Prelude to a flamewar

[fpb]

A few months ago, I suffered the atrocious insult of having a long comment screened - that is, kept from other readers - by inverarity, who then added insult to injury by lying about the circumstances in which he had done it. The incredible thing is that he seriously seemed to consider his behaviour reasonable and decent; and concluded the exchange with the patronizing statement: "Feel free to come back after you calm down."

What makes this painful from my point of view is that inverarity is a great writer. I do not intend to deprive myself of his forthcoming novel Alexandra Quick and the Stars Above, although I will probably not deliver reviews which, even if positive, would not be welcome. inverarity's prejudices, and even worse his convinction that he is open-minded when he is incapable of reacting to disagreement except with contempt and mockery, made any kind of debate impossible. It is diagnostic of the man that he thinks highly of Richard Dawkins. But if he were Berthold Brecht and Ezra Pound wrapped up in one, I would still be anxiously waiting for the new Alexandra Quick.

Alas, to know how it is coming along, I have to read inverarity's blog. And now he has produced a revolting review of what seems to be a revolting book; a review so revolting that I can't, for decency's sake, keep silent - not without feeling that I have left the field, by default, to something despicable.

It is at this point, upset and revolted as I was, that I came across, quite by chance, johncwright delivering a well-deserved spanking to some jerk who had been offended at a perfectly reasonable historical statement. My relationship with johncwright is peculiar, and in some ways mirrors that with inverarity. I tend to agree with many of his views, though by no means all; I appreciate his learning and his ability to defend his position; but I am unhappy about his manners, and especially about the way he tends to dump on anyone who disagrees with him from a great height. I wish he realized that to use such words as "pervert" when the other person does not even agree that such a thing as perversion exists is question-begging, and that a sentence built up of nothing but such unargued assertions is a sentence built of nothing but question-begging.

I mentioned to Wright, half in jest, that as he was in the mood to bash a bit of history in unperceptive heads, he might want to try it with the review in question. He looked at it and was even more horrified than I was, though he told me that I would have to "fight that dragon myself". In a brief exchange, we agreed that the review basically represents the worst kind of relativism, the kind that, by refusing a priori to distinguish between right and wrong, effectively gives wrong equal citizenship.

Word of this reached inverarity, probably through a trackback bot. He didn't like it - I don't suppose anybody would - and took a step I wouldn't have, trying to involve his friends in the row. As a by-product of this, I got the most stunning display of unselfconscious, rampant bigotry ever: one of inverarity's friends informed me that anyone who frequented the likes of johncwright was ipso facto condemned, since Wright was the sort whom no decent man would associate with. Take a bow, tealterror0; it's not often that someone manages to give such a bold, unselfconscious display of intolerance.

There is something highly ironical in all this. Only a few days ago, I raved on this LJ about Mark Twain's "critical annihilation" of a professor who had written a stupid and misconceived book about Shelley. Now I am called to do the same. The difference is that there is no space for enjoyment: the opposing thesis is too monstrous, the way in which it is deployed is too prejudicial, and last but not least, the utter unwillingness to learn of someone I still regard as a great writer means that at best - even if it wasn't the case that I am arguing against the zeitgeist, and that half my readers will probably find something excusable in his deplorable views - I will be left with nothing but a strong taste of ashes in my mouth.

Comments

[fadad3eafadsf.livejournal.com]

Since you were banned from Inverarity's LJ, I have to post this here:

For Fpb's context:

I was the Anon who posted asking Inverarity for a Dawkins recommendations, the one you jumped on as a "prospective Dawkins groupie." I figure I will address the personal insult before actually moving on to the substance of my post.

I'm not a "Dawkins groupie" anymore than any other writer's "groupie" (Except for perhaps GEM Anscombe and Bernard Williams. They are amazing.) I was asking for recommendations because he has been referenced in so many textbooks, and is largely respected in the Atheist community. As I said on Inverarity's LJ, I found TGD to be less than pleasing(my exact statement was that he addressed the book to the "talk-show audience." You know, a polite way of saying "He was a purile, inane, historically-citation-less crank with extremely weak arguments fueled more by emotion than logic.") and don't understand the acclaim the man has. Rather than pass him off as the Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck of the Atheist movement, I wanted to educate myself. I figured Inverarity, as someone I respect and see as a highly intelligent individual, may have read some books worth reading; so asking him for a recommendation on the subject seemed like a worthwhile first post.

Now for the substance:

You annoy me. Not because you attacked the character of my intellect on a baseless assumption, I've been on the internet too long for that. Not because you are uneducated, unintelligent, or illiterate, in the way most posters on the internet are; on the contrary, you annoy me for the opposite reason. You are clearly an intelligent, well informed person... But you can't convey that worth shit.

You are an erudite toddler. If someone disagrees with you, you throw a temper tantrum. For example, you addressed the Hitler's Pope idiocy and then had a hissy-fit when that Virginia person asked for citations. In fact, you went off on the tangent about modern day sex abuse without addressing the citations problem; or indeed, addressing the scandal in an appropriate manner ("You are a shareholder in the lie factory" is not an adequate response in any context.).

Honestly, this is the internet and I normally wouldn't care. But this is a personal issue to me. I'm a person who has, for the 20 years of his life, been consistently on the fence concerning his own Catholicism. My intellectual integrity is far more important to me than my faith, but there are some cases where those go hand in hand. For instance, historically inaccurate readings of the Church's behaviour. To see someone intelligently argue a position I would (mostly) defend, then have them undercut that with obnoxious personal attacks and a refusal to share sources is infuriating. This is acutely annoying because of the lack of intelligent Catholic writers on the internet.

This is also indicative of your behaviour on Inverarity's journal. You blow up over nothing, attack people rather than their ideas, and mope around about being victimized and misunderstood. Certainly, there have been times when TealTerror and others argue passed you, but do you honestly think you are the blameless incarnation of Christ on the internet? Inverarity has, in fact, addressed why he doesn't directly debate you. Because, simply put, he didn't believe you could do so reasonably. His assumption is a valid one. Your posts are consistently filled with self-righteous martyr-complex induced vitriol. If you want him to respond with something other than "mockery" give him a reason to think it will be worthwhile.

As a fellow Catholic, I implore you: grow up, or shut up. As someone who has posted on LJ only once (twice with this post) I hope you will take what I have said into consideration. It's easy to pass over the words of people you have been at odds with for three years, but you don't really have the "You're biased against me!" excuse with my writing.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

You are under the impression that I have any obligation to trolls. That Virginia person was a troll. Anyone who writes as follows: "It is one thing to look at the rampant callous and indeed criminal behavior of the Catholic Church where ordained pedophiles are concerned and say They are fucking up, but this is a symptom of a broader cultural problem that they are both a result of and perpetuating," and quite another to say, "The Catholic Church has some problems, okay, but overall they're a good organization and if they become an international pedophile cartel, well I think we should consider how that might be everybody else's fault," which is what this really comes off as - has made up her mind, period. She DOES NOT WANT TO BE TOLD that the Church is basically a good organization; she wanted - and that is where the insanity lies - to discuss with me the "religiously-based" depravity of the Church. For her, that was a given. The list of sources she gave - including schismatic Jew-bashing sites I would not touch with a barge-pole - only bore that out further. She had trawled the Internet for anything, anything at all, that could be used to tar the Church as black as she possibly could. And after that, mind you, she expected me to treat her views as if they were responsible, sensible and worth arguing. Sorry, life's too short. If that is the best you can come up with, I would suggest you read with a bit more care.

As for inverarity, you did not answer the question: what is the point of arguing with someone who, like Mussolini, is always right?