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Sunday, January 28, 2007
Kotsko throws down
As most of you have probably already seen, Adam Kotsko has soundly mocked my maiden voyage, apparently to prove wrong my assertion that bad-faith interactions are not intellectually fruitful. By taking a (bad) sentence of mine out of context and extrapolating from that one point in every possible direction, he’s written a very funny satire on the most vulnerable part of my position by aligning me with those who theorize what they have demonstrated no empirical knowledge of. At first, this seemed absurd to me, but I’m starting to understand why he did it. (If watching me unpack a good joke is too boring, don’t read below the fold.)
First, Adam suggests that I am dismissive of metablogging, saying that it’s all disposable babble, not Real Theory, which is Inherently Better. Despite the fact that I cited examples of good, intelligent metablogging, I can see how one could come to that conclusion about the post, which attempted to make a case for why bloggers should be better able to communicate what it is we’re doing to someone other than each other. And why the hell should I care what non-bloggers think about what I write?
This leads to the second, and more damning, accusation. Adam suggests that the reason one might be interested in developing the rhetorical theory is to tame (or at least account for) its unacademic eccentricities so that it will look nice and pretty for interviewers and tenure committees. Thus, academic blogging would eventually cease to be “blogging” at all and would, in his depiction, just become the academy, except on methamphetamines. If academic blogging were free of personal stories, humorous thought experiments, metablogging, teaching stories, moments of weakness, flirting, and impenetrable in-jokes, it would have the potential to be the primary mode of academic publishing. Of course, if we lost all that, we’d lose pretty much everything that makes it worth doing.
Likewise, what Adam’s post makes me realize is that bad-faith interactions are also what keep academic blogging apart from academia itself. I know, for example, if I give a reasonably good talk, that no one listening is likely to take a sentence of mine out of context and satirize it for the fun of making an ass of me. Oh sure, you might do that in the washroom afterward, but you wouldn’t have the guts to do it to my face. Even if your criticisms were valid, your method of exposing me would be unacceptable. And without mockery, systems and values don’t change very quickly. Not coincidentally, the humorless academy tends to tread the same ground again and again.
Below, Rich suggested that bad-faith interactions like trolling may seem rhetorically unsophisticated, but, as he puts it, “by this the troll causes the blogger to acknowledge the troll’s existence as example of a distinct viewpoint—one which can not be absorbed into the prevailing ethos of the blog, which the troll may object to in toto.” If I write a very nice, carefully argued post about rhetorical theory (and let’s pretend it was much better than it was for the purposes of this argument), the only possible good-faith responses either assent to or further develop my argument. Only by taking an isolated statement to a ridiculous extreme can a reader fundamentally screw with my underlying assumption, which was that being able to communicate what we do to other people might be a good thing.
One of the things this interaction has shown me is how used I am, as a graduate student, to proofing myself against easy dissent, and how little I expect to be sucker-punched. As much as I like to play the “knowledgeable blogger,” reading Adam’s post made me realize, to some extent, how much I’m guilty of trying to replicate academic etiquette in blog interactions, and so my rhetorical interpretation of those interactions should remain pretty suspect.
Comments
Carrie, As I’ve said in comments, my post was not directed toward you in specific. My more general target was the ethos of “academic blog triumphalism,” which for me is closely associated with The Valve and, more recently at least, specifically with SEK. To pick a sentence out of your first post here was unfair on that level, and to write a weirdly aggressive and ironic piece in which it’s difficult to tell exactly what it is I’m arguing was hardly a warm welcome to The Valve family.
My general position on academic blogging (and on meta-blogging more globally) can be found here. Every academic blogger eventually comes around to this position, even those who posted dissenting comments to my post—though of course they rarely admit it, even to themselves.
and I (and prolly SEK) thought “abt” stood for something else.
Adam, I think the joke is funnier if you don’t, after the fact, besmirch it with little false gestures of ‘yes, but it was true in a larger sense’. Your talent, my friend, is for pure, oozy injustice, allowing the wheels of polemic to turn with lubricious swiftitude, ungritten to even the smallest degree by grains of truth - cf. the great ‘you can’t make arguments on blogs’ kerfuffle and the ‘Holbo uses the word ‘argument’ in italics way too much’ mini-kerfuffle of ‘06.
I mean: it isn’t as though hallucinating that the Valve is a bastion of blog triumphalism is a transcendental condition of believing in your own ethical self-worth or anything.
(Just a thought.)
I’m guessing Adam wouldn’t like it if I wrote about how the small blogging community here at Irvine is changing the very nature of the way people in my department interact, and for the better, as it might be mistaken for triumphalism. And since he is the arbiter of these here Tubes…
John, Seriously? The association between The Valve and academic blog triumphalism is a hallucination?
Triumphalism is one thing. Self-congratulatory setting forth on a new sea is a bit different.
Well, of course no one is going to identify themselves with a name that’s inherently pejorative.
Adam, first the fact that I used the word ‘ungritten’ should indicate a certain whimsicality to my comment. Second: but of course the Valve is not particularly associated with academic blog triumphalism. It’s associated with some e-publishing projects. That’s not really the same thing at all.
You’re totally ruining the joke with these distancing gestures.
No, I’m making fun of you by means of distancing gestures.
Jeez, Adam, show some pride. You showed up, you spite-ed; it’s become a ritual for new Valve posters. This one was, at least, funny. Don’t hallucinate a whole new reified justification about the Valve doing something.
The past tense of “spite” is “spout”, Rich. As in, “Adam showed up, he spout; it’s become a ritual” and so on.
Rich, Even though the rest of your comment makes no sense, I’m touched that you would call my post funny.
There’s flirting going on in blogs? I would love to flirt over a blog. I can I start a blog just for that or does it need to be about something else first? Can I flirt over someone else’s blog or is that rude? If someone dates a person they met on my blog can I consider myself a matchmaker?
I have so many questions about technology.
On Kotsko’s blog Carrie said, quote, “Adam, you’re not a bad person.”
What’s up with that? Everyone knows that Adam is evil. Carrie is an enabler.
I was trapped, Emerson! There are statements to which the only acceptable responses are “no,” like, “I’m a bad person,” “You hate me now,” and “I look fat in this.” I can only assume Kotsko is at least partially not a bad person because he didn’t mock me in the comments as well as in his post.
You see, blog rules are different. The Troll of Sorrow could teach you a thing or two.
"Ungritten,” yes. But also “mini-kerfuffle.” Actually, that whole sentence - my word. I am so naming my next band Pure, Oozy Injustice.
Capcha: lot81. Missed it by 32.
What we really need is a rigorous analysis of the speed with which one can alienate colleagues on blogs. (SEK’s experience could possibly have gone in the other direction, it seems to me—yet I don’t have a theoretical underpinning to back that up.)
The Problem of Evil, indexed to him, was right out there on the table, but Kotsko blithely proceeded as though he saw nothing and knew nothing.
What could be more evil than that? I say he’s an antinomian psychopath.
I believe the technical term is “sociopath.” Or “chaotic evil.”
Yes, Adam, but as Rich has argued, even negative attention is still attention. One party may experience alienation while the other experiences intimacy.
This All About Adam response thread seems to me to be a reassurance reflex, an indication that people are determined to insist that it’s all in fun, no breach occured, no one needs to get angry—as happens in many interactions that people feel they can’t do anything about. Carrie’s response is really pretty impressive; by pre-emptively buying in, she gets to put her own interpretation on events that preserves as many hints that Adam was really being a jerk as are permissable (the “washroom afterwards”, the discussion of trolling) while avoiding the kind of explicit umbrage that would result in accusations of humorlessness, fragility, flamewarring.
Adam’s post codes academic blogging as male—the “girl from college”—while Carrie reminds us that this was her “maiden voyage”, even as the Valve apparently loses Miriam Jones (what’s with that?) after having already lost Laura Carroll to some guy’s comment that she really shouldn’t be associated with a place where so much squabbling goes on. (As a guy, I know that my bringing that up is going to be classed as gender essentialism, even though Miriam J once started a tremendously long thread here on the topic). Sure, Adam’s post was funny; Adam and APS are also the last remaining recurring trolls on the Valve, and should be banned, basically for the Valve’s own good.
Someone should theorize the possibility of a troll who overidentifies with a blog.
Someone should at least ban me and Anthony from what pass for discussions of religion here, for our own good. (That will come in the sinister “phase three” of the War Against The Valve.)
Anyway Anthony should be banned.
I actually do think that it would probably be for your own good also, Adam. It’s not like you wouldn’t have your own blogging platform. You just wouldn’t get into these recurring flames here that you always claim to regret afterwards, yet so clearly seek out. Sure, you could try to keep things going by the occasional cross-blog slam, but I’m guessing that your inability to reply to responses here would deter you. It really would be the kind thing to do, like not giving large sums of money to a junkie.
Rich too.
Hey John! Do you want to ban me for trolling, not The Valve, but Rich? You’ll notice that after that Adam Roberts thread a few months back when I realized that this place isn’t like Adam’s basement (the way I approached all blogs for quite some time) I’ve basically steered clear of that kind of talk (i.e. “You’re fucking crazy man!") and simply attempted, albeit not cleverely enough due to my own lack of talent in this area, to troll Rich as his double.
It’s funny how much Rich identifies with this place. If I was a Lacanian I’m sure I’d say something here about jouissance or if I was a historicist I’d say something about how hard it is being a historicist, but I’m just a humble everydaymen so I’ll simply ask - you gonna ban me?
Sure, I share a certain amount of concern about what kinds of compromises would be involved in making intellectual blogs palatable to every academic, or palatable to some sort of “average reader.” It’s the fun privilege of having a blog to be simultaneously told that you’re “too academic,” and that you’re not rigorous enough in this or that entry, by two different sets of people.
I totally agree with Kotsko that good intellectual blogs read like good pub chats with smart people; I also think the list of new objects of meta-analysis (beginning with open threads at Atrios) is both hilarious and apt.
Let’s get down to the nitty-gritty.
First of all, I’ve been to pub nights where academics spent the whole time doing breezy things like recommending books to each other, or putting in their yes/no vote on this or that new film, and those nights are really boring. The last thing most of us need is another one-sentence opinion about anything, or another volume to weigh down a book “area” that already combines horizontal with vertical stacking.
Second, academics are approximately 84% less funny than they think. One of the most consistent defenses of flame wars, trolling, and so forth is that it leads to all sorts of hilarious mockery, whereas in reality it leads mostly to disgruntled nastiness and the sorts of jokes that were funniest when I still thought Caddyshack 2 was an art-house classic. A humorous, inspired improvisation can be great—that’s what I take this new prolegomena to be, mostly—but that’s also not the sort of thing that raises hackles.
I should add that many, many academic social events are totally consumed by the spectacle of eighteen individuals simultaneously trying to be wittier and more Dadaist than the rest, and this is by no means less competitive, or more amusing, than an overheated conversation about “alterity.”
The real attack on Carrie’s desire for a certain amount of respectability, and Scott’s satisfaction with where academic blogging is headed, is based on a hands-in-pockets kind of “aw shucks, we’re just bloggers” unpretentiousness that seems determined to end up at Gertrude Stein: “a blog is a blog is a blog.”
Well, no. The Weblog is certainly not like other blogs that are “just blogs,” where, for example, somebody explains that their dishwasher just broke and the guy can’t come until Thursday. Certain jokes, such as the “moral right” to be an author, aren’t going to fill seats in the virtual Peoria of blogs where neither blogger nor audience care about authorial intention. So let’s not push off against a seemingly-solid foundation of unpretentious “just blogging” that has no real content whatsoever.
As for trolling: getting called a troll is not the same as being one. There are some sites where you can’t disagree with the dominant position without being labeled a troll; those sites are known technically as “wastes of time.” Then there are sites where you can disagree, but some respondents prefer to scoop up huge handfuls of prose and summarize them in an unbecoming fashion (they also, as an added bonus, tend to sprinkle in huge generalizations about the author(s), the life of the mind, and the Academy). That is where the real monstrousness begins.
There is a huge amount of room for color in academic writing that wouldn’t compromise its density or depth. Actually, most academics realize this whenever they see that the person they’re quoting—Montaigne, or Kristeva, or Artaud, or bell hooks—has somehow gotten away with much more stylistic freedom than seems possible for me or you.
Cherishing one’s own eccentricites, on the other hand, is a universal human desire and never fun to watch.
*
There are different kinds of sucker punches. It would be great if academics started referencing a bigger picture more often at job talks, mini-seminars, and the like. Sometimes, the “so what?” or the “what does this jargon actually mean?” gets saved for a discussion that comes later, when it can no longer do any good.
On the other hand, the fact that nobody is going to stand up and say merely “There you go again! With your special brand of nonsense!” when you give a presentation is actually a good thing. There, the rules appear to be completely beneficial. The reason is quite simple: that statement is equally effective whether or not it is justified.
It’s hard to say what changes minds and values. Being funny is a great asset. Still, despite South Park and Arrested Development and Steve Colbert and David Sedaris and Chris Rock and Natalie Portman’s “rap” sketch, it’s still possible for K-Punk to write convincingly about a scarcity of real newness in his analysis of Children of Men. Meaning a lack of new values, and a lack of change.
Carrie’s desire for a certain amount of respectability
I’ll agree that this is what the attack was, but I have to disagree that this was my desire. I’m someone who was taught very young that rhetoric often has (at least potential) answers for questions that make academics throw up our hands in mysterious wonder, which is both why people hate rhetoricians (because they cherish their mysterious wonder) and why it’s so easy to sideline us.
The fact that anyone could read my post as wishing for some kind of “respectability” bothers me, not because I’m ashamed of respectability but because rhetorical theory wouldn’t make it respectable anyway. I can’t number on my hands all the times when I’ve interrupted a fellow grad student musing on “the impossibility of teaching writing” (isn’t all we can do a sort of coaching and encouragement?) or of writing a particular document (how do I express myself here?) and said, “Hey, let’s think of some rhetorical models that might help with your class/letter/whatever!” Usually the response is something like, “Well, yeah, okay, but. This is a totally individual writing situation, mumble mumble.” Even if I were able to develop some rhetorical analysis here, the ways it doesn’t completely fit every case of blogging ever would be held against it because all academic writers like to think themselves unique. It’s silly to think that anyone beyond a few genuinely curious souls would care if I did manage to develop a rhetorical theory of academic blogging.
That’s not be pretending to be “humble"--I am not humble in the least. It’s just absurd to claim that rhetorical theory about something makes it academically legitimate. Ask a rhetorician what she’s working on and you’ll get answers like “women’s magazine quizzes” and “doctor-patient interactions.” These are hardly communication events one puts on a CV.
That is, to say that a rhetorical analysis of blogging is an attempt to make it a legitimate form of academic discourse is like saying that a linguistic analysis of slang is an attempt to make it a culturally dominant form a speech.
My point in saying one might want to describe academic blogging to those who know nothing of it was, as you’ll recall, because I get frustrated with hearing about utopian visions of something that actually exists and is describable. I don’t remember anywhere saying that I am trying to get “credit” for my online writing from superiors. Did that come from Adam’s satirical portrayal of me, or is that, once again, part of the pre-existing argument that I’ve walked into and been pigeonholed by?
You know, Carrie, maybe it’s because you’re a girl--they’re probably confusing you with Jardiniere (especially given SEK’s referencing your question on the MLA post). Unless you are Jardiniere, in which case they’re still wrong.
Or perhaps that was part of Adam’s joke?
Joseph, I have to disagree with the following: “The real attack on Carrie’s desire for a certain amount of respectability, and Scott’s satisfaction with where academic blogging is headed, is based on a hands-in-pockets kind of “aw shucks, we’re just bloggers” unpretentiousness that seems determined to end up at Gertrude Stein: “a blog is a blog is a blog.””
No, the last one was based on Adam Roberts’ all-important inability to understand circles. The unpretentiousness appeared for this particular case, just as knowing something about math suddenly made an appearance last time. No one running a blog with the name and content of An und für sich can possibly be making any real gesture towards academic unpretentiousness.
So, Carrie, it’s not a “pre-existing argument”, it’s a pre-existing way in which Adam K. distracts himself. Any academic who is capable of reading literary theory is also capable of picking out the one sentence of your post and pointing to a pattern —in this case, the “pattern” of academic blog triumphialism that Adam K has been on Scott’s case about ever since Scott’s MLA panel was mentioned, or on John’s case about ever since John started publishing. (Adam K has pointed out my own tendency to negative psychological theorizing, so I won’t mention anything about envy.) I’d like to say that Adam K. gets a pass because he’s funny, but it’s not true, because on other occasions he hasn’t been funny. He gets a pass because everyone gets a pass.
I am not particularly incensed about AK’s mischaracterization of my argument, which was totally egregious, because that’s what effective satire does. It hijacks language for the purpose of creating a straw-man that is easily dispatched. Above, I considered that a performance of a kind of bad-faith interaction. I only regret that my name was so effectively associated with a position that isn’t mine (and may not be anyone’s at all).
But I’m not dead, so it’s not like I can’t respond to mischaracterizations of my argument. One can, in fact, read what I wrote if one is interested in connecting writers with their opinions, and I trust that sensible people will.
In biblical studies, rhetorical theory is much bigger and more “respectable.”
It also sounds like the pub atmosphere at my institution is generally better than what is described above.
So, since whoever didn’t approve my comment, does that mean I’m banned?
Oh now you approve it!
comment approval around here is a catch-as-catch-can business
One could take from my masculinization of the “academic blogger” the impression that, as I have constantly reiterated, Carrie wasn’t my sole or even my primary target.
I would also like to add that Rich is correct to impute envy to me—or at least he was, until reliable sources informed me that my cock [Chauntecleer is a fine example of the species — The Management] on a cold day is bigger than Holbo’s and SEK’s combined. The CV type of issues just fade away into insignificance in the light of that.
Kotsko, I have to admit, there’s something really frustrating about not deserving to be your “sole or even [a] primary target.” Am I just a cipher? A #6 to your #2?
Gentlemen, gentlemen. Carrie really is perfectly capable of defending herself, n’est-ce pas? Must we fluff our feathers and mark our territory? Scott and Adam have totally different views of what blogging’s role in academia is, and they’re both witty and have good senses of humor. Surely a little sharp satire between friends (isn’t everyone here, except maybe Rich, who I don’t know, friends?) is all fun and games?
At the moment it would seem that Rich has been volunteering for hall monitor duty.
I was semi-serious when I mentioned blog rules, which is what I always play by. Most academic discussion is pretty constrained both by the imperatives of civility and by professional considerations having to do with method, whereas on blogs there are no mechanisms enforcing these rules except ban-and-delete (a pretty inefficient and time-consuming method). With pseudonyms (less used here) this is especially true.
Good comes from this, and bad. Definitely more good than bad from my point of view.
I don’t understand why Rich doesn’t have administrator privileges. He’s more committed to the Valve than anyone. In many ways, he embodies the Valve ethos—where others just talk about it, he lives it, online and off.
bitchphd, here we have a blogger making her first post under her real name on this blog. Off this first post, a guy at another blog makes her out to be a vapid career-chaser on his way to a funny satire, and when you find out that there’s actually conflict about this drive-by, you present it as a conflict between Scott and Adam? Is Carrie’s post really just an adjunct to the different views of two men, a “cipher” to their comparison of relative rooster size? If you say that Carrie is perfectly capable of defending herself, which she appears to be, then why would you say that this is a satire between friends? Carrie apparently doesn’t know Adam from Adam. Bill Benzon can mock me for being a hall monitor all he wants; what I see is what usually happens when some woman is insulted by some guy in a professional setting; everyone acts nonchalant, after all boys will be boys, and if the woman can’t defend herself, she isn’t one of the boys. That doesn’t mean that I have to like it.
And no, I don’t like it, and I’m not speaking for Carrie. She has her own points to make, in a rather well-argued post that takes Adam Kotsko’s witty narcissism and turns it into as a much of a planned rhetorical strategy as one can. I’m speaking for myself, because I like reading this blog, and I don’t like the history of Adam Kotsko’s and Anthony Paul Smith’s interactions here. In this very comment thread, Anthony says that he’s been “troll[ing] Rich as his double”, and Adam Kotsko, no matter how he acts elsewhere, here is the exemplar of the cross-blog fight starter. I would really rather read John and Scott and Adam without having the same stupid trash tossed each time, and for that matter, I’d kind of like to have continued to read Laura and Ray here as well. (Though Ray would probably be the first to say that he was more annoyed by me than by the people I was annoyed by.) And I’d like to read Carrie without having to deal with this kind of thing derailing whatever point she was making.
The trolls are already sneering that I’m way too attached to the Valve. Well, fine. They are boring people, and I don’t think that anyone is ever going to get too attached to their blogs, except, as Carrie put it, where you can go to exchange put-downs in the washroom afterwards, or perhaps in their new one as the droning lecture hall where first-and-second-year students try to pretend that they know what they’re talking about. I don’t see anything wrong with being peeved that Adam Kotsko has now ambushed two out of the last three new writers in a blog that I like to read.
Your sudden feminist consciousness is touching, Rich. Girl power! I’m sure Carrie appreciates having you in such total solidarity with her.
Are you counting Adam Roberts as a new blogger I have ambushed? He was pretty well-established here by the time Codpiece attacked him.
As for over-identification: Do you realize that in this last comment you’ve taken up the same kind of aggressively pro-Carrie position that you normally reserve for Holbo, SEK, and Adam R.? I mean literally, this is the exact same. And it’s pretty clearly because I am “against” her. So talk all you want about how insufficiently feminist I’m being—clearly you’re using her as a pawn in your little vendetta against me, and you want to be congratulated for it on top of that.
This ‘metablogging’ thing is totally awesome!
Adam, you really think I’m making a play for feminist congratulation by contradicting Bitch Ph.D? And I’ve referred to that same Miriam J thread several times here before; the last time, I think, when Laura left.
As for “the exact same”, you do realize that I totally ignore you normally, right? I don’t seek you out, or denounce whatever it is that you write. But, yes, when you do the same thing that you always do in a place where I notice it, I react similarly. It doesn’t take a vendetta to be annoyed by the same person in the same way when that person does the same thing over and over. I didn’t start this post; I didn’t even comment in this thread until you started to layer new BS atop your old.
Only gettin’ better!
Meditate, waxbanks, on the edifying truth that I am always in the wrong before Rich.
Rich, You’re playing the exact same game that many pro-feminist men play—acting like they are more consistently feminist than the women themselves. In your case, it fits into a larger pattern.
(Please note that, after calm and mature reflection, I have antagonized you on my own blog.)
Cracklin’!
Adam, cut it out. And Rich, it’s true that Adam started it but you are doing your part to keep it up. There’s no point. (I mean: If this thread doesn’t just keep going and going, I’m sure waxbanks will get a hobby or something.)
This would’ve been the perfect moment to make the transition to my site, but due to factors beyond my control, comments appear to be down. I’m sorry, everyone.
Well: I’d hate to think I was lowering the level of discourse. Bedtime I guess.
There, you see! Waxbanks has found a hobby: he’s taken up sleep!
OK, largely due to the influence of Waxbanks, but not exclusively, this thread is becoming hilarious.
Bitch Ph.D., if I was one of the people ruffling my feathers, and so on and so forth, not only am I not empowered to speak for Carrie (or Scott), but I actively misinterpreted Carrie. I collapsed the “development of a rhetorically effective way of talking about blogs” into the “development of rhetorically effective blogs.”
The fact that Adam is interested in the details of your marriage (see his post) just doesn’t equal an effective critique of Carrie’s maiden voyage.
Adam, I think the best pub conversations involve a great deal of speculative thought, some of which, in the cold light of day, proves extraordinarily sound. Rather, than, once again, book recommendations. Though I did enjoy the German text on eschatology, despite great infelicities in the prose style.
Rich, I think claims about purpose and ambition change a bit, depending on which blog you’re reading and which post. I was responding specifically to the two texts cited—the oldie but goodie (for honest) on academic blogging, and the new one, the phlegmomena. There’s a lot of history here I’m not up with, and actually in my own recent meta-blogging that’s something I try to address. We can’t expect readers to have taken all the prerequisites.
Also, the quality of informal discussions at pubs vary. As you may know, many of us have been driving to blogging by the fact that the UC Irvine pub shut down.
My ha’pennorth.
Anthony says: “You’ll notice that after that Adam Roberts thread a few months back when I realized that this place isn’t like Adam’s basement (the way I approached all blogs for quite some time) I’ve basically steered clear of that kind of talk (i.e. ‘You’re fucking crazy man!’)“
For what it’s worth, I think this is right, actually. Anthony has been more measured. I think it would a shame to ban people, and I think that on the old liberal grounds that censorship is a Bad Thing; although I’m not in Rich’s position of having a ‘troll double’ and would doubtless feel differently if I were. But the thread to which Anthony here refers was certainly an eye-opener for me. Adam K says, in his Rich-baiting mode:
Are you counting Adam Roberts as a new blogger I have ambushed? He was pretty well-established here by the time Codpiece attacked him.
Obviously I was pretty well-established at the time of the ‘Circles’ thread. But that doesn’t make it any more pleasant to be ‘ambushed’ or ‘attacked’. Personally speaking, my liberal qualms about Censorship being Bad go hand-in-hand with, and are kind of interrelated to, a set of John-Emersonian beliefs that courtesy is a better mode of intellectual interaction than attack. Indeed, and at the risk of raking over ancient history, the thing about the Circles thread was the way it was grounded in so trivial and inconsequential and question. All the knockabout discussions that have been conducted here about Heidegger or Dawkins etc., over which people did occasionally get worked up, it was easy to think: ‘well this is something so-and-so cares a great deal about’. But the circles thing? What’s the big deal?
The nub of Adam K.’s ambush-attack in that place was:
Adam R: infinity is on the number line.
Adam K: infinity is not on the number line.
One of these positions is right and one wrong. And with that in mind there is something amusingly ironic in the fact that it was the second Adam there who spent the thread calling the first Adam ‘an a priori fucking idiot’ ‘just fucking wrong’ and so on. But more striking than the irony was the weird vehemence of the language used. It’s not just a question of “is that really the best way to conduct robust debate, do you think?” ... it’s why do you care so much about the number line of all things?. Hard to believe that this was a specific argument about which anybody cared overmuch; it seems to me more likely that the purpose of the exercise was rather to take a specific indvidual down a peg or two. Surely not a good thing, and a very poor bully-logic principle of debate; although naturally, being the individual concerned on that occasion slants my judgment.
You still think you were right about that? Do you really think that the wording “from positive to negative infinity” means that Cantorian infinite sets are “on the number line”? This is another case where it just means “increases without bound.” The Cantor stuff is of a different order.
What was at issue for me was that you had consistently taken up dumb positions in your “Contra” posts. When you did concede points, you did for bizarrely incorrect reasons—or else you got in a snit of totally ignoring the person’s actual logic and saying, “Oh, I guess Heidegger can never be wrong” or “So no one can say transubstantiation is false” (this might not have been a “Contra” post). The fact that you were sticking so stubbornly to a point where you were so obviously and objectively wrong, and where there were a half-dozen people patiently explaining it to you, made me retrospectively angry that I had ever bothered to try to convince you of anything.
Take you down a notch? I don’t know—maybe someone who writes a whole series about how great thinkers are wrong is opening himself up to that kind of thing. What’s frustrating is that you not only weren’t taken down a notch, you didn’t even absorb the fact that you were wrong and remain wrong.
Joseph,
Although my examples of the kind of thing that happens at pubs may have been skewed in a certain direction, I still stand by my general position that blogs work best for pub-like conversations—in the broadest sense.
Also, Bitch PhD are close friends, and she has discussed her marriage at great length on her blog (though not as much lately). Now that I think about it, the fact that Bitch and I are friends may well account for the fact that Rich contradicted her.
Adam K: “You still think you were right about that?“
Are you asking? Or is this, like, a rhetorical question? Because if you’re asking ...
Do you really think that the wording “from positive to negative infinity” means that Cantorian infinite sets are “on the number line”?
I think that the fact that the number line “contains all the numbers from positive to negative infinity” means that infinity is on the number line. In the post in question you insisted I was saying that ‘infinity is the biggest number’. I didn’t say this, it’s obviously nonsense, but that’s what you heard and you abused me very roundly on that basis. When I posted a comment saying ‘but I don’t believe infinity is the largest number’ you replied with ‘you say that here, but it’s obvious to everybody that you do believe it’. It’s very hard to debate productively with somebody who takes that kind of position. I suppose it proceeded from a basis of ‘no matter what Adam R actually says ... he’s wrong, and an idiot’.
What’s frustrating is that you not only weren’t taken down a notch, you didn’t even absorb the fact that you were wrong and remain wrong.
It frustates you that I still believe infinity is on the number line? But infinity is on the number line. Would you prefer it if I announced ‘I no longer believe that infinity is on the number line’? On what basis could I make that announcement, beyond the fact that I got tired-enough of being bullied eventually to see that 2 + 2 = 5 and to love Big Brother. But that would make you O’Brien. Do you want to be O’Brien?
On the circle thread I was certainly wrong about one thing, but it wasn’t the thing that you got so angry about. It was that I was assuming the circle to be the one boundary line to which the infinite series formed by increasing the number of sides of a series of regular polygons tended. It’s not, as somebody (not you) kindly pointed out. There are, actually, an infinite number of bounded shapes of regular diameter, and any of them could be that limit.
“What was at issue for me was that you had consistently taken up dumb positions in your “Contra” posts.“
I did indeed; much of what I have written here on the Valve has been dumb. But (the Plato/Heidegger post aside) they were all positions of value judgement; reasons why I don’t so much like Proust, Lawrence, Dante etc. Why does it anger you so much that somebody’s value judgements differ from yours? Or is that I didn’t show enough respect for the great and the good? What’s invested here for you: is it authority per se?
... made me retrospectively angry that I had ever bothered to try to convince you of anything. Take you down a notch? I don’t know—maybe someone who writes a whole series about how great thinkers are wrong is opening himself up to that kind of thing.
It is gratfying, though, that you’re honest about being the bully here. And there’s a larger point I think. The model you’re working from here is a hierarchy in which you are the teacher and I am the student. I’m happy with the latter designation by the way; but it’s not clear to me why I should concur in the former, especially when you insist on your rectitude all all points regardless of your rightness or wrongness (or are you giving up your claim that infinity is not on the number line?). Your pedagogic mode is so aggressively and abusedly fixated on the student recognising his/her inferiority and, by contast, your superiority, taht it kind of turns me off. Who made you arbiter of what is correct and incorrect in the terms of debates that, by and large, do not seem to me to admit of absolutes in the first place? Maths is different, I agree; but on the maths thing you clearly still believe you were right to call me fucking wrong and a fucking idiot because I said that infinity was on the number line. Why should I take tuition on the subject of mathematics from somebody who doesn’t think infinity is on the number line?
Tell you what; there’s no need for you answer these questions I’m here posting. I’m sure you’ve better things to be doing, and many of those are rhetorical questions, actually.
Based on what you said repeatedly in that thread, what you understand by “infinity is on the number line” is incorrect (i.e., your talk of eventually “reaching” infinity—Ben Wolfson handled this nicely in the thread in question).
It’s part of a broader problem of you apparently wanting a univocal meaning for every important word—in the context of number lines and Cantorian set theory, “infinity” means different things. Similarly, Heidegger means something different by “time” than Einstein—a fact that can be clearly established through reading Heidegger and Einstein and is much closer to being “empirical” than a value judgment.
And of course, this thing where I “can’t be wrong” is again missing the point and the stakes of the debate. You are frequently wrong about things that I have studied extensively—religion, or Heidegger, or whatever. Why shouldn’t you accept correction from someone who has more expertise? I’d happily accept correction from you on topics where you know more than me—though I have no evidence to suggest that math is one of those topics.
I have never yet commented on a blog without regretting it, but here goes… Intrigued by this blogfight, I went back and read the circle-infinity post and the theology/transubstantiation post. I have a small amount of expertise in the former (one course in metalogic, which includes some set theory) and considerably more expertise in the latter (I’m a doctoral student in theology. I don’t know Adam Kotsko, though, if that matters). Having read these posts, I have to say that I side almost entirely with Adam K. In the circle post, Adam R opened with what appeared to be a good faith question about a seeming paradox but then continually, persistently, denied that his interlocutors were able to dissolve this paradox, despite the fact that some of them plainly had mathematical expertise that he did not, which allowed them to solve the problem. In the transubstantiation post—not mainly about transubstantiation, but that was an element—Adam R. was demonstrably, verifiably wrong about what the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation teaches. Adam K. and Anthony Paul Smith, who, again, have specialist knowledge that Adam R. lacks, told him, plainly and correctly, why that doctrine cannot be *empirically* disconfirmed, though they agreed that it might still be attacked as incoherent or objectionable on other grounds. The fact that Adam K. is right and Adam R. is wrong about this aspect of the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation teaches cannot really be in dispute-- just go to the Catechism, or read the promulgations of the Council of Trent. (Or best of all, read Herbert McCabe-- I could multiply citations forever, as I’m sure Adam K. himself could.) Yet Adam R. continued to insist that it was he, and not Adam Kotsko, who accurately understood that doctrine (despite the fact that, to say it once again, Kotsko has specialist knowledge of the subject). As a result, he continued to insist that the doctrine of transubstantiation could be empirically refuted, presumably by e.g., doing a chemical analysis and concluding: Dude! It’s still wine! So, to conclude, instead of going on about how Adam K has a “pedagogic mode [that] is so aggressively and abusedly fixated on the student recognising his/her inferiority” or, worse, asking Kotsko why he is the “arbiter of what is correct and incorrect,” Adam R. should spend some time thinking about how he acquired intellectual habits of mind that prevent him from accepting correction from people who plainly and demonstrably have expertise that he lacks. I will now return to the shadows, like the cowardly hit-and-run commentator that I am.
We have here two hypostases of the one substantia of the original Adam—two persons and one nature.
Which is the good, noble-savage natural man, and which is the evil, original-sin natural man condemned to labor, toil, and suffering?
Or have we got a mismatched pair of two original-sin Adams here? Should we go back to the Adam store and get a proper pair?
These are mysteries which our finite minds will never be able to understand. We are all noble savages, and we all are condemned by original sin....
Two natures, one person, heretic. (In fact, there is no heresy that taught two persons, one nature—that’s how depraved you are and distant from the truth.)
Two ousiai, one hypostasis. In the West, ousia is nature and hypostasis is person, even though the Greek terms are more nearly synonymous and hypostasis never really meant “person.”
H.P., I’ve taken more math than you have, and Adam Kotsko was unequivocally wrong on the math post. He asserted that infinity wasn’t on the number line, and still doesn’t understand the imprecise layperson’s concept of “reaching” limits. Other people in that thread did understand math well, of course, but that doesn’t mean that Adam Kotsko’s abusiveness is therefore justified. In the theology thread, of course everyone knows that chemical tests aren’t supposed to matter. Adam Roberts was disputing this basic assumption. As seen in the recent threads on Dawkins, atheists make claims intended to challenge theology by a sort of refusal to accept its grounds.
John, I know that I’m supposed to stop, but Adam Kotsko really is undergoing a complete meltdown. The narcissism of “Bitch PhD [and I] are close friends, and she has discussed her marriage at great length on her blog (though not as much lately). Now that I think about it, the fact that Bitch and I are friends may well account for the fact that Rich contradicted her.” is just about unparodyable. He’s having a bad day, and clearly doesn’t care what’s going on as long as it’s focussed on him. Cut him off before he reaches back to the “eclecticism” squabble and starts writing about how he and Zizek are good, good friends, please.
Adam, you ignorant, Eurocentric mofo, obviously you are ignorant of the theological developments in the late Nestorian theology of the Mongol period.
"John, I know that I’m supposed to stop, but Adam Kotsko really is undergoing a complete meltdown. The narcissism of “Bitch PhD [and I] are close friends, and she has discussed her marriage at great length on her blog (though not as much lately). Now that I think about it, the fact that Bitch and I are friends may well account for the fact that Rich contradicted her.” is just about unparodyable. He’s having a bad day, and clearly doesn’t care what’s going on as long as it’s focussed on him. Cut him off before he reaches back to the “eclecticism” squabble and starts writing about how he and Zizek are good, good friends, please.”
Umm… I think you might be the one having the meltdown. How would you know if BitchPhD and Adam were lose friends or not? Why don’t you ask her, instead of assuming? Empirical data can actually help in this instance.
You also may have taken more math than me, but infinity being on the number line is just seems obviously wrong. Do you mean the arrow on the number line is infinity? Cause that’s the only thing I can possibly think that you mean without assuming you’re just being silly on purpose.
You guys love literature.
Emerson: Nestorians have two of each, douche-bag! Even the Mongols couldn’t come up with something as illogical as what you’ve proposed.
Rich: I was clarifying a reference in my post! I’m glad to see that you know more about the nature of my relationship to Bitch than I do. But actually, I’m having a pretty damn good day.
The late Nestorians would happily stack your ignorant, heredtical Chalcedonian skull on one of their neat piles, Kotsko, and you’d just be lucky if they didn’t put it on the women-and-children’s pile.
Adam and Bitch and I are friends, and have been for a while. This does not keep us from doing and saying unkind things to and about each other, but it does keep us from fighting venomously about them for a ridiculously long time.
That said, a pox, &c.
Emerson: The Theotokos shits on your Nestorian chest!
Adam, that was off-topic and rude.
I’m sorry. All I care about is attention.
But the main point here is that the use of the title Theotokos for the Blessed Virgin was the presenting occasion of the Nestorian controversy.
Yo mama!
Carrie, Bitch and Scott are also friends, as far as I know. So Adam’s theory that I must have disagreed with her because she’s *his* friend is rather proprietary, isn’t it? Not to mention that Adam’s whole idea that I spend my life agreeing with people who don’t like Adam is a narcissistic fantasy par excellance.
Except that I have copious empirical data to back it up. You’re not paranoid if they’re really after you, etc.
I can keep going as long as you can, Rich. In fact, I’m committed to keeping going a little longer.
I know, Rich; Scott and I are also friends. Adam is being weird and provocative. You’re being weird and provocative. Let’s all just come together on the ground that I am completely sane and lovable. What else matters?
My last comment is entitled “If Girls Ran the Valve.”
As I was saying, entry into internet dialogue is absurdly easy, with the result that neither the orderly discussion of a topic nor the maintenance of civility is a sure thing. I suggest a no-fault deletion-and-banning policy.
Meta-blog that, Carrie!
Carrie, the problem with “let’s all come together” statements—or, earlier, waxbanks’ equal-opportunity mockery of everyone involved—is that they take a particular situation that you are in and show no understanding of why someone else might be in a different situation. Perhaps if waxbanks had his own personal troll following him around, he’d feel differently; perhaps not. Perhaps if you really had been attacked by not-friend Adam in your own personal blog post, instead of being that cipher on the way to Adam disagreeing with Scott, you might feel differently. Perhaps if, say, Adam and his friends had previously dug up your picture in order to mock it—causing some slight additional real-life concerns—you might not be so willing to be socialized into the traditional female role of forgetting insults in order to keep the peace.
But that’s all ancient history and my problem, right? Now I should shut up, because John asked me to and because it’s bad to have a squabble here. Well, I did, and after that Adam posted his bit about how I must have disagreed with Bitch because of him. You like to write about implied contracts. Isn’t treating the situation evenly an evasion of the social one on everyone’s part—including yours?
Let’s sing another song, boys, this one has grown old and bitter.
Posted that before Rich’s latest, by the by. I think he’s right, though, there’s something more to the forced comity here, clearly visible when it breaks down. What it is, I’m not sure. (I sent Carrie an email about this last night. What do you mean, a clique? Is all this just infighting? Wouldn’t that be dull.)
I didn’t mean “let’s all get along.” I mean “let’s all pay more attention to reasonable people than to unreasonable people.”
Scott, for example, is reasonable. This is why I like him so much.
Shit. The party’s over.
“No-fault deletion”. That’s the solution right there.
Agreed.