Several people have emailed / Tweeted me to bring to my attention the latest bit of tiny dick waving by the self-styled smartest man on the intertubes, Scott Eric Kaufman, he of that rather exclusive fraternity of self-evidently brilliant men who have been “christened” with a Doctor of Philosophy in English. His target this time is Stacy McCain, who Master Dr Kaufman assures us is a rank homophobe.
This is Kaufman’s schtick, of course, as most of you here who can be bothered to recall him already know: his targets are invariably all racists, homophobes, nativists, misogynists, or functional illiterates — often a malign cocktail of several of those vicious toxins, pity the poor, grubby demons! — and it is Kaufman’s duty to expose their carefully-disguised hatreds, usually by engaging in a dogged, ingenious sussing out of evidence for the thought crimes these dastardly bigots hide within code words and behind dog whistles. That Kaufman, with his dazzling insights into the human condition, is peculiarly well-suited to both uncover and subsequently illuminate. And for which we must show reluctant respect.
— Or at least, that’s what Kaufman imagines he’s doing. What he’s really doing is writing a bunch of self-satisfied horseshit that is peppered through with lies and innuendo and breathtakingly strained interpretive maneuvers he can’t seem ever to justify. Nor must he: because failure to see what he sees is proof either of your perfidy or you false consciousness. Not that it matters: the accusation is the thing to leftists like Kaufman, and so long as he thinks he has you on the hook, he will keep writing. And writing. And writing. And writing.
And then cross-posting his essays everywhere, so sure is he that the hungry masses are crying out for yet more verbose and self-congratulatory prose from this one-time scholar of M Knight Shyamalan movies.
It is worth noting here, for purposes of full disclosure, that Kaufman was the “unnamed source” a certain DDA reported — without any proof, and despite my public objections — that I had serially harassed by email. This of course wasn’t the case.
He is also one of the leftist academics whom that same DDA relied upon when arguing against intentionalism — or rather, when arguing that my discussions of intentionalism were all show and no substance, a bit of academic fraud, a years-long exercise in faux intellectualism. The proof of which can be found in a manufactured consensus that we’re told stands in as a kind of postmodernist truth. Like, say, the wisdom of reader polls!
All of which I mention simply to show who and what Kaufman is, and to further suggest — only half tongue in cheek — that Barrett Brown must have been too busy at the time of the interpretation wars to return someone’s calls.
As I wrote to Stacy, any prolonged engagement with Dr Kaufman is a losing proposition. And because Stacy has always been supportive of me, I explained to him the simple formula for driving the esteemed Dr of Letters batshit crazy.
In fact, so confident am I in the formula that I’m willing to detail it here, knowing that even should Kaufman understand exactly what is being done to him, — and I’m literally spelling it out — his ego simply won’t allow it to stand. And on he’ll go, growing ever more frustrated (which he’ll try to camouflage as tangentially amused), writing and writing and writing and writing.
So. Here’s the trick. Call him out, but do it only once. When he shows up in your comments (and he will, if they’re open or if he’s registered), respond to his protestations about your supposed attacks on his honor and on the purity of his character with ever shorter quips. Be dismissive. Point and laugh. Refuse to show him an ounce of intellectual respect. Because Kaufman is a verbose joke, a caricature, and somewhere deep in his insecure and timid psyche he knows it. And it eats him up to the point where he spends an inordinate amount of time trying to overcompensate.
He just can’t help himself.
Whether Stacy chooses to follow the formula or not is up to him. But no one can ever claim I’m not a giver.
And with that, my good deed for the day is done. Now, if you’ll excuse me I have a re-fi closing in an hour. So chat among yourselves.
This would be the same SEK who claimed that it was impossible for the little god-king’s book to have been written by Bill Ayers, despite ample demonstration of means, motive, and opportunity, because shut up?
Also the one that cited the fact a professor from India (with genuine melanin content) lives in his neighborhood as evidence of how hip and multicultural he is? Yep, homie be in da hood, all right. Watch out for those drive-by calculator attacks, G.
Remember, SEK tried to get me fired by accusing me of sexually harassing my students and by claiming that I had also harassed him by email. All of this with no evidence. He went to my college department to get me fired. He’s a stupid, stupid man. But evil, and for that I genuinely hope someone takes this all the way, to court or to his college, and puts a stop to this wicked games he plays. See: ‘The Lies of Scott Eric Kaufman — Leftist Hate-Blogger Sought to Silence Criticism With Libelous Campaign of Workplace Harassment’.
On cue, SEK showed up over there to “defend” himself.
What a sad little man.
as cranky-d says, SEK decided to come whine
The projection is breathtaking.
You can’t spell “sonderkommando” without SEK.
@ cranky-d: Yes, I saw that, and again he’s libeled me there with false accusations of harassing him, accusations of which he’s never once provided a shred of evidence.
Although to be fair, the sonderkommandos were mostly forced into it. SEK works for the neofascists of his own free will.
I’d be willing to bet that trying to dig up dirt on a reporter is a tug of war you are unlikely to win.
SEK from the McCain thread:
There was no argument to glean substance from. McCain’s Ph.D barb is obvious enough to make one wince explaining it. But it’s so telling.
Then we have the reality that the right, such as we may be as a group, bothers to not only tolerate the left, but to routinely dissect and deconstruct it for what it is. The left, ever being the gentlemen in the room, never return the favor, SEK prime among them.
Darleen is right: SEK manifests individual quirks of the Progressive collective.
I like to say leftism is a disorder. It is the ostensibly acceptable institution of what amounts to a hive of individual disorder. Just as crooks gravitate toward jail and power toward corruption — and there are plenty of each in the world – -the progressive left has The Lie. There are plenty of both.
What happens individually happens collectively. It’s all fractal.
This was detailed in Encyclopaedia Hebrew and the Case of the Unserved Phantom Court Order, wasn’t it?
Did he ever take notice of that sort of thing on his own campus?
It’s a form of spiritual, emotional and intellectual retardation arising from an incomplete or damagaed molding of character in childhood. I blame their lazy parents.
Teach your children well, moms and dads, don’t let them grow up to be libruls.
A PhD in English. Like a bantam cockerel crowing from a dungheap.
“Did he ever take notice of that sort of thing on his own campus?”
Jews don’t count when it comes to SEK’s ilk, ’cause they work hard, and go to school, and stuff, which makes them The Man.
What’s hard to believe is how many Jews don’t see the the Judenhass that underlies so much of TEH MOVEMENT, or else they do see it, and attempt to expiate the sin of being born into a viable and successful minority by becoming proggier-than-thou.
Pablo
Of course not. In addition to Muslims being a Left pet class, only some Jews are good enough to be Left pets
and it isn’t the icky ones who actually practice the religion and believe that Israel is a sovereign nation.
Yes, parallel to Jeff’s suggestion to treat it and its practitioners with the regard you would any man about to harm you. Challenge them and immediately ignore them.
Deconstruction is useful but not for the purpose of making what is a valid point to the dysfunctional. Nail a thesis and move on. Having freed yourself from responsibility for their impacted adolescence, you may find the grace to endure the nonsense of children.
If they reform they shall not do so because of your appeals. They’ll have to fail first. They’ll need to feel the pain of returning to that vomit once too often. That’s a lonely desert of their making, nothing you can spare them from but something they must endure to be whole.
Re: SEK, I think if I was a one-man public acronym for chronically faulty thought and a simultaneously unsupportable ego … I’d elect not to be.
impacted adolescence —I like that turn of phrase
PD: Maybe that C&D’s in here, Perry.
…
PM: Nope.
I don’t know why anyone bothers at all to read SEK’s blog. All of his heroic and most virile feats of discomfiting doddering, elderly math profs are lovingly chronicled at Facebook, by his devoted scribe, himself.
I’d say Barrett Brown has a better chance of beating his Federal rap than SEK has of being granted tenure.
Wow. I don’t think I’ve ever had a tweet of mine linked. That must mean I’m badass.
If I didn’t hate humanity so much today I’d weigh in on the current business. But, lots of people-hating to do.
SEKs is a one-trick pony. Calling people racist hohophobes is all he has got. And the ironic line beard. And skinny jeans.
SEKs is a one-trick pony. Calling people racist hohophobes is all he has got. And the ironic pube beard. And skinny jeans.
Oh great, now it’s forbidden to dislike Hostess brand cylindrical cream filled cakes!
When will it all end????
i heart elmer phd
he’s got spunk
Personally, Dr. Scott’s intellect is staggering, sharp and impressive. There has been many a times that I’ve been upset at how much he knows. This can make debates with him challenging and hard, but ultimately enjoyable as we need great minds like his–regardless of whether I agree with him or not.
O M F G
If SEK is a “great mind”, I’m Stephen Friggin’ Hawking.
Ironic pube beard or pedo beard? You be the judge.
I’ll bet SEK is writing a book. A really, really bad book with digressions aplenty. Editors have tried to help and he fired them because they would dare to pencil his prose. Publishers won’t touch it so he’ll be forced to self-publish and it will languish unread, undiscovered, unmourned until someone with talent uses it as an example of “How Not to Write a Book.”
Bh – that is sooooo not right.
That beard is hiding his Morsi-like chins.
I almost went for a PHD in English, but decided the one from the School Of Hard Knocks would serve me better.
After seeing what a pretentious ass SEK is, I see that I made the right decision.
Separated at Birth: SEK and …?
I disagree, leigh.
I think the book will be assigned as mandatory reading in every class Dr. SEK, Ph.D. teaches.
Look up the term ‘the banality of Evil’ in the [small] dicktionary and you’ll find a picture of Scott ‘Tissue’ Eric-The-Half-A-Bee Kaufman.
I wrote an email to Stacy this morning predicting any engagement with Kaufman would end with his intimating legal action. It always does.
Dude’s got a glass jaw more fragile than Frey’s.
Ow. That’s gonna leave a mark.
-I like your method of handling such fools, Jeff. I will use it in the future.
-Ernst: I hope you don’t mind, but I added your definition of Leftism [at 1109] to my Live Free Or Die page. Also, I finally responded to the comment on Disraeli you left at my place.
honored sir
A PhD in English.
Once upon a time, a doctorate in the Humanities carried with it some scholarly heft. I had a Spanish prof at Cornell (old school, now retired) who had an eidetic memory and who had a staggeringly detailed grasp of Western Intellectual History.
He was also a devout Catholic from Spain and was the gentlest soul on the planet. Not a malicious bone in his body. Typical absent-minded professor whose office was aclutter with books and who, if you wanted info on a particular subject, could give you the Dewey Decimal number of the book and then tell you which pages had the salient points.
There’s also that Shakespearean scholar that Hewitt interviews from time to time, the one that teaches at one of the military academies, and the guys from Hillsdale, plus VDH: all Humanities pukes, and all with formidable intellects.
But that’s because they eschew the Critical Theory paradigm, which turns every text into a pretext for spewing one flavor or another of Marxist bilge (or Freudian perversion, for the less political). They give a rip about What The Writer Meant, which inevitably forces them to crawl out of their comfort zones and understand what someone else thought in another time in another context.
That Marxist bullsplat?
Same crap, different article.
Deconstruction is useful but not for the purpose of making what is a valid point to the dysfunctional.
IIRC, the term “deconstruction” is of Nazi coinage. It’s Yet Another Tool To Tear Down What They Didn’t Build to replace it with the iron fist of their annointedness.
The one thing I always enjoyed about SEK was that I could say in 25 words what he said in 3000, and that he thought that made him a superior communicator.
“A really, really bad book with digressions aplenty.”
I’d figure him for yet another entry in the English professor-has-affair-with-student genre (’cause, you know, that’s never been done), chock-full-o logorrheic, overblown figures of speech to make it “literary” and the requisite genuflections toward Derrida and Foucault to make it “edgy” — if only this were 1970.
Lengthy and descriptive paragraphs about said co-ed’s physical charms and no character development.
Kind of like a Phillip Roth novel. Without the talent.
mr. SEK is an internet staple I think and you know what that’s ok
What, like goatse?
He’s a small hunk of bent metal that holds the internet together?
Frankly, I’m not seeing it.
I’ve not given him a thought for ages. Staple? Nah.
You’ll have to take my word for it, Pablo, but I swear that I thought that very same joke in my head.
no not like the metal ones I mean like peabnut bubber or agave nectar
stuff what you just always have around
like sleeping pills and brandy
like yankee candles
like purell in your car or extra quarters in the glove compartment
that’s our Mr. SEK
Meant to ask this earlier: When did American liberals stop identifying with Jean Val Jean, and start identifying with Javert?
I don’t know, the Wilson administration?
The easier rhetorical answer is when they stopped being liberals.
EBL at 4:46 this is a closer look.
Google doesn’t want us looking at that link Geoff. They’re asking are you sure you want to go there?
sneaky bastards
Really? It’s from the FBI’s site.
I had a staple put through one of my phone lines by a careless contractor back in dialup days.
Fucked up my Internet to no end, it did.
“Once upon a time, a doctorate in the Humanities carried with it some scholarly heft”
Jacques Barzun crapped bigger than SEK and his fellow travelers.
Like pigeon shit on statues.
like piles of hickenlooper in a barn
I was thinking more like an internet paper clip.
So the guy likes the sound of his own voice. Is that so wrong?
This is something Eric S. Raymond dubbed the Kafkatrap:
I heartily recommend that thread to the entire PW crew, and further recommend reading putting A&D in your feed reader.
Thanks, Monster.
I was thinking more like an internet paper clip.
Ah, so a living instantiation of Microsoft’s ‘beloved’ Clippy — you know, an idiotic, completely unasked-for annoyance that people either tried to ignore, or quickly disabled.
Which, incidentally, seems to have been the guiding design philosophy behind Windows 8, but I digress.
i miss clippy
I don’t. I replaced that little bastard with a tiny Einstein.
“It looks like you’re trying to be racist. Can I help?”
FTFY, and that’s OK only if you’ve no better use for your fingers.
I try to keep office supplies away from there anyway. It’s a thing.