I don't deny that I can be an asshole, but it usually takes a certain amount of pushing to get me to that point, after which I'm all over you. What follows is a reprint of an email I sent a friend not long after I blew up at author Zach Shatz for what I saw as extremely annoying assholery disguised as civility. The exchange between Zach and me is unretouched except for minor things like font color and style. You, Reader, may judge for yourself just how much of a dick I was, but before you do, read my commentary at the bottom of this post relating the history of my correspondence with this individual.
The email to Friend X begins thus (this email's text will be in black boldface from here on in; the emails I quote from will be in either blue (me) or red (Zach; yeah, we're doing the good/bad Jedi thing):
X,
I lost my temper and told Zach to fuck off based on a series of exchanges we had over the course of today. The guy's got issues. He was open about some of them in the interview, but damn.
I'm using Rich Text formatting so you can see the emails as they were originally written by him and me. Take your time; it ought to be entertaining. I'm thinking about publishing the exchange (which I told Zach I'd likely do because, yes, I'm an asshole that way).
First, here's Zach's email after one of his friends emailed him the text of my blog entry. Zach wasn't happy with my intro, so he laced it with complaints in parentheticals.
Zach wrote:
Kevin, a friend sent me the text off your blog. I still want to get there myself. I'll follow your suggestions and see if I can. Meanwhile, thought I'd give you some comments witihn your intro.
Be well, Zach
Zach Schatz (misspelled my name) is an American author, teacher, and Big Thinker (nice of you) who recently moved to China. He found a post of mine, the old Contra Vallicella piece, and congratulated me on what he thought was a good argument (the analytical philosophers in the corner, however, weren't quite so impressed and gave me a sound drubbing from which I still haven't recovered). Zach and I struck up a cordial email dialogue many months ago and he was kind enough to mail me a copy of a book he'd written, titled Prisms and Mind (visit the book's website, Prismind, and order a copy). I received the book and read it in no time at all (while this might be true, I remember you saying it would take time for you to digest; here it's made to sound insubstantial) , as it's only about 70 pages long. The prose is clean and well-edited; the words have a poetic ring to them. (thanks) As it turns out, Zach is, among other things, a poet, so his book's simple eloquence is no accident.
I had agreed to help Zach promote his book by doing some sort of interview (here it sounds like an obligation you couldn't get out of, rather than by your invitation); we negotiated a bit on format, with yours truly gently insisting on IMs for more spontaneity. Zach kindly consented, but my summer vacation intervened and we couldn't do the interview right away. After various delays (some for technical reasons; it turns out that the Chinese internet isn't always user-friendly) (subtly taking your jab!), we finally managed to sit down and IM for three hours on Monday, September 3rd. I had also noted to Zach that I had several fundamental disagreements with the book, and that I hoped we could hash those out. I admitted that my disagreements might be rooted in misunderstandings of his ideas, which was another reason I was looking forward to the exchange.
What follows is the transcript of the three-hour IM conversation we had. We've cleaned up the typos and adjusted the formatting for clarity's sake, but the substance of the dialogue remains untouched. I hope you'll enjoy reading the exchange. Of course, this isn't really the end of it: the dialogue will likely continue (that would be splendid), and you, Reader, are invited to participate in it through comments or email (would love to be apprised of any such responses) (keep my email policy in mind, please; the policy is on my sidebar).
I replied:
Zach,
Sorry about the misspelling. Thanks for catching that. I've corrected the problem.
Regarding your comments:
(while this might be true, I remember you saying it would take time for you to digest; here it's made to sound insubstantial)
Zach, you're making too much of what I said. What I wrote was literally true. I'm not changing this. If anything, think about the positive way to read my remark: it was engaging and absorbing, a page turner. A page turner I happen to disagree with, for sure, but a page turner all the same.
(here it sounds like an obligation you couldn't get out of, rather than by your invitation)
I'm not sure why you insist on a negative interpretation of what I've written. If I've made a promise to do something, doesn't that promise become an obligation? Where did I imply it was a burden, especially when you read the rest of what I wrote there? Come on, Zach. Relax. Seriously. Don't go for the negative outlook.
(would love to be apprised of any such responses)
Your homework is to figure out how to access my blog. Have you tried Unipeak or other proxies yet? Once you're able to see my blog, hit the time stamp link under any blog post in order to see the comments.
FYI: Per my email policy, I do reserve the right to publish blog-related emails I receive. I'm mentioning this since you haven't had a chance to see the blog yet.
Kevin
Zach wrote back, again inserting his reactions (boldface) into the text:
Zach,
Sorry about the misspelling. Thanks for catching that. I've corrected the problem.
Regarding your comments:
"(while this might be true, I remember you saying it would take time for you to digest; here it's made to sound insubstantial)"
Zach, you're making too much of what I said. What I wrote was literally true. I'm not changing this. If anything, think about the positive way to read my remark: it was engaging and absorbing, a page turner. A page turner I happen to disagree with, for sure, but a page turner all the same. No problem. But why are you so willing to call it a page-turner here, but don't say that in your intro? Obviously, if you've taken the time and used my work in your blog, you give it credit. I'm just noting what I read.
"(here it sounds like an obligation you couldn't get out of, rather than by your invitation)"
I'm not sure why you insist on a negative interpretation of what I've written. If I've made a promise to do something, doesn't that promise become an obligation? Where did I imply it was a burden, especially when you read the rest of what I wrote there? Come on, Zach. Relax. Seriously. Don't go for the negative outlook. Your intro says, "I had agreed to help Zach..." Sounds like I asked you rather than the other way around, that you offered to help me. It just minimizes your enthusiasm for my book. Again, none of this is said with any emotional charge attached. No negativity. Just noting how I perceive it to read, that detracts a bit. Hopefully you can benefit from/appreciate a person's thoughts about your remarks.
"(would love to be apprised of any such responses)"
Your homework is to figure out how to access my blog. Have you tried Unipeak or other proxies yet? Once you're able to see my blog, hit the time stamp link under any blog post in order to see the comments. Haven't tried yet, but I will, and I think it will work.
FYI: Per my email policy, I do reserve the right to publish blog-related emails I receive. I'm mentioning this since you haven't had a chance to see the blog yet. Not a problem, come what may.
Kevin
[NB to the blog reader: The above boldface text was HTML'ed with red, and it looked red on my preview screen, but it was coming out black on the actual blog, so I've decided to keep Zach's text black.]
And finally, I snapped:
Zach, I'm fed up with your whining. You emailed me TWICE to ask whether you could send me your book. Do you recall this? I have your emails on file. Your second email even went so far as to ask whether I had ignored you the first time you asked about sending me the book. That's promotion, Zach. I AGREED to help you promote your book.
Your current questions and comments betray a vast insecurity coupled with a desperate need to control your message-- a message you seem to think is beyond rational explanation, which makes me wonder how it can even be expressed, much less controlled.
At age 47, you should have some notion of responsible conduct. When you missed the first online meeting we'd arranged, I made an effort to be polite, but my estimation of you dropped considerably. I honestly thought I was dealing with another fresh-out-of-college "Expat in Asia" who had no idea what the hell he was doing. That's why I wondered how old you were. Your continued fumbling with online issues (be happy I publicly blamed China, not you) hasn't raised my esteem any. I've tried very hard to be civil and accommodating with you, Zach, but the time has come to cut the bullshit and tell you what you need to hear. Take a good, long look at yourself in the mirror and ask yourself what you're doing in China. I think you'll discover that, at bottom, the answer is: "I don't know." Change that.
And toughen up. Frankly, I don't have time for your problems. If you feel the need to interpret the things I've written negatively, don't foist that psychological issue on me. I'm not about to kiss your ass and rewrite every little detail of what I've written just to appease your need to micromanage.
One thing I've learned in interreligious dialogue is that you have to risk reinterpretation by the Other. I haven't done that to you, but as old as you are, you should have the intestinal fortitude to deal with (mis)perceived reappropriations of your writing. I occasionally get comments on my blog from people who either don't understand what I've written or who understand but disagree. I don't complain about this fact, and you shouldn't, either. Misunderstanding and differing interpretations are part of the larger process of communication, not an opportunity for bellyaching.
Zach, I'm done with you. DO NOT reply to this email. As things stand, I'm likely to publish this email (I reserve that right, as stipulated on my blog and as noted in my previous email) along with the ones you've been sending me so that people can see for themselves how peevish and petty you sound. In your recent reply, you noted that my publishing your emails is "not a problem, come what may." I take this as written consent.
Kevin
PS: Your email address is now filtered. All replies will end up in my trash folder and will be deleted unread. So let this go and learn some actual maturity while you're in China.
Maybe it's because I'm in the middle of planning the upcoming semester. Whatever the reason, I just didn't feel I had time for this shit, and Zach doesn't seem like the kind of person I'd like to waste time with, anyway. It's not his beliefs that bother me; I'm proud to know people with all sorts of strange beliefs. Long live variety! No, what bothered me was the whining, the wheedling, and the persistent nitpicking. So I took Joe Hyams's advice from Zen in the Martial Arts and decided not to waste any more time with Zach. Life's too short. Better to cut off a finger now than amputate an arm later.
[NB: The above paragraph is the concluding paragraph of the email I had sent to Friend X. The Zach/Kevin exchange was nestled in this email.]
So that's the email exchange. Now for some history.
Zach's very first email to me was in February of this year, complimenting me on my "Contra Vallicella" piece from so long ago. We struck up a civil enough conversation, but in Zach's first and second email, he offered to send me a copy of his book.
In his second email, he wrote:
Hey, Kevin. Good to hear your reflections on your piece. Not only did I send you my web address, but offered you a complementary copy of the book, if you like. Did you miss that part, or are you just not interested? Send your mailing address, if you want it. Be well.
There's nothing particularly wrong with self-promotion, but what Zach was doing in that above unpleasant exchange was twisting the truth: he doesn't seem to want to acknowledge that he came to me first. Zach is essentially accusing me of lying. Are you beginning to see why I lost patience with him?
Zach also wrote the following regarding whether we could make changes to our IM conversation:
I wouldn't be interested in a project in which my words are edited. This isn't out of vanity, but is essential to intuitive science. As is presented on pages 27 and 29, linguistics is the intuitive complement to mathematics. The words are the formulations, and not just chatter. To edit my language would be to interfere wih my assertions. Challenge all you want, but editing my words would be out of the question. Excising portions would have to be by consent. You might unknowningly be deleting necessary material.
I should point out that Zach came around to the idea of cleaning up the IM conversation-- something I was in favor of because we'd both made so many typos. Making such changes wasn't problematic to me, and I didn't see Zach's acceptance of a little proofreading as hypocritical. However, after Zach accepted most of my suggested changes, he made one very interesting (and, in my opinion, substantive) change to his own text: in the line where he talks about scientists not publicly advocating his point of view, Zach made the following change:
(ORIGINAL) Also, I've met world-class scientists and many others on my journey and they've been largely very positive also, but refrain from getting on board because their reputations demand the rejection of anything spiritual.
(EDITED) Also, I've met world-class scientists and many others on my journey and they've been largely very positive also, but refrain from getting on board because their exalted reputations demand the rejection of anything spiritual.
Keep in mind that Zach had originally said that he was totally against the editing of his words. I suppose he might have meant that editing himself was fine, but how does this square with his contention that "linguistics is the intuitive complement to mathematics," which seems to make discourse/textuality of supreme importance (an idea I scoff at, by the way)? He made this claim about the importance of language despite being aware that we were going to engage in a spontaneous, typo-ridden IM dialogue (how many such dialogues are unspontaneous and typo-free?).
So why the reversal? Why the need to add a sneering "exalted" to this supposedly sacrosanct, initially untouchable text? Zach told me he was actually quite a devout Christian, but his tactics betray a talent for subtle duplicity-- more serpent than saint, I think. At the very least, he's a damn hypocrite.
Zach also had this to say via email about his knowledge of science:
About science and empiricism - I'd call my science knowledge quite strong for a layman.
Having just accused Zach of duplicity, it's only fair that I come clean and confess my own trickery: I had asked for the IM format for one specific reason: I didn't want Zach to have the time to grab a reference and bullshit his way through an answer, as would have been possible in an email interview. I was relying on the idea that Zach would remain at his keyboard-- and in the moment-- and would answer off the top of his head.
I was rewarded for my efforts. At the very end of the interview, I asked Zach-- a man who claims to use prisms as his central paradigm for the true nature of reality, and who must therefore know his prisms through and through-- what a "Kretschmann prism" was. This wasn't a throw-away question; it had a purpose. Zach's reply, as you'll recall, was:
I can't answer that at the moment! Try Wikipedia!
Let me tell you a little secret: the Kretschmann prism is mentioned in Zach's book. You'd think he'd know what it was before mentioning it.
Busted.
What else doesn't Zach know? In his tiny book, Zach quotes the titles of many research papers that mention prisms. Has he read and actually understood these research papers? He should be able to, given his "quite strong" knowledge of science, but I have my doubts as to whether Zach's science knowledge actually is that strong. As it turns out, he also messed up on the color mixing question; I'll talk about this in another post.
Scientists are held to strict standards of integrity: they keep each other honest. Individual researchers are as flawed and biased as anyone else, and science, viewed as a whole, has made its share of blunders. But science measures itself against reality, and if scientists try to jigger the numbers, reality will eventually slap the cheaters down-- which is why scientists themselves refer to science as self-correcting. The field cannot move forward without such empirical notions as repeatability, verifiability, and Karl Popper's notion of falsifiability (so eloquently discussed by Carl Sagan in his image of "the dragon in my garage"). Scientists, as scholars and researchers, also have to adhere to certain rigorous academic standards. As another friend pointed out, it is the height of sloppiness to mention references one hasn't bothered to read, and I'm pretty sure that if Zach doesn't know what a Kretschmann prism is, he probably hasn't read (m)any of the research papers he cites.
Let me delve into why the recent exchange with Zach set me off. You might not agree with my reasoning, and that's fine, but I think you'll agree that I wasn't completely irrational to do what I did. Let's review some of Zach's comments in the above exchange.
First: "(while this might be true, I remember you saying it would take time for you to digest; here it's made to sound insubstantial)"
Zach seems to be complaining that I've somehow diminished his work. That's not how I read my own remark. Instead-- as I pointed out to Zach-- my having gone through Zach's book in "no time" could be taken positively: the book engaged me. This, by the way, is true. The book is indeed well written, whatever its fundamental flaws. Zach is whining here, and I find it annoying. The fact that he will insist on whining in the next part of this exchange will become infuriating.
Second: "(here it sounds like an obligation you couldn't get out of, rather than by your invitation)"
What exactly is Zach's point? He seems to be saying I've twisted the truth. This remark pissed me off. A lot. Yes, I proposed the interview, but Zach came to me first. It is absolutely true that I was agreeing to help him promote his book. Our aims, at least at the time, were consonant. Zach wanted to be known and read; I wanted to help him achieve that goal.
Third: "(subtly taking your jab!)"
Jab? I was actually covering for Zach, again out of politeness. Zach Shatz, Mr. Quite Strong in Science, is apparently a zero with computers. While he was in the States, he was unable to read my Korean-language mailing address (it came out as gibberish characters on his screen), and he never figured out how to reconfigure his computer to make those characters legible. I eventually had to send him a PNG graphic of the address. The procedure that allows modern browsers to read foreign languages is available on Google, like everything else that exists in the cosmos. At that early point in our correspondence, I was willing to overlook this clumsiness as a mere quirk, but in light of the above exchange and my own increasingly sour insights into Zach's character, this inability became less puzzling and more annoying. When Zach was in China, we again went through several rounds of emails before he was able to get set up on Yahoo! Messenger. It's not as though China is a technological backwater; they steal enough tech to keep up with the times. And Zach, who I assume has friends (they're the ones who viewed my blog and emailed the interview to him), didn't consult those friends about any of his online problems. Why not?
Even in private correspondence, I made an effort to be patient with Zach's inability to figure his way through very simple online tasks. In those emails, I commented that the Chinese internet must suck (we discovered that, at least in Luoyang, Blogspot blogs are still blocked; the Great Firewall remains in place). Why, then, did Zach see my public comment-- which blamed China-- as a jab?
Fourth: "But why are you so willing to call it a page-turner here [i.e., in a private email], but don't say that in your intro?"
Is Zach saying I need to suck his dick in public? Is he worried that I'm trying, privately, to reassure him? He sounds like an insecure prima donna here.
Fifth: "Your intro says, 'I had agreed to help Zach...' Sounds like I asked you rather than the other way around, that you offered to help me. It just minimizes your enthusiasm for my book."
As mentioned before, Zach is here attempting to pass over the fact that he came to me first. He asked twice about sending me a copy of his book. How would you read this? I read this as blatant self-promotion, especially if the second request is worded in such a way as to imply that I had ignored the first request. You could argue that Zach might not have intended to promote his book at all. But then why make the website, eh? Why make two requests? Aren't these behaviors consistent with the profile of a self-promoter? According to Zach, he apparently shopped his book (or at least his views) to world-class scientists and to people whose lives were utterly changed by his insights. I didn't receive a shotgun email from Zach-- he approached me directly. It's safe to assume I'm not the only person he tapped this way.
This burns me. It really does. The dishonesty of it makes me laugh in disbelief. His ingratitude, after all the time spent on arranging this interview, makes me want to knock his head off.
But you know... he's right that my enthusiasm for his book has been minimized.
Sixth: "Hopefully you can benefit from/appreciate a person's thoughts about your remarks."
Hopefully? Benefit? What am I, a fucking monkey? A charity case? The condescension here is amazing.
By the way: I hereby apologize to all the people who feel I've been condescending toward them. I'm saying that because I want to make goddamn sure I go to heaven when I die.
Seventh: "(would love to be apprised of any such responses)"
Am I to become Zach's servant now? Instead of making the effort to solve his online problems, Zach regally assumes that I'll simply float periodic emails his way.
Eighth: America-hatred.
As one reader remarked, Zach would do well to give up his US citizenship and make his fortune as a citizen of China. If he thinks China is some sort of paradise, well... good luck to him. I wonder what Zach'll do once he takes a close look at how repressive the Chinese government can be. Will Zach speak out about human rights problems there? Will he be as critical of the Chinese experiment as he is of the American one? I'm also curious as to how he'll react when his school in Luoyang eventually shafts him at the end of his contract.
Let's stop there and talk about one other thing: why, if I was suspicious of Shatz from the beginning, did I bother to allow this nonsense to go on for months and months, even to the point of eventually taking three hours out of my day to do this hard-to-arrange interview?
As lame as it sounds, I don't have a good answer for that. The best I can say is that I normally give people the benefit of the doubt and will do so for a long time before my patience finally begins to run dry. In Zach's case, I felt he was more annoying than unbearable, and my annoyance initially wasn't that great. But the fact that he began twisting the truth, waving his overly delicate ego about, and being persistent about it (couldn't you see where the email exchange was headed?) all pushed me to my limits. It probably didn't help that I was busy prepping for the upcoming semester at Smoo. I admit I wasn't in the mood for Zach's bullshit, and also admit that my own passivity exacerbated the situation. We're both at fault.
Am I an angel? No. Hell, no. I was an asshole to Zach. But you know what? I'm not sorry. Not one bit. I felt that Zach needed to be exposed for the person he is, and if that meant risking the exposure of my own unsavory side, so be it. I can be a fucking bastard; I'm old enough to know this about myself and to admit to it with no hesitation. I'm not interested in being liked by everyone because I know such a thing is impossible. Why waste time on the impossible? If this makes me seem arrogant to you, then you're one of those insecure people who routinely mistakes confidence for arrogance. I know your type.
To the rest of you more confident souls: judge as you will.
_
Hey, what's Zach's email address? He's an old friend.
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