten up by inanimate objects (the windmill sail). He's to be laughed at or pitied, not respected or admired. That was something of the point, take a classic knight in shining armor from romance stories, put him in real life, and watch how much of a loser he'd be. This might be a case of pop culture failing to capture the essence of a reference, and the misunderstanding gaining higher prevalence than the true meaning. Calling someone 'nimrod' is another example. Nimrod was, unironically, one of the greatest hunters in the bible - smart, swift, strong. But Bugs Bunny called Elmer Fudd that, and Fudd was an idiot. So anyone not familiar with the Bible character thought nimrod == idiot, rather than Bugs calling Fudd that sarcastically.