It would appear that Keith Burgess-Jackson resents me for daring to criticise one of his arguments. He has quietly removed me from his blogroll. (This google-cache highlights where the link used to be, on his sidebar.)
I must say I'm surprised by his pettiness. It would be understandable if I had been excessively rude or insulting towards him, but I think I was reasonably civil. I attacked his arguments, not him personally, just as he asks. I then emailed him, politely inviting him to respond to my criticisms. He never even replied.
Instead, he seems to be trying his best to pretend my criticisms don't exist. Despite this, he has so far written five posts about how horrible the folks at Crooked Timber are for agreeing with my criticism - which, remember, we're trying to pretend doesn't exist. That's sure to cause some serious cognitive dissonance, but maybe we can drown it out if we try really hard (and shout really loud). Let's call the CT folks "liberal punks" and complain about how they're being nasty and not engaging with his argument, because, after all, if we manage to convince ourselves that my blog doesn't exist, then how could it be 'engaging his argument' to link to a non-existent counterargument? Oh yes, we have the strength of a bear, the voice of a lion, and the logic of an ostrich.
Seriously though, I'm not sure how he managed to become a philosophy professor if he cannot cope with people challenging his arguments. I know I wouldn't want such an insecure and irrational teacher.
Shame on you, Prof. Burgess-Jackson.
Saturday, November 27, 2004
6 comments:
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heh I guess you gave up on making friends with him.
ReplyDeletePosted by geniusNZ
Oh come now, you didn't expect that professing philosophy makes someone a philosopher, did you?
ReplyDeletePosted by Jason Kuznicki
I'm surprised too, and I think the surprise is not entirely naive - for instance I'm surprised that he's willing to make himself look so petty. As I remarked at B&W, he must expect that his students read his blog. Maybe he also expects that his colleagues do; at any rate he knows they can. You would think he'd be reluctant to embarrass himself this way. So one doesn't necessarily expect that professing philosophy makes people philosophers, but one might expect that it encourages people to make some effort to fake it, at least!
ReplyDeleteI did marvel yesterday when Richard said he'd emailed B-J and that the latter hadn't even troubled to reply. That's not very admirable.
Thanks for the cached post, Richard: it confirms what I thought: he's also quietly removed B&W. I thought I'd seen it in the sidebar when I first looked at the site, but wasn't sure, and didn't think to find a cache. How very interesting. Of course anyone is at liberty to remove any link, but under the circumstances it does have that hint of pettiness.
Posted by Ophelia Benson
I'm afraid that this is really just par for the course for the AnalPhilosopher. He may in fact be the least self-reflective person in the blogosophere, so it's not surprising that he fails to recognize his actions for what they are.
ReplyDeletePosted by Chris
"Oh come now, you didn't expect that professing philosophy makes someone a philosopher, did you?"
ReplyDeleteTrue, I can be a bit idealistic at times! Even so, his behaviour here does seem odd (even from the perspective of his own self-interest), as OB points out. Though I guess Chris' suggestion could explain it. Hmmm.
Posted by Richard
Does anyone *know* why AnalPhilosopher doesn't permit comments to his blog?
ReplyDeleteThis gives the wrong impression about those who do criticize his work. AP Critics come off as passive-aggressive.
Posted by Joe