Bill Kinnon makes an excellent catch on scorn:

I was struck by what happened to my half of the conversation. I began to roll out the scorn. When talking about bad website design, I would relish how really bad it was. I would hold the brand up for “how stupid can someone be” excoriation.

Now, the linguists can tell us what is happening here. This kind of talk has a meta-pragmatic function. It builds solidarity between the speakers. (The mechanics: scorn presumes that we both understand a topic is risible. This presumption claims a commonality. This commonality builds a solidarity. Or something likes this, more or less, give or take.)

Solidarity is a good thing especially with one’s colleagues, but in this case it didn’t sit right. In fact, I found myself recoiling from scorn even as I manufactured it.

The problem is that this scorn must, I think, interfere with the dispassion with which we are, again I think, obliged to talk about contemporary commerce and culture. It really gets in the way. At the very least, we have confused the issue. More specifically, we are using our talk to build solidarity when we ought to be using it to think about the world.

the entire thing is worth reading, but this is the heart of the observation. Essentially, scorn is used as a bonding agent for those who see each other as being in with the in crowd. This should be a cautionary tale for everyone who reads it. Kinnon makes the salient points strongly. Go read his. Its incredible.