Cathy Young weighs in on the Wally Hettle / Paul Deignan flap, as does Richard Bennett, who calls Hettle’s actions “academic McCarthyism” and notes how Hettle, in his attempt to prove himself an elightened male feminist, presumed to fight Bitch PhD’s battles for her.
Which, I guess we can take some comfort from the fact that, though rigorous academic debate is as good as dead, old fashioned chivalry is still alive and well in the modern feminist movement!
I propose that this Professor Hettle exchange names with a pretty cool English professor I had at UCLA. That guy did not deserve the name Nutter.
Not surprisingly, a point completely lost on (or willfully denied by) the various defenders of the feminist establishment. Suck it up and act like you like those old bastards, girls.
If there ever was a debate not hampered by blind partisanship, this is the one. Gender feminism, at the least, is an equal opportunity offender perpetrated on both sides of the political divide.
No, bad feminism is instead hampered by preconceptions, conventional wisdom, and sheer ignorance.
tw: car(toon patriarchal stereotypes.)
Am I the only one who pictures Wally Cox when I see the name “Wally Hettle”?
rls: No.
GAY COCK OF FEMINIST ORTHODOXY!!!
“Hettle, in his attempt to prove himself an elightened male feminist, presumed to fight Bitch PhD’s battles for her.”
I am reminded of the words of Florence King (for the record, as a male professor I consider them cautionary):
“In the pantheon of male chauvinist piggery, the academic male is a warthog with the personality of a harem eunuch. Ingratiating and devious from his obsessive pursuit of tenure, anxious and irritable from his publish-or-perish labors, and burdened with the image of the great American indoorsman, he seeks to prove his masculinity in nasty, supercilious, underhanded ways that are far more infuriating than the me-Tarzan-you-Jane upfrontness of good ole boys.”
OK, it wasn’t all that relevant, but I’ve got just enough self-hatred to love that.
Somehow I missed the guy’s first name.
Wally.
Perfect.
Jeff, I understand that you have issues with how some liberal academics treat conservatives, but why the eagerness to hassle BPhD about it? The guy was being an ass, she banned him, end of story. And it’s not that she doesn’t accept dissent, it’s that she has a very low tolerance for the kind of “I’m smarter than you and it’s your job to prove otherwise” crap that seems to be Paul’s preferred mode of argument. She has nothing to do with the subsequent Wally-Paul hijinks, which, despite your efforts to read in all sorts of broader themes, seems to be nothing more than a case of two internet jerks who richly deserve each other. Nobody, but nobody, is defending Wally, but do you really believe that Paul’s advisors’ reaction amounted to anything more than “please try to avoid doing things that will cause me to receive more BS e-mails like this”? The whole thing would be impressive as a piece of internet performance art, but really messing with people’s real lives over this crap is just sad.
DaveL —
I don’t know what you’re talking about. I am on record as saying I don’t believe Bitch PhD is responsible for her commenters, and that I don’t think Paul should try to out her.
As to how Paul’s advisor reacts, that is, as I’ve argued, really beside the point. Paul shouldn’t have been put in the position where his academic and professional future hinges on the good sense of his dissertation advisors—particularly if the possibility existed that one of them may have been like Hettle and found what Paul did worthy of censure.
My complaint from day one has been with Hettle. He abused his position and tried to harm someone professionally for political statements made on a weblog. For that he should be roundly and forcefully denounced.
One of the reasons I have to put up with so many anonymous commenters is that people like Hettle want to criminalize speech in the name of tolerance.
Sorry, but screw him.
I was a de-escalation advocate during Reagan, and still a hardcore d’Emocrat, but with a serious hillbilly, rugged individualist streak. I know that’s fucked up, but it made sense in appalachia at the time. I got involved with a primarily anti-nuke, but all encompassing progressive-activist group, and it used to just amuse the hell out of me how many of the feminist members were totally clueless to the guys using feminism to get in their pants.
Not me of course, I would never behave in such a rakish manner. But those other cads, heavens!
But everyone agrees with you that Hettle is an asshole. You’re linking to Bennett’s lame attempt to get a rise out of B with some stupid snark about Hettle and feminism. And where did criminalizing speech come into it? And seriously, on what planet could Paul’s academic and professional future not depend on the good sense of his advisers? If Paul’s website is any indication at all of what the guy’s like in real life, they didn’t need some dipstick at another school to tell them that he could get a little insistent about his views, and if they’ve worked with him this long, presumably they’re OK with that.
Yes, screw Hettle. Grade A asshole. No question. But this isn’t good material for a free speech on campus crusade. It’s just two pathetic jerks. Hettle started it and now Deignan is busy making it far, far worse. The best thing anybody could do for the guy is stop pumping up his self-righteousness and give him a chance to reconsider before he really screws up his life.
I linked to Richard’s piece because I like the point it raised about Hettle’s attitude, both toward feminism and toward academic debate.
Criminalizing speech comes in when someone is made to pay consequences for daring to offer an opposing point of view that should be intellectually permissable.
Finally, sure, Paul future is always going to be dependent the good sense of his advisors. But why create needless new instances for them to show bad judgment?
To me, this is less about Paul and more about the misuse of professorial power and the chilling of speech. Paul is a big boy. He can handle himself. I’ve already made my positions known on the Bitch PhD and lawsuit angles.
Perhaps my lack of patience for Bennett’s thing is that I first saw it in B’s comments, along with a couple of other posts of his trying to goad her into commenting on the Deignan thing after she’d said she wasn’t going to talk about it any more.
I’m not going to try to get into Hettle’s head to figure out what he was so inappropriately reacting to, but have you read Deignan’s stuff? The problem with it isn’t the point of view, it’s that it’s playground-level argumentation, dripping with condescension and yet really, really dumb. What’s left of his comments on the thread at B’s site gives a taste, but you can get the full flavor from his own site, particularly his reactions to people who actually know something about libel law and have tried to gently explain to him that he has absolutely no clue what he’s talking about.
DaveL – “dripping with condescension”. Really.
Pot, meet Kettle.
Seems to me your deal is that you don’t agree with Deignan on politics, and rather than address his politics, you choose to attack his personality. Well here’s some news guy, you aren’t exactly charming my ass off either. And I’ll bet I don’t agree with a lot of your politics. So, what should I do, get you cut off from comments? Find out where YOU work and see if I can screw you that way?
I still maintain that the best remedy for this whole problem is a parking lot cage-match, but absent that we have that old academic standby, the war of words.
“hall” – I’ll bet Proffesor Nerd was a monitor.
The first time I ever heard of a poetry slam me and some buddies were laughing at the notion and started development of a full contact, truly competitive improv poetry slam. Basically two contestants beat on one another with non-lethal instruments (wiffle bats) while armored (a bizaar mixture of various sports pads) and shouted verse at one another theoretically related to prompts from the judges. It never really got out of the development stages (LOL!!!!) but I am starting to think it might have some potential in conflict resolution in today’s political climate.
Who else would like to see a full-contact, duel/debate between Deignan and Hettle?
B Moe—would this be reality TV or pay-per-view?
I dunno, might be too real for reality TV, I was kinda hoping for the bar down at the corner, tell you the truth.
tw: country-> well… yeah. Wanna make something of it?
Speaking as perhaps the only survivor of a mass armadillo attack you’re ever likely to meet, I can assure you they’re more plated than shelled. Not unlike the old Roman Lorica Segmantata.
Hmmmm.
Ahhhh! So you’re the one who invented political blogging?
DaveL,
I must confess to finding at least some of Deignan’s ideas boorish; and I agree with you that he’d probably be better off studying for his PhD than spouting off on some idiot academic’s left-wing blog. On the other hand, there is a fairly obvious principle involved here, and it ought to be defended. How would you feel if someone disagreed with something you said on your blog, or worse, in the comments section of their (anonymous) blog, and then sent a nasty letter to your faculty advisor? Or your boss?
That’s right. It would suck. And it wouldn’t be right.
In any case, I think the quote Jeff picked out to point out paternalism was pointed much more obviously at Hettle than BitchPhD.
Take it sleazy.
f
Shit, this is
No way should , more to the point, used
Plus, it’s fun to watch. It’s like a dorkfight, you know?
Frankly, I don’t see any recourse other than lawsuits toward both Dr. B and Hettle. Granted, part of it is Paul’s fault for not using an alias on the multiple internets, but, frankly, Hettle dragged this out into the Real World, and both Hettle and Dr. B perpetuated lies about Deignan, B’s claims of IP spoofing and whatnot, from my understanding, stem from the same internet ignorance that lead her not to include a single asterisk in her IP banning of Deignan. To my knowledge, she has not recanted her ignorant misstatements, so if only to protect his good name for future employment, I see nothing left out there but for Paul to sue. Then again, I always saw you guys’ fantasies of “Oh, his professors will probably buy him a drink for rattling Hettle’s cage!” as ridiculous, to say the least.
Furthermore, the sexism charge seems a little on the scraping for insults side, but, heck, go for it. It’s what Hettle’s side of the spectrum has been doing to us for years.
I think it’s safe to say that most of us really ought to be doing other things. And better off? I’d probably do myself a huge favor by not getting involved in stuff like this.
So much for the exercise of good judgement, though.
My understanding was this:
1 – Deignan twice asked that Hettle simply send an email with an apology so that he could include that piece of information
2 – BitchPhD’s inclusion in this lawsuit fiasco is a result of HER statements about Deignan ‘spoofing’ his IP to bypass the ban.
Deignan also asked BitchPhD to apologize for her statement before including her in the lawsuit.
So, BitchPhD is not being included in Deignan’s lawsuit for simply hosting a site from which Dr. Wally launched an attack. Her inclusion is a result of her statements during the immediate aftermath of Hettle’s action.
And, it’s worth repeating, Deignan asked BitchPhd a couple of times for a retraction for her ‘spoofing’ comment.
Were I on the jury, I’d find for Deignan.
The amount of the award would be $1-.
.
DaveL has it just about right. We’ve got a cat fight between three immature internet assholes.
I thought Deignan was baited to produce “his credentials” as they were trying to tar him as an ignorant right winger.
Was I wrong?
Jeff, you are so right. I’d rather have some boffer open a door for me than have equal treatment under the law.
And BumperStickerist, if some guy was threatening a law against me lest I apologize, hell no I wouldn’t apologize. If someone is dead set on bringing a lawsuit against me I’m not about to say anything that might condemn me, especially not making an apology.
well, for starters, what BitchPhD said about Deignan ‘spoofing’ his IP address was wrong. A clarifying statement from BitchPhD might have been in order and, remember, ‘apologize’ means ‘to explain’.
I think a simple “That dickweed, Paul Deignan, that I said was ‘spoofing’ his IP address to get around a ban – turns out he wasn’t. My bad. “ clarifies the issue appropriately. I think the legal issues are resolved at that point, as there is a public correction. As for the ‘dickweed’ comment, truth is the best defense against libel.
Instead Herself decided to go on an extended ad hominem doing *exactly* the same kind of sloppy marshalling of facts and poor argumentation that she accused Paul of doing.
So, irony, like chivalry, is not dead.
.
That sounds like it would be more akin to “giant sumo windbag whacking”. Similar protective equipment, preferably of such thickness that it makes the contestants stagger around clumsily, except that each contestant also sports a huge inflated sack mounted on his shoulders. The contestants proceed to whack at each other’s windbags in an attempt to deflate them, while simultaneously keeping their own windbag inflated by huffing and puffing and bloviation.
tw: morning. Where did the morning go?
Wally beat his chest like an ape and sprung to the aid of his female counterpart. Not saying I wouldn’t have done the same thing—or that chivalry is bad—rather, that I just found it mildly amusing because I suspect Wally wouldn’t recognize how his actions might look in the context of contemporary academic ideas ideas about feminism.
Maybe he was just flirting.
Feminist charges understood then, Jeff. Thanks for the clarification.
I don’t think much of any of the participants, but one thing that’s troubling me about the anti-Deignan contingent: what should he have done? It seems like the prevailing sentiment is that he should have rolled over and taken it (like a bitch). How much real-life abuse should he have been willing to tolerate for having had the gaul to post on a blog’s comments section?
That Deignan owes Dr. B. an apology and hasn’t issued it does not exonerate Dr. B. for failing to issue hers when she must, by now, know that she was wrong about IP spoofing. Digging in her heels because she doesn’t like the guy she owes an apology to does her no credit.
She has issued clarification.
Since it isn’t my business, only Mr. Deignan can judge whether her clarification is sufficient. But I’m a prig on this point (among others): IP spoofing means something specific; its definition does not include any behavior Mr. Deignan is accused of. She wasn’t using the word in a “casual and non-specific sense”. She was misusing it. No one is too righteous to apologize when s/he makes a mistake.
The action over at Deignan’s site has taken an even more bizarre turn. Apparently the chivalrous anti-Deignan folks have found his wife’s name and are emailing her death threats at work.
Lauren –
BitchPhd used the ‘Terrell Owens’ timeframe for “issuing a clarification” … day late, dollar short.
I spoze that BitchPhD could have considered her actual words and actual actions in a timely fashion and using those keystrokes to research and respond to the request rather than tapping out a Mighty Screed about piss-ant commentors might, just might, have been a better use of Dr. Bitch’s time.
Legal-wise.
just sayin.
.
On the clarification:
BitchPhD has now banned me for having the temerity to ask, or to question why she hasn’t yet provided, the REASONS why she thinks Paul attempted to “evade” her ban.
I honestly think she made it all up. It took her this long to admit her misuse of the term, but what is to say for her defense, that she had reason to believe he was evading the ban? All I requested was her reasoning, why she thought this. For this, I was banned.
Paul has, on his site at various times in various ways, denied doing anything to evade her ban. In short, he doesn’t seem to know where this accusation came from.
Do we have reason to trust her story and her characterization of his now-deleted comments? I say we do not. Her characterization of his role in the debate is laughable–where we can evaluate the conversation ourselves. It was she, and her cronies, that engaged in ad hominems and “trolling.”
Except stating that he was “I was having a little fun with her over DHCP and subnet masks,” i.e. evading her ban.
Lauren, my understanding is that he was telling her that because of DHCP a “ban” is difficult to enforce. That is how he has characterized it.
If he changed IPs, then BitchPhD should say so, as that would support her now-clarified assertions. It’d be pretty easy to prove Paul posted from multiple IPs, and if that is the case, then she should present that evidence.
Paul has stated, “I am not aware of any action that defeated an IP filter.” When he was “having a little fun” with her over DHCP that does not mean he was changing IPs and “evading” her ban. Maybe he did. I don’t know. But BitchPhD could clarify this, she could provide the specifics that were the basis of her accusation. I continue to be suspicious that she witholds these specifics. My bet is that the first time she tried to ban him, it worked.
Also, others on that thread accused Paul of posting on her site recently. Can anyone confirm that?
Here:
http://www.haloscan.com/comments/bitchphd/113160566388306030/#177300
And scroll down.
Note in the seond comment he tried to threaten outing her again by explicitly using the name “Sarah.”
PD, what an angel.
The thing is, DHCP isn’t IP spoofing. It’s just not. Neither are subnet masks, which sound sinister but really aren’t, at all. Mr. Deignan seems to be a show-off, a know-it-all, a bounder, and a twit. So what? He’s not an IP spoofer. Any one who has called him one, should apologize for having done. I have no trouble believing that she thought his behavior was spoofing, that she used the word thinking it apt. But it wasn’t. She was wrong. When you wrongly accuse some one of something, the proper thing to do, the only socially acceptable thing, is to apologize.
Is there anybody alive who hasn’t been honor-bound to apologize to an asshole, at some point? It’s distasteful, but no less obligatory for that.