My side of the story

[fpb]

I am not exactly inexperienced in polemic. However, the most recent one in which I have been involved - the Blaise Zabini kerfuffle - has taken a form I had not expected, and that I think requires me to state my side of the story.

When you bear in mind that because of my being thrown out of a couple of people's LJ, I do not even know half of what is going, this is inevitably a provisional account. I feel fairly sure that there are charges going around that I have not even heard about, let alone had a chance to answer. On the other hand, even disregarding the large number of people I answered harshly during the quarrel, I think there are a few of my own friends who may not be aware of the background of some of the events. One or two things are more or less unknown to anyone but myself and one or two people.

Like many other fans, I was fascinated by the name Blaise Zabini, and built up a personality on that name alone and a number of stories featuring the character. However, I took quite a liberty with the character - a sort of personal equivalent of the American transfer student cliche'. Knowing full well that a Blaise Zabini in Hogwarts had to be British-born, I nevertheless made him Italian, and placed him in what quickly became an AU.

A couple of years ago, I had a violent clash with a bunch of people who confused the male name "Blaise" with the female "Blaze" and insisted that a Blaise Zabini could be a girl. This was a particularly unpleasant encounter, which left me with a strong feeling that the people involved were pushing a cultural-imperialist agenda which involved their refusal to deal with any local cultural peculiarities - such as the existance of exclusively male names such as Blaise. Another point (which was repeatedly ignored by the people who responded to the f_w misreporting of my comments later on) was that the names "Blaise" and "Zabini" form a whole, reinforcing each other and pointing straight at Italian descent, however distant.

Blaise turned up unexpectedly in theregoresyamum's LJ. I made my points, and the discussion quickly became heated. I do not, now, recall the stages by which it reached the pitch of anger it did, and theregoresyamum has either deleted the entry or made it accessible to herself alone. Either way, even supposing that I stepped over the line in answering someone, I find myself unable to do anything about it. I can neither access the records nor place any appropriate apology there. (And when I see reason to apologize, I apologize in public, on principle.)

In view of the quick rise of temperature on this issue, I decided to move the debate to my own LJ, where I faced an onslaught of know-nothingism and bad manners fuelled by a vilely mendacious fandom_wank report. Now let me underline one thing: I moved the debate on to my blog, and deliberately drew the gathering answer to myself, out of respect to theregoresyamum. I did not want to leave the impression that she had done anything to sanction it, or that she was personally involved. I knew that she was in pain with a broken hip and living with an unsympathetic relative, and wished to spare her trouble.

One matter that had arisen during the debate was straussmonster. This is a person whom I regard as a creep of the first water, who has treated me abominably and insulted my native city, and whom I regard as altogether bad news. I had the displeasure of finding her on the thread, and took the opportunity to give a short account of the way she had behaved to me in the past. She whined - truth hurts - and gave me the opportunity to explain that I regarded her as not nice to know and that I would warn anyone against her. On this I have not changed my mind, and will not change my mind until I see evidence that she has any understanding of why I found her behaviour so heinous, let alone any apologies.

theregoresyamum's behaviour became odd and, to me, increasingly hard to understand, let alone follow. Vague rumours of complaints reached me, making me uneasy, while I was spending all my free time fending off the hostile commenters on my LJ, and, incidentally, coming to know nice people and making new friends. Then, after she had locked or deleted the entries, she wrote to me a strangely muted letter, hinting without clearly stating that I had offended a number of people. Among these, apparently, was one person who had previously refused my offer to friend her - something that never happened before or since - because apparently she considered me a brute. On a later occasion I found her acting brutally herself, and pointed it out. Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander? Not, it seems, in her eyes; she had not been able to forget and forgive, even though she had been the one who had as good as insulted me in the first place. (How would you feel if, on asking someone to let themselves be friended, you were answered that you were really too violent for her?)

I realize that with the ending of that previous paragraph I am opening myself to sarcastic answers about this person making the right choice, and so on. That is not my point. If you do not consider me a nice person, that is your affair. But it also means that you have placed yourself on an unfriendly footing; and if you find me less than impressed at your behaving in the very same way you charged me with, you are being illogical and unfair. That is the point.

In response to Gun's letter, I said quite clearly that I would never apologize to straussmonster for telling no more than the truth about her; as for the others, I explained that I could not remember what I had said. Instead of giving me an opportunity to see what I had done wrong (by then the thread was already unreachable), she seems to have taken this as a negative - which it was never intended to be, except for straussmonster - and defriended me with a long and whiny public entry.

In assessing this behaviour, I have to remind myself that theregoesyamum is quite young, in an unhappy situation, and in a great deal of physical pain. And what is more, she has been increasingly placing herself in a false and increasingly difficult position in fandom. Essentially, in the last several months, she has been cultivating an abrasive, confrontational, foul-mouthed image, looking for online notoriety, making highly sensible statements in a violent, vulgar and unsubtle manner. She seemed to ache for the position of fandom wolf's-head, and when an "I-hate-Gun" community was started, she declared herself delighted.

Now the position of fandom wolf's-head is something I know about. I have gained it without wanting it, and apparently without effort. It is not something I particularly fancy, and I have said many times that I would rather quietly discuss music or theology with people I agree with than have violent online confrontations with people who hate me, over what may well be non-issues. However, something about my character - my foul temper and inability to keep silent or suffer gladly what I regard as folly - more or less predisposes me to be a stormy petrel. I knew it when I named my LJ, and I accept the consequences.

And if I do not particularly like the position, even my enemies will agree that I am sufficiently suited for it. I am capable of answering dozens of hostile or neutral questions on the trot, I have a cultivated gift for invective, and while I dislike rows, I love debates. I am 43 and set in my ways, and I am used enough to these things as not to feel crushed by the weight of hostility and occasional genuine hate that reaches me from time to time; especially when I find that it comes from people whom I would not respect in the first place.

theregoresyamum fancied herself in a similar role, but I do not think she is. For one thing, she is much too young. It took me 43 years to get tough enough to bear the knowledge that some people hate me; for most people, the very thought is intolerable. And for weeks if not months before the Zabini row, theregoresyamum had been showing signs that the burden of it all was getting at her. It is one thing to fancy oneself as an all-in wrestler, and quite another to have to do it. Insults aimed at you are not funny.

I fancy that the Blaise row made her snap. At a time when she was suffering in her private life, and already feeling the burden of widespread hostility, why should she take the blast from yet another row that she had done nothing to start? The pressure and injustice of it all grew on her till she exploded, defriending me and blasting me from her own LJ.

The involvement of another person I find much harder to bear or forgive. If there is one thing that friend and foe know of me, it is that I have long been an enthusiast for kennahijja. I regard her as a genius, and, quite frankly, I have repeatedly let her get away with things I would neither have excused nor forgiven anyone else. On a couple of occasions, I quietly deleted phenomenally offensive or foolish comments from her rather than having to upbraid her in public. Where genius is concerned - and she is a genius - I am a bit of a sucker.

In particular, her intervention in the Zabini row was so insulting that if it had come from someone else, they would have been banned. She declared, and insisted even in front of my firm and angry denial, that my reason to write as I did was self-interest - because I have written stories about an Italian Blaise.

I will have to give credit to everyone else who commented, even the basest: nobody sank so low. This kind of "ascribing motive" is not only the same as calling my reasons to argue corrupt; it is the end of any kind of argument whatever. Once a person starts assuming that you are arguing for any reason except that you believe in the argument itself, the argument is dead. You cannot answer that your motives are honest love of argument, because that road has been closed. You cannot set up another argument, because your reasons to do so will always be under attack. The only thing you can do is recognize that every chance of debating rationally with this particular person has come to an end.

Once again, I quietly hid this enormity from kennahijja and reproached her in a strictly private form. And the next thing she did was to go over to theregoesyamum's whiny entry about me and metaphorically pat her on the back, saying there, there, I have had the same problem with this person, he is clearly unreformable - and taking bloody good care not to inform anyone that I had just tried to give her a private lesson in ethics. I find this behaviour monstrous.

This is where things stand as far as I am aware, at present. If these things were reckoned by numbers, I might console myself by saying that I lost two friends and found ten. But that is poor consolation. I am very glad of the various nice, fun and interesting people I met; and I am more than glad, I am grateful and awed, at the magnanimous and open way with which ani_bester has waved away some past issues between us and admitted that she was not wholly without blame. That is a truly lovely thing to come out of this row.

But I regret, deeply and unmixedly, the loss of Gun and Hijja as friends. A friend is not a modular part of your machine, that can be removed or changed according to need; she or he is a part of you, of your life and your experience, a part of your intimacy, of your mental home. They are people who help weave that sense of personal warmth and acceptance that does so much to make the difference between despair and happiness. They are things that increase what you are, what your experience is, what you live for. And inevitable though I think - especially in the case of Hijja - the final smash, I can never stop wishing that it could somehow have gone differently.

P.S.: I just made the kind of discovery that usually makes me explode with fury. There is an entry in theregoesyamum's journal dedicated to this matter. It is full of things addressed to me personally, in a nice reasonable tone. I have already answered a couple of points, but by chance, and without meaning to, I entered the answers as anonymous. I went there today, intending to post a couple of points in my own name - and found that the whole nice reasonable screed, addressed to me and apparently expecting an answer from me, was f-locked against me.

Now I hope that Gun just did that at the start when she was angry, and forgot about it. Because otherwise all those professions of wishing things to end for the best would amount to the grossest kind of hypocrisy. Yes, I know that I can always answer as Anonymous, like all the people I banned from my LJ lurk and write in from time to time; but I am afraid that my self-respect will not let me do that. The first time was a mistake; there will be no second time. I will answer as myself, or not at all.

Comments

[mincot.livejournal.com]

Hum. Fandom issues get totally blown out of proportion, IMHO. I have only seen part of this kerfluffle, so I am going to refrain from any comment about who is in the right and who is in the wrong. I will say, however, that things like this are usually better left completely alone and ignored. It is difficult to just walk away, particularly when emotions are concerned, but in the end it is better that way. I also understand the ethical necessity to make a stand about something you believe in. However, engaging in fandom squabbles is not, for me, the way to do it--it just isn't worth the mental energy :)

However, in terms of making an ethical stand, I have to say that, personally, I have never had any issues with straussmonster, and in fact regard her as a friend. Nor have I ever, in any heated exchange, seen her make any comments that could earn the description of "a creep of the first water." She is articulate and intelligent, and quite clear in her reasoning insofar as any human being is. I'm sorry to hear that the pair of you have had serious differences, and you have every right to feel however you please about anyone (as does she). All I can do is to point out that human beings do take radically different positions on issues, and that there is rarely a single "right" way to see things (no matter how much we each feel our individual position is "right"). There are *ethical* implications for taking various stances, and one is perfectly free to feel that the other person is wrong-headed for taking those stances. However, as I know you know, that does not make the holders of different views irrational or malicious, save for those individuals who use arguments very cynically, as a cover for exploitative behavior. Rational people do add up the data and arrive at different conclusions, as Martin Luther found out when he claimed that reading and interpreting the Bible gave a "perfectly clear" meaning, and was faced with Andreas Karlstadt and Thomas Muntzer. They both began reading the New Testament with all the training of University theologians and still came to different conclusions than Luther did, much to his disgust.

[agatha-s.livejournal.com]

However, something about my character - my foul temper and inability to keep silent or suffer gladly what I regard as folly - more or less predisposes me to be a stormy petrel. I knew it when I named my LJ, and I accept the consequences.

You talk about your temper as if it was completely out of your hands, something you have to learn to live with. But people can control their temper. And even if it's hard for you to do that in real life, it can't be that difficult on the Internet. After writing down your thoughts you can always re-read them and decide to change them or delete them before you click on the "post comment" button.

I haven't talked to anyone else about this and I prefer to stay away from fandom debates because they are usually full of unnecessary venom and lead nowhere, but I felt I had to tell you my opinion about this. It seems that we have very different views on appropriate and inappropriate behaviour, because I think that having a grudge on someone because they insulted you and warning other people against them is very childish. The only other time I've seen someone do that on lj was when an anonymous commenter warned Private Maladict not to be friends with you, and I thought it was a very childish thing to do then, too.

As for Hijja's suggestion about your motives for the Zabini post, I don't see it as such a great insult. It seems to me a natural thing to assume. If I had known that you've written about an Italian Blaise Zabini I would probably have thought the same thing when you posted your essay. Not having known it, I was just amused and bewildered. I'm sorry; I'm sure you will find my words insulting too, but I thought it would be unfair to say nothing.

[mincot.livejournal.com]

I have to say I agree with agatha_s. One can control one's temper, and holding onto insults *is* counterproductive. If you don't choose to play with someone, fine. Making an issue of it, however, isn't worth it, for me.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I answered her comment, and you might want to have a look at my answer. As for straussmonster, believe me, it took something special in the way of bad manners, obstinacy and arrogance to drive me to act the way I have.

[mincot.livejournal.com]

I think we shall agree to disagree about straussmonster, but then that's the whole point of (and joy of!) academic discourse. People come to vastly different conclusions based on the same evidence, which is something I wish people here in the States would remember about politics when they are demonizing their opponents. I am a staunch liberal, but I can see exactly where my moderate and conservative friends are coming from. I disagree-but that doesn't make them stupid, wrong, needlessly combative, arrogant, or insulting--it just means that they have added up the evidence and come to a different conclusion.

That's something that a lot of folks, particularly if they have not had really rigorous training, tend to forget--they solidify their opinion as the only right one, and bolster it with moral or social claims (forgetting the ways in which some aspects of society and morality are culturally fluid--think about the development of racial nationalism, for example). Bush does this endlessly: his view is the "only" possible right view--after all, he prays about it and he is doing God's will--and those who oppose him are not just saying that they disagree, they must be unpatriotic and dangerous to national security. (See me rolling my eyes here.) That sort of argumentative reification is dangerous, and definitely will shut down a discourse. And it is not always a cynically taken position--in the example I'm using, I think Bush genuinely believes his position, just as legions of Europeans were convinced of their cultural superiority to the "darker skinned races," or many Americans were not happy about the waves of late nineteenth and early twentieth century immigration from Eastern and Southern Europe. In the exchange in question, I did not see Straussmonster arguing in that reductive fashion.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I think Bush carries a considerable amount of self-delusion, actually, which is especially visible in his economic policies. If we believed that he was honest and clear about what he is doing, then we would have to accept that to bankrupt the United States is his long-term goal. I find it easier to believe that he is deluded.

[dreamer-marie.livejournal.com]

I have to say I agree with Agatha on what she says about Hijja. You're a very chivalrous person, Fabio, but the downside of this is that you can be a bit touchy. I don't see what's wrong with being miffed that your fics are not canon anymore. Hell, when I found out that Alive!Dumbledore and Redeemed!Snape were not canon anymore, I cried for three hours!
I agree that it's not necessarily very noble, but it's human nature and it's not like you would have hurt anyone by being miffed about black!Zabini (not that I say you were).
I didn't read the comment, but are you sure she didn't say it as a joke? It's the kind of thing I could say when I'm teasing someone, without thinking for a second that it could be true.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

For the third time, my fics were never canon. I was not thinking about them at all when I began debating canon Blaise in gun's thread. And I do not like to have motives ascribed to me for any reason.

[mincot.livejournal.com]

That is the nature of fan-fic--it CANNOT be canon, because JKR did not write it. (IF this were a televison series with spin-off books, as in the Trek fandom or the Buffyverse, "canon" could be and in fact is defined somewhat more liberally to include approved authors and mutually inconsistent episodes.)

Canon-compliant versus a/u, however, is another kettle of fish ;) There's room for both styles. I actually find it fun regardless of whether my fics remain canon-compliant or are invalidated; just to see how close I came. For the record, three are all blown out of the water; one is mostly okay but contains one very non-canonical episode; two are still canon-compliant---for now. The final two (well, one and a half, as I only contributed to a group effort) were never intended to be anything but satires. On the other hand, I write one-shots, so my emotional investment in the world-as-it-appeared-in-book X is likely much more limited than that of someone who is writing novella-length fanfic.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Excuse me. Just how many pieces of subtlety must I deal with before you accept my clear, plain, simple, and repeated statement? My Blaise fics were never canon and were never intended to be. Is that clear? Apart from anything else, they started with Draco having a younger sister. They were, from the beginning, AU. And it follows that if I discuss the place of Blaise in canon, I am automatically not discussing my Blaise fics. And please do not have another elegant distinguo meant to get around this.

[mincot.livejournal.com]

My elegant distinguo is that I was simply agreeing with your point that your fics were never canon, on the grounds that fanfic is, by definition, not canon--the most they can be is canon-compliant. End of point :)

[fpb.livejournal.com]

You also seem to have forgotten the first point: that Hijja deliberately fanned the flames in Gun's page without telling anyone that I had just told her off in private and that she had reasons to be angry at me. Now, really, who is being dishonest here? Who is concealing her motives? Who is trading dishonestly on the public fact that I have repeatedly advocated her work? And who, finally, is doing that in the knowledge that I have excused her I don't know how many transgressions?

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Oh, and nobody seems to have paid attention to my clear statement that Hijja insisted on her insulting views even after I had denied them in so many words.

[mincot.livejournal.com]

That's sort of human nature. I think that using 1500 as an arbitray dividing line in history is just plain wrong-headed, but that does not stop legions of early-modernists persisting in using the world pre-1500 as a foil of "difference" for whatever they are trying to prove.

And Hija does have a point in general: people do make arguments for cynical reasons. Human also make very well-intentioned arguments that still serve the purpose of the dominant discourse. Think of the Enlightenment discourses about colonization, and the ways in which the idea that all humans were part of one rational family (though, of course, some were lagging behind and needed European intervention to be brought up to speed) legitimated colonial enterprises. The idea that we are all fundamentally equal in rationality, of course, underpins most modern human rights arguments, and is critical to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. But its implications--"backward" people needed European "help") only served as a justificatin for extending European dominance--out of a genuine belief in Europan "superiority". And--here's the kicker--even when someone does not necessarily hold a particular belief, his or her argument can still serve to support that belief ; moreover, people can and do deny things that are readily apparent to others all the time. My neighbours claim that they are not racist, and that nobody could hold those beliefs. Yet they felt the need to inform me--in 2003, no less--that only white labour had been used to build my house. In this case, I see a disjuncture between their claims and their statements that they themselves literally do not see. Nothing save different evidence will talk either of us out of our positions. So, regardless of what you do or do not believe, or use as a basis for your actions, and whether you are the Eternal Guardian of Italian Cultural Dominance or a guy who likes his heritage but doesn't have to champion it at every turn, whether you Just Don't Care or Care Passionately is immaterial to the way human argument works :) I can understand that Hija might make the argument she does.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Not after I had said no in so many words. To go back to it after that is as good as to call me either a liar or deluded. And apart from the further assault on the very possibility of further discussion - since nobody of sense would discuss anything with a deluded person or a conscious liar - that is plain bad manners.

[mincot.livejournal.com]

Actual, intended, personal attack *is* rude, and I don't tolerate that at all. However, I disagree that maintaining a difference of opinion about the underlying assumptions of an argument necessarily constitutes such an attack. Now, please bear in mind that what I am saying here is general, and not meant to imply that *in this particular case* either yours or Hija's point was "right" or "wrong". I am arguing that Hija's position is plausible and not necessarily an attack on your veracity or mental state.

Remember my neighbours, the ones who say they are not racist yet make racist comments? In seeing the gap between their statements about their beliefs and their comments, I am neither calling them liars nor deluded. They are most certainly not lying *from their perspective;* their mental categories are able to encompass both statements and not see them as contradictory. Because of that perspective, they are not deluded, either, or stupid (well, one neighbour is as dumb as the proverbial post, but I don't base that assumption on this incident). They are working from a different set of assumptions about racism, one in which "racism" means "hating / subordinating all ethnicities, even when you know them personally." In their definition, if they have black friends and co-workers, they can still generalize negatively about a group without being in their terms racist. Now, obviously, I disagree with that definition of racism, so I can still see their statements as embodying covert racism without seeing my neighbours as stupid, deluded, or mendacious.

A similar example --- when I teach premodern European history, someone of my students inevitably wants to repeat the old canard about "This was the period when the Church ruled, so people were ignorant, superstitious, irrational, and oppressed." Once we have disposed of the "Church ruling" issue in terms of politics, and introducting the idea of authority mediated and negotiated through various major players, we can then move on to definitions. Placing matters of faith above the economics of advancement is incomprehensible to my students, even the ones who will not do *anything* their pastors don't approve of (I teach in the Bible Belt). Left to themselves, medieval people would have acted just like modern capitalists, and because they did not, they therefore must have been "stupid" or "deluded" or oppressed by a Plot by the EEEVIL Catholic Church (which the students don't understand was not "The Catholic Church" at this point). So I spend a lot of time on the ways in which the medival world view compares with the modern view--where people are fundamentally similar (yes, one works toward one's own interests) and different (more identification of personal interest with community interests, an "economy of salvation"--if you think miracles CAN happen, and that the spiritual Otherworld is fairly close at hand, you invest more in THAT than in this world (and my Babptist students who tithe 10 and sometimes 20% of a LOW income start getting it at this point), a firm sence of "place" within a hierarchy, a sense of "just prices" that remain stable instead of charging what the market will bear, etc.) Once students start grasping the assumptions behind a world view, they no longer think that the people who held that view were stupid or deluded or victims of a highly improbable Plot. Instead, they were shaped by a different world view, one in which assumptions were often quite different from the ones the students hold. NOw,t he students still don't rush out to embrace the medieval world-view as their own. They understand, and still hold a different set of assumptions.

My point, therefore, is that I can imagine that Hija and you will hold different ideas about what your statement meant, and that maintaining a difference of opinion does not necessarily have the corollary that you OR Hija are lying, delusional, stubborn, mean-spirited, or unethical. You are working from different assumptions about the meaning of your statements. You may find, on consideration, that one or both of you does have a point, or you may say, we think differently, so let's agree to disagree and move on.

[mincot.livejournal.com]

Now, active rudeness is another matter--name calling, saying directly that "X is a stupid SOB" or "Yo mamma was a poodle with only two brain cells" or "You've obviously got donkey genes rather than human ones" or "Where was it you keep your brain again, because it isn't in your head" IS rude, if said seriously. However, the latter three can all ALSO be rhetorically funny--I've issued formal statements about my sister's ancestry when we were playing board games, and was meant, as I intended, with general laughter (oddly enough, as I share her ancestry ... ;) :) ) This style of joking is harder to do on the Internet, because the tone of voice does not come across and it is easier to take such statements as serious ones, but I have seen it done well.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

My point is that I have excused Hijja a lot. Too much.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

You mean like the difference where she would forbid Christians from taking part in politics?

[mincot.livejournal.com]

Several points on this issue.

1) The basic idea of most medieval religious teaching on the relationship of individuals to political or governmental involvement was, following Augustine, that human activity solely for its own sake--that following the City of Man--should be avoided. However, the city of God needed earthly governance, and there were just governments. This attitude of course presupposes the idea that government will remain consonant with and not undermine or attack religious doctrine. In 1890, Leo XIII summed up his statement by saying that "These precepts contain the abiding principle by which every Catholic should shape his conduct in regard to public life. In short, where the Church does not forbid taking part in public affairs, it is fit and proper to give support to men of acknowledged worth, and who pledge themselves to deserve well in the Catholic cause, and on no account may it be allowed to prefer to them any such individuals as are hostile to religion." However, then the issue became whether a government, and hence political involvement, supported Christian doctrine. The lines between secular and religious powers were much more fluid than they are today, a situation aided by the increasingly local character of rule through the early eleventh century. Secular rulers such as Charlemagne acted as guardian of the church, making rules for clerics; bishops could and did act as secular lords and governed whole territories, entire churches could be and were part of a local ruler's privileges, including the appointment of the priest or bishop. So a ruler's conception of adhering to doctrine and a cleric's might be similar--or very different.

Obviously there were attempts to clarify the situation. Ambrose's ability to enforce Theodosius' penance, the development of the monastery of Cluny, the Investiture Controversy, the Papal Inquisition, and the papacy of Innocent III all were high water marks in claiming the primacy of clerical authority. Charlemagn'es rule and coronation, the settlement of the Investiture Controversy (particularly in England), and the rule of Philip Augustus of France were all indicative of the primacy of secular governments. (A similar issue: clerics were forbidden to shed blood in battle, so they carried no edged weapons; both Cuthbert and Odo of Bayeux wielded lethal shillelaghs.)

2) As a result, one sees a vast disjuncture between practice and prescription. What clerics said and claimed was not necessarily what people actually did. Innocent III, perhaps the most powerful of the medieval popes, could not bring Philip Augustus to heel over his remarriage to Agnes of Meran, although he could force John of England to come to terms and to offer England as a papal fief. Despite the Papal Inquisition, the Cathars continued to dominate southern France until the Albigensian Crusade (1209-1229), a military expedition.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Sir, you speak without the book. Or, in this case, without the knowledge of what it was about. You have made a great deal of effort on answer every word of which is strictly irrelevant to the matter at hand. Reflections on Combes, or Stalin, or Plutarco Calles, would have been more to the point.

[mincot.livejournal.com]

This brings up a third point. The coercive power of the Church throughout most of the Middle Ages has been vastly overrated. It certainly had a great deal of moral force, but as an institution it still had trouble establishing control over its own members, let alone the rest of society, in part because of the tangle of roles and jurisdictions I mentioned above. In the Investiture Controversy, for example, Gregory VII claimed that bishops were subordinate to the Pope, not the Holy roman Emperor. Yet in the conflict the German bishops sided with the Emperor, not Gregory. Gradually Rome built up institutional procedures for all churches--canon law, appeals to Rome, lines of authority--and tried to dissolve the bonds of "national" churches. By the thirteenth century much of this mechanism was in place, and one can properly begin speaking of The Church as opposed to Christian Churches--but, again, see the failures to establish complete superiority. For every Peter Abelard who was disciplined, there was a Marsiglio of Padua or a low-level heretic who was not. Power in the Middle Ages--including religious power--was always mediated and negotiated.

4) That said, clerical authority could be quite strong. Most medieval Europeans (assuming that one can even talk about "Europe" as opposed to "Castile" or "Burgundy" or "France", which, according to Robert Bartlett, was a concept that really began to take hold only in the thirteenth century) operated within a Christian framework, however vaguely understood, and accepted some form of Christianity. They might accept dogs as saints, and they might tenaceously defend their privileges against those of clerics, but they still accepted a Christian world-view. There were great outwellings of popular piety, and Christianity was interwoven into the daily fabric of life. But accepting that daily fabric and asking "how high?" when a cleric commanded them to jump were two different things (particularly when there were differences among clerics).

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Oh, and you said nothing that I did not know and little I had not argued in writing against the common nonsense about "medievalism".

[mincot.livejournal.com]

But "excusing" seems to me to be grasping the wrong end of the stick here, at least as regards my argument, because it implies that your stance is correct and patently obvious, while his /hers is not. Now, again, I don't know the whole story, so I am resolutely avoiding saying who is right here and who is wrong. I am also NOT saying that if there was genuine rudeness on either of your parts that the other party does not have the right to be angry and hurt, or feel whatever other feelings there may be. Neither am I saying that there is no such thing as a wrong argument. There are: there can also be a moral component to taking a specific stance. However, what that moral component is, and attached to what stance, is not absolute -- it is governed by time and culture, experience and training. Therefore, what I am saying is that from the outside, regardless of who is "right" or "wrong", both arguments are plausible and rational, and neither needs to be *excused*. Difference just has to be lived with. ;)

[livii.livejournal.com]

That story about the white labour has stayed with me powerfully since I heard it at your house; I've repeated it to a lot of people, and it makes a very interesting conversation starter. It boggles everyone's minds, but it also ends up stimulating a lot of thought.

/ot!

(Also: lovely work here, hon; you make some really good, reasonable points, and interesting historical ones!)

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I have a problem myself, not with colour of any kind, but with how frequently I find the offices of British public organizations - ministries, local government, etc. - staffed by people who are obviously first-generation immigrants, often with poor English. Private employers, within limits of law, may of course employ whoever they think best, but one would expect the public matter to be handled by citizens and natives - whatever their colour. This not only because one does not like to see the state employing cheap labour to keep wages down - which is the only reason I can think of why there are so many first-generation immigrant clerks and employees - but because I feel there is some sort of issue with loyalty to the place and people. After all, the expression "civil service" is complementary to "military service" and means, not just any kind of commercial work, but something in the nature of a service to the country and the people.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

First: the Zabini figure I placed in my stories was NOT the one I described in the debate as the most obvious conclusion to be drawn from previous canon features. That Zabini was an Englishman of Italian descent, probably of immigrant (and therefore impoverished) origin; mine was an Italian from a great wizarding house. So my story ideas have nothing to do with my views about canon Blaise. Second: if you cannot see that to assume any reason for having a view, other than the belief that it is true, makes argument impossible, there is nothing I can do about it. The only foundation to argue at all is to assume that the other person means what s/he says; that his/her point are held from convinction and from belief that they are honestly true or valid or sensible; that they are not motivated by any further considerations; that the argument being offered is not a whore in the service of hidden motives. You can assume that an opponent is wrong; but when you assume not only that s/he is wrong, but that s/he has secondary reasons to argue as they do, then there is no point arguing with them at all. I find it strange that you cannot see something so obvious. It amounts to assuming that your opponent is honest.

[agatha-s.livejournal.com]

I agree that being accused of dishonesty is an insult. But in this specific matter, your own fanfics as a motive wouldn't make you dishonest because they don't cast a different light on any of the facts you mentioned. All the reasons you thought Zabini was Italian would still be there and your fanfics would just be an explanation why you were so emotionally involved in the argument.
It doesn't look to me as if Hijja was accusing you of lying, but I can't find the thread where it happened -- maybe you deleted it? -- so I'm really only guessing. It's just that what you described in this post doesn't sound to me like an event that should end a friendship.

[neigedens.livejournal.com]

I have a question, somewhat unrelated, I suppose. How come all of this has to be done on such a public level? If you and Gun and a few others have a grievance with each other, why not just take it to email or IM? I know that's the reason places such as f_w exist, but it's really not as fun to watch when friends of yours are involved.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

It just happened that way, I'm afraid. The thing began on LJ and could not, afterwards, be altogether removed from it. I tried to settle the matter with Hijja via e-mail, but her public intervention on Gun's thread blew that out of the water.

[purple-mirie.livejournal.com]

Erm...

I can't really comment on the issue as, like mincot, I've only seen part of the debate and tried to keep out of it. Fandom debacles have a tendency to get messy, and in the end, not worth the trouble. It's just sad that you lost two friends over something (in my opinion) as trivial as this.

Fandom's taking itself too seriously, I think. It's supposed to be somewhat of a refuge from the troubles of real life, where we can meet people who love the same thing we do. Or is it too much to hope that people will eventually outgrow adolescent tendencies?

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I would like to make peace with Gun, because I like her and feel that she really has stampeded herself into a position where she is not happy. HIjja, on the other hand, I really feel I have given more than enough space to. There is an Italian proverb that says "uno perdona, due perdona, tre bastona" - "One you'll forgive, two you'll forgive, three you'll use the stick." Hijja has been forgiven far more than three times.

[(Anonymous)]

Since some of this *is* directed to me, I will only speak for myself here. I voiced a *honest* opinion in *polite* terms, because your argument, frankly, made no shred of sense to me. Now that might be due either to my lack of intellectual perception or your lack of convincing argument, but I'll happily leave that to public opinion.

Fact is that while I'm not above being "phenomenally foolish" at times, I have *never* given you a "phenomenally offensive" comment in the time of our acquaintance - you know my opinion on name-calling and personal attacks. And - as you equally well know - I'm about as vulnerable to "public upbraiding" as a duck is to downpour.

But the one thing that pisses me off to *no end* is to be censored for voicing my honest opinion in unoffensive language. Whether it affects LJ posts, or story reviews. *Especially* since I may have defriended you for personal attacks on others in my LJ, but have never touched *any* of your posts in my own LJ.

To first delete my comments, and *then* to claim it was a "lesson in ethics" instead of blatant censorship of an unpleasant opinion - that's not just insulting, that's downright dishonourable! Personal and patronising attacks I can handle. Censorship is insulting. I don't know what keeps prompting you to do it - an inability to deal with publicly visible disagreement from someone you claim to like has crossed my mind, but is idle speculation - but I very subjectively feel it's an ugly display of double standards.

(*counting the hours/minutes before this comment disappears as well*)

[kennahijja.livejournal.com]

Yes, that was me.

And oh, honey...

[fpb.livejournal.com]

...I just came across a previous mail by you when you compared my religion to Osama Bin Laden's. All part, of course, of your never saying anything phenomenally offensive to me.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Obviously you do not understand. You ought at least to have the sense not to claim to be the best judge of whether you are offensive or not. You are, to me, very much indeed. And considering that you would forbid all public expression of Catholic doctrine and Catholic intervention in politics, just because "it makes you feel demeaned", you ought to be the last person in the world to protest if someone feels that what you have said to him is offensive. And the act of intervening on LJ's thread was disgusting.

You are no longer welcome on this LJ. Take your self-satisfaction away with you.

[walkerhound.livejournal.com]

Sorry for the late reply

Censorship, bigotry, racist, intolerant, fascist, oppressive ect ect. These are big words powerful words that should not be used litey. for a long time i have been unwilling to use them my self. by and large when i heard somebody else use them, my reaction was that this person dose not truly understand the import of what thy were saying. Seldom was a word with that much power needed to describe the often trivial complaint.

but to those that say (and there have been a distressing number) that would make statements like this... i say this is the vary definition of bigotry and repression.

you must not follow your hart/faith (at lest not in public) if you are to be allowed to...x. as long as you keep it quite and strictly confined to your home or other privet place (but be sure to never let it intrude onto real life). in sort you can believe what ever you wish, as long as you don't act as if you mean it.

[walkerhound.livejournal.com]

i was referring to the quote

"And considering that you would forbid all public expression of Catholic doctrine and Catholic intervention in politics, just because "it makes you feel demeaned"

in other words i was agreeing with you (fpb) in regards to your reaction to a statement made by kennahijja. the last part of my post was in the nature of a translation. the high sounding statements made by many people that advocate this view followed by my interptation of what they are in fact saying (as a practical matter).

Another example would be when some one request that a catholic separate the faith of Catholicism form the body of the church. It sounds almost resanble but in fact it show’s at best a misunderstanding of how the body of the catholic church operates.

and i am Matthew Richerd Henley

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I realized that now, and I ABJECTLY APOLOGIZE. Sorry, it sounded so bad in isolation - and as a piece of satire, much too close to what people really say or think at present. I have already deleted an entry related to this and I apologize again. this was particularly inexcusable from me, because as a historian I am trained to look at documents in context and as far as possible within the whole sequence of argument of which they are a part. Again, I do most sincerely apologize. The previous response will be deleted as soon as I post this.

[walkerhound.livejournal.com]

that's cool, between my abysmal spelling (see the mistakes in my own name) and my near total lack of understanding for the mechanics of the English language i'm often misunderstood. (the curse of being highly LD;)

incidentally I’m not really sure why I put my name on that last one?

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Well, it felt to me like a proof of honesty. One of the things I often charge opponents with is attacking people under pseudonyms. (That, incidentally, does not apply to kennahijja, whose real identity I know.)