You think you know what you mean? I’ll tell you what you mean.

Jeff Goldstein is upset at Patterico. The reason is too inside baseball to rehash here, but it involved someone poking fun of him, him reframing it into an assault on his family, threatening an anonymous commenter, threatening to out an anonymous commenter, said commenter telling him to bring on the lawyers, him responding with threats of physical violence, then actually outing the anonymous commenter and being banned shortly thereafter after making a crack about a hanging-tree which — while not a death threat per se — certainly qualifies as ban-worthy in light of the earlier escalation.  Goldstein disagrees:

Once he’d established the pretext for disallowing me to defend myself — and giving his commenters the freedom to attack me without my having recourse to respond directly to them (something I’ve never disallowed him to do on my site) — he then encouraged people to support his “honor” at the expense of mine. He set up a lynch mob and then pretended to wash his hands of the whole thing.

Patterico banned him, then set his readers upon him. The nerve! That said, remember when I wrote this on 13 October 2008? Goldstein responded:

SEK tried to link back here with yet ANOTHER exegesis on his having be WRONGED by my anger . . . So let him have that last word . . . He just ain’t gonna be having that last word here.

He then deleted the automatically-generated WordPress trackback I’d so callously lobbed and banned me. I know what you’re thinking: Goldstein wouldn’t be so hypocritical as to ban me, thereby “disallowing me to defend myself — and giving his commenters the freedom to attack me without my having recourse to respond directly to them,” would he? On 16 October 2008, Goldstein wrote:

I shouldn’t have to point this out, but what the hell, I’m feeling kinda engaged this evening. First, IF ANY OF THIS IS TRUE (hi, SEK!) . . .

He merely mocked me in the forum from which he’d banned me, thereby “disallowing me to defend myself — and giving his commenters the freedom to attack me without my having recourse to respond directly to them,” and that’s completely different from Patterico banning him, thereby “disallowing [him] to defend [himself] — and giving [Patterico's] commenters the freedom to attack [Goldstein] without [Goldstein] having recourse to respond directly to them,” what with the names and pronouns in the brackets being different — nay! significantly different. In the first case Jeff is doing something to someone else, whereas in the second someone is doing that same something to Jeff. That changes everything.

Because everything comes down to intent:

My argument is that when one does not take into account what the author intended, one is no longer concerned with “interpretation” as such. Instead, s/he is concerned with what s/he is able to do with a text . . .

Again: saying a literary text has a single meaning and that the meaning belongs to its author [does not mean] that other people can’t draw different meanings from the text, or that the meanings they draw can’t be even more interesting in many ways than the author’s original signification.

It simply points out, from the perspective of how both meaning-making and interpretation actually work, that doing so is itself an intentional act, and that when one does not appeal back to authorial intent, one has ceased interpreting and commenced writing his or her own text, which is what happens when we add our own signifieds to signifiers that have been emptied of any previous signification.

To appeal to anything other than authorial intent is to string together empty signifieds to signifiers like so much popcorn at Christmastime . . . unless you’re Goldstein. When a Deputy District Attorney from the Compton Branch Office writes:

I have a job and I don’t have all day every day to go around correcting the misimpressions. I ran myself ragged last week trying, in the middle of a very demanding work week — but every clarification I issued was met with five more distortions.

Then follows it up with:

This guy has all day every day to sit on his ass and think of ways to attack my character.

His true intent was not — as one would expect from the first comment — to indicate that he found it difficult to engage with someone when they state five points to his one; no, his true intent, which only intentionalists can divine, was to impugn stay at-home-parents. This insult became “the new talking point,” despite its author insisting:

My comment was about time and access to computers. Can we not have a debate about the merits of DAs vs. teachers or stay at home parents? All three jobs serve an important function. But only one gives free access to post comments and blog posts throughout the day, which was obviously my point.

According to someone named “Jeff G,” when facing down “those who are out to pull whatever you say or write out of context” — who want nothing more than “to recontextualize what you say in order to use it as a cudgel against you” — when they “are dictating your mode of rhetoric” and “working to silence you by making sure you become overly vigilant,” all will be lost unless you:

Insist on what you meant. Refuse to accept their reframing. And in the event that it was your failure to signal your intent properly that is the cause for confusion, clarify.

Unless, of course, the person insisting you insist is the same person reframing your argument, in which case you are an unprincipled liar. Because, as practiced by Goldstein, intentionalism’s an excuse masquerading as a theory of language.

Thus concludes today’s lesson in Why The Internet Is No Fun.  (Or The Greatest Fun, depending on your interpretation.)

(x-posted.)

Comments

[Fritz]

I would reference John Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory, but neither JeffG or Patterico are really all that anonymous so I don't think it applies. Encyclopedia Dramatica sums it up nicely, "In other words, anyone using the internets becomes an asshole."

In any case, not exactly a flattering interchange.

[Dan Collins]

You realize, don't you, Scott, that by posting on this you've participated in the violence? ;-P

[happyfeet]

ok maybe you should rewrite that to be like more unfair. There was a lot of pointed remarks at Mr. Patterico's about the job thing. He has some really mean people over there. I wonder if cause he sets something of a higher tone at his place that when these ones get permission to get ad hominey they maybe go overboard a little. But anyway, Darleen went on the stay at home parent thing, but that's her way of looking at it and it shouldn't be used to mock anybody unless you want to use it to mock her and she's raised good kids so I don't think that would be very effective. The whole thing made me cringe.

Also nobody attacks you at PW ever and if they do I am very displeased and I usually say oh. Maybe y'all shouldn't be so attacky with Mr. SEK and also when it gets made to where your comments don't show anymore when you hit the SAY IT button I usually make bleating noises of disappointment. I don't know why you have to focus on the negative so much. Let's drink a Pepsi!

[Be honest or don't pretend to be honest]

You conveniently forgot to link to this comment, which came before all the other comments.

http://patterico.com/2009/03/19/points-of-agreement-on-interpretation/#comment-475494

Characterize this as you will, but at least include the most relevant information.

Joking or not, the nk commenter started by saying that he knew where Jeff would be on a certain date, it was close by and he was tempted to show up.

[Karl Steel]

Why The Internet Is No Fun.
The Internet is plenty of fun; it's jackasses who are no fun.

[happyfeet]

Hi SEK. I made a thoughtful comment on your other blog but oops! I forgotted I was banned there. Help a brother out wouldja?

[SEK]

You realize, don't you, Scott, that by posting on this you've participated in the violence?

Tried to put some order to it, at least. I think it's funny that Jeff's going to respond by saying I support Patrick, when in fact I disagree with both of them pretty much all of the time. I saw some of that in that one thread: "If SEK's on your side politically, you're one step from Balloon Juice." Because let me tell you, I agree with demonstrably premature evaluations of the success of Obama's administration . . .

maybe you should rewrite that to be like more unfair.

The thing is, happy, it's a trap: if Pat's been unfair to him, he's been unfair to me in exactly the same way. I don't hold a grudge, I just find it ironic that he's attacking Patterico as being unprincipled &c. for doing what he did to me --- only with justification, because it did seem like Jeff was crossing lines in the comments leading up to the banning.

Joking or not, the nk commenter started by saying that he knew where Jeff would be on a certain date, it was close by and he was tempted to show up.

To take pictures at an event Goldstein himself advertised on his blog --- an event, I should add, in which he would be surrounded by semi-professional fighters performing Feats of Strength. I fail to see how that's relevant. I mean, if I announced I was giving a talk and someone "threatened" to take pictures of me talking, well, I hate having my picture taken, but I'd find a way to survive.

[Be honest or don't pretend to be honest]

You don't find it relevant, in a post about possible threats, to include the information that, previous to everything else, nk stated that he was tempted to show up where Jeff would be?

I think it's fair to say that Jeff wasn't inviting people who really seem to hate him.

[Rich Puchalsky]

Why did I click on all those links? It's like an addiction. Now I'm stupider.

Eh, here's my words of wisdom:

1. JG is a wingnut. Patterico is also a wingnut. I told you beforehand that trying to engage JG as if he were a reasonable person would come to no good. The same is true for Patterico; it just hasn't happened to you yet.

2. From my one brush with commenting on Patterico's site, his commenters are just as nutty as JG's. I remember that they looked up every Puchalsky in the country to prove some point or other. And when I expressed my disinterest in having his commenters poking around in my real-life affairs, Patterico pointedly refused to ask them not to. See point #1 above.

3. It's very common for a blogger who bans someone to then engage in a little chest-thumping self-justification about doing it, when the person banned can't reply. It's a sign of an a-hole, yes, but they are surprisingly common. Lots of the blogs that you like have done it. So calling out JG on hypocrisy alone is kind of pointless; wingnuts never recognize their hypocrisy.

[SEK]

You don't find it relevant, in a post about possible threats, to include the information that, previous to everything else, nk stated that he was tempted to show up where Jeff would be?

Virtually-stalking someone and saying that you're going to attack them using non-legal measures when that person "threatens" to take photographs of you fighting semi-professionally is somewhat different from saying you're going to take photographs of them at the event they can't help but mention every five minutes. It's difficult to read PW and not know exactly where Jeff's going to be.

Why did I click on all those links? It's like an addiction.

What do you mean, "like"?

So calling out JG on hypocrisy alone is kind of pointless; wingnuts never recognize their hypocrisy.

True, but satisfying. I didn't indulge in the obvious though --- I could've noted that every criticism he makes of me from this point forward (by which I mean, beginning right now, in any thread I linked to) undermines his own argument, but then I realized he'd never understand that, so what would be the point?

[Fritz]

Rich, some might say trying to engage you as if if you were a reasonable person always comes to no good.

But I digress: Keith Burgess-Jackson, one of my favorite philosophy bloggers, refuses to let anyone post a comment on his blog without a full name.

I have written many times, in this blog and elsewhere, that I do not understand, and will not tolerate, anonymous writing. If you have something to say, come out and say it. You don't wear a bag over your head when you leave your house. You don't throw stones at cars from behind trees. You wouldn't shoot someone in the back. Take responsibility for your actions. It's part of what it means to be an adult.

The problem is that neither JeffG nor Patterico are really anonymous.

[Be honest or don't pretend to be honest]

"after making a crack about a hanging-tree"

Again, if you want to be fair, you'll point out the obvious:

The context was "enough rope to hang himself". Making Jeff the implied victim of his own comment. Not a death threat per se, yes. Not a death threat in any way, either!

[happyfeet]

I just don't think everything has to be an object lesson. Especially not with real people involved.

[Ahistoricality]

It's very common for a blogger who bans someone to then engage in a little chest-thumping self-justification about doing it, when the person banned can't reply.

Is it? I guess I just don't hang out on enough blogs where bannings take place. Or chest-thumping, maybe.

Like you, Rich, I followed the links. I learned .... something. I'm not sure I can articulate what, yet, but Harlan Ellison could, and probably has.

[Ahistoricality]

The problem is that neither JeffG nor Patterico are really anonymous.

But "Be honest or don't pretend to be honest" is in the running for tautological Goldstein pseudonym of the year.....

[happyfeet]

The reason I hated Ender's Game was cause it made you identify with Ender and me I saw nothing of me in Ender but it was still creepy cause it was clear a lot of people would identify with Ender and that idea is just impossibly sad to me.

And don't tell me that's not on topic cause for real it is.

[Wally]

Fuck, why did I click those fucking links. Fuck.

That was like a Zizek thread at The Valve if Zizek was Jeff Goldstein and Adam Kotsko was Jeff Goldstein's balls and Holbo was Patterico's balls and I was my own balls and Godwin was the Internet's balls and Kierkegaard was God's balls and God was dead (still) and my balls married some lady so I and they and God and (since this is my weird fantasy) Sarah Michelle Gellar could just stay home fucking blogging every day, all day. i.e. The value of a network scales with the number of respondents, not broadcasters. And there are no respondents when for every commenter X, X's current location is up X's own asshole.

You just ruined my life! Also I don't have time to call, again, shit.

Shit! So unhappy now. These people aren't worth your time!!

[Wally]

Or rather, I didn't have time, and now I'm too tired even to think.

[Jeff G]

I haven't read the post, but let me ask a few quick questions.

1) If there was a threat of violence, did SEK link it? I remember saying something to the effect of "I'll handle this like I've always handled people who come after my family." Is there some record of my being violent in those instances? Or is there a record of my making sure their name is attached to their posts.

Just think of it as my way of encouraging the civility you so admire, though only in manner.

2) Am I supposed to have banned SEK from my site? I don't know his IP, but I'd be happy to take a screen shot of banned IP addresses.

From an excerpt and link someone brought to my attention, it seems that SEK has confused my removing one of his trackbacks with my banning him from commenting.

Not wishing to send traffic your way and not letting you comment are two different things, Scott.

3) Did SEK mention that, on several occasions, nk has made very strange accusations about my going after Obama's children? It turns out he was referring to a post written by a guy at Red State, linked by Dan Collins. I didn't read either the Red State post or Dan's post.

I corrected him on this. He accepted the explanation. But since, he has mentioned it twice again, with the same indictment.

He also began attacking me rather out of the blue. I don't know what "virtual-stalking" is -- I presume that's some loaded hyperbolic for "finding out the name of the guy talking smack about you and your family situation, about which he knows nada"?

Tell me: has SEK discussed the HYPOCRISY of Patterico's outing Tbogg while advocating for nk's right to privacy?

Say what you want about me, but my policy has been consistent: bring my family into it and I will find out who you are and let people know.

Jeff Goldstein: Bringing responsibility back to discourse since 2001

SEK: putting his nose into other people's business for as long as I've known him.

[salome]

A fun exercise is to post over at Jeff's blog with a pseudonym that hints of being female. Man the testyness that gets into their....testes.