One of the worst things that can happen to someone is that they become so powerful in their field that the community no longer works as a check on their behavior. We should pity their victims more, but we should also have some sympathy for people like Dov Charney and Terry Richardson. Who in their right mind would want to be so controlled by the awful desire to control?
Reformed Christianity speaks to this. Not only do we believe in Calvin's (insert Schopenhauer if theism isn't your bag) "depravity of man" thesis, but we also believe that the solution involves moral communities willing to publicly call people on their depraved behavior (Presbyterians call this "discipline").
When I screw up even in little ways there are lots of people near and far who publicly call me on it. I don't know what kind of monster I'd be if I had the resources to silence them.*
Academics are a little bit like the fashion industry, like rock and rollers, like dictators. We have this awful cult of genius where someone's awfulness can be evidence that they deserve to get away with being awful. I don't know if philosophy is worse than other fields in this respect.
[*UPDATE 7/7/2014 I removed a parenthetical involving people who threaten lawsuits that some readers with justice took to be both unfair and passive-aggressive. When writing it, I didn't mean for this post to single out one person. But we know what good intentions pave. And to be honest, while writing it I was pretty depressed about the latest brouhaha concerning Brian Leiter reacting to criticism in ways that strike me as frankly abusive. So the criticism is fair.
I think my Calvinism might lead me astray in some postings. A central part of the belief system involves looking at people doing unethical things and think "there but for the Grace of God go I." We are also taught to think about how the very same mechanisms that permit great evil also permit lesser evils. This is how I see the world. By understanding how I might do the same in similar circumstances I am more likely to continue to love everybody involved and also not fall pray to whatever mechanisms make people less loving.
But people not in the Reformed tradition tend to view this kind of discourse as if we are claiming that great evils are morally equivalent to lesser evils. For example, when people examined the propaganda apparatus in Nazi Germany to understand and critique the propaganda involved in getting us into the second Gulf War, a common refrain was that leftists were looney because they thought George Bush was morally equivalent to Hitler (remember "Bush Derangement Syndrome"?).
I'm with the Reformed tradition here. Not being the Nazis (or Terry Richardson, for that matter) is a very low moral bar to pass. By disallowing the Reformed type of reasoning, we end up not examining the evil in our own hearts. This being said, I realize that most readers are not part of this tradition, and I'll be more careful in my blogging.
Finally, let me be non-passive aggressive. I do pity Brian Leiter precisely because if senior people in the schools he ranks highly (or some non-negligible percentage of Gourmet Report Rankers) told him to cut it out, he would stop embarrassing himself in these ways. I find it absolutely mystifying that this hasn't happened yet. He's being very badly served by whomever he listens to. And I can tell you from my own experience and that of a number of friends (mostly continental philosophers) that it's not fun at all to be on the receiving end of his jeremiads and insults.
As far as public rudeness in philosophy, please consider Susan's comment from this post at Philosophy Smoker.
I would like to say “only in Philosophy” would it be the case that a reasonable defense of being accused of rudeness is to protest, hey, I’m rude to everyone all the time, but I imagine the climate is similarly unfriendly in at least a few other disciplines or professions. Telemarketing and other high-pressure sales environments spring to mind.
The question is, why do philosophers tolerate this situation? Why do we attend so closely to the squeakiest hinges? We could insist on basic civility, but we choose not to by valuing many, many people who fail to consistently achieve it.
I have heard several philosophers argue that rudely dismissing ideas you consider sub-par is almost a moral imperative, lest the bad ideas spread and infect others through want of a sufficiently devastating criticism. I have read journal submission reviews and rejections (alas, not only for my own articles!) that appeared to be inspired by the conviction that it is insufficient merely to reject a piece and explain its errors or required improvements; only the most scorching rhetoric can successfully purify the world of shoddy ideas and writing! Why is that, exactly? I’ve never quite understood. I’m no Emily Post but I’ve often felt like an alien outsider in my own profession because my mama didn’t raise me to act that way. Maybe people are ready to begin seriously reflecting about whether this atmosphere is healthy for the continued success of our discipline in the increasingly competitive financial environment of universities.
This should be commonsensical.]
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