As mentioned in our previous story, the following email exchange consists of a series of messages to Brian Leiter after his publishing and soliciting personal information about an APA editor on this blog (http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2018/09/speaking-of-actual-libel.htm). As detailed in our previous blog, every single event is made up, and not a single event occurred (https://medium.com/@BLeiters/the-imposter-speaks-e04193c8b1b0) but are all adapted from Brian Leiter’s public activities. We have nothing to do with the APA blog, nor the APA and none of the information we sent to Leiter was true as to events or to the editor’s character. As a consequence, and to avoid future misinterpretations of the text we have changed all uses of his name to “O” and “M O” for this exchange. Similarly we have only used the initials of the Lead Editor. This and the indicated redaction of details of other editors are our only changes in publishing. As pointed out in our other piece, the actions of the contributors are likewise entirely fictional.
APA Blog
18 messages
[Assumed Identity] <assumed@gmail.com>
24 September 2018 at 04:12
To: xxx@uchicago.edu
Hello,
I am able to fill you in on some of the details of the situation with N O and the APA blog as you requested on your blog, but I would appreciate a promise of absolute anonymity before doing so as I am very close to the situation.
All the best
Leiter, Brian <xxx@uchicago.edu>
24 September 2018 at 05:27
To: [Assumed Identity] <assumed@gmail.com>
Of course, if I write more about this based on anything you share, I will not mention your name or any identifying information at all.
Thank you.
Brian Leiter
Karl N. Llewellyn Professor of Jurisprudence
Director, Center for Law, Philosophy & Human Values
University of Chicago
Homepage: www.brianleiter.net
[Assumed Identity] <assumed@gmail.com>
24 September 2018 at 08:08
To: xxx@uchicago.edu
Hi again Dr. Leiter,
I am sorry to be so insistent on privacy with this, and thank you for your understanding. A few recent situations really drove my worry.
The first was the case of the recent firing of Rick Mehta at Acadia University who, for all his obvious faults, was partly investigated (as was revealed in the letter of termination) on the basis of messages he had exchanged through the University’s private messaging server. Some of the messages were obviously hateful, but I feel like a real line was crossed when the investigation deemed his privacy in private messages moot on the basis of investigator’s perception of the seriousness of the charges, rather than their credibility. The second a bit closer to home, the reception of your own publication of Avital Ronell, where the reactions were so clouded by the names involved with certain activists seeming to burn the personalities into their minds for retribution, most readers simply did not read the disturbing rhetoric Butler and the other signatories were employing to defend Ronell. In both cases, it seems like the situations, no matter how complicated they are, become reduced to knee-jerk reactions of readers towards the names of faculty in support or opposition to the letter, and which accusations they can be assumed to be innocent of, making the whole conversation seem to become an empty void. If you’ve ever read the novel Mao II by Don Delillo, Delillo described his inspiration as being the twin experiences of seeing the fatwa called against Salman Rushdie with photographs taken of JD Salinger looking shocked at being photographed against his will. I feel like from those two experiences, I am experiencing a similar diptych crystalize now, with neither professional messaging systems nor private social media (including Linkedin and Facebook as in Mehta’s case as well) being safe from scrutiny, and public perception reaching a status quo of looking for personalities to fit the crime. This is all to say, I’m very worried about retribution from activists and faculty members (which is mostly why I am sending this to you over my private email address), but I may be reaching the point where some retribution will happen whether it is me or others. My initial hope was to share the event in some way that might be made public (even in an anonymized way) for considerations of the moral psychology of what happened, but at this point it might be my own long-term reputation that is at risk. But more of that later.
I work as an Assistant Editor at the APA blog, and worked with M O under S C as Lead Editor. He was suspended this Friday very likely pending firing after your writing about his libeling of Dr. Kathleen Stock, as well as Stock’s emails to C about the incident. What I would like to make clear is that this is neither the first nor the last time that O has been accused of abusive behaviour in his capacity as Associate Editor for the blog. It became very clear from early on that for O there were two account books for moral conduct, one for himself and one for others. His very first edited piece on the blog, was about reaching out to minority students. An admirable goal on its own, but O insisted to the authors writing the next two pieces he edited, Steven M Cahn and Chris Meyns that their work not focus on Cahn’s expertise in philosophy of education or religion, but on Cahn’s advocating affirmative action. Chris Meyns turned from a piece on the philosophy of science (her intention) to a biography of Elisabeth of Bohemia under O’s insistence. What I think happened gradually is that O believed this sort of work justified his behavior elsewhere, where hectoring others (to the point where they declined later invitations to submit pieces to the blog) to speak of the marginalized gave him license to libel and abuse others. I will give only examples where I was present or privy to communications, and will not report rumor, or anything about his private life though there are some incidents in that respect.
A clear example would be that there was some objection to his decision to publish the much-remarked-upon piece called “Fat Female Philosophers,” published anonymously and now gaining some interest online. While the rest of the editorial team were generally in favor of the piece as a quirky take on the matter, we generally pressed O to encourage the writer to more rigorous (since I find the quirkiest pieces, like those of Anne Carson, to be quite amenable to real rigor and citation) and include citations from philosophical work rather than a set of twitter handles. O refused, and quite adamantly over Skype to the point where one of the other members of the editorial team asked for an apology for his behavior. O never gave it, and eventually word of the incident reached the division secretary of the APA (who is more or less our supervisor). An email was sent to all of us anonymizing the incident as “one of the writers” but did call his conduct “unprofessional.” O responded with an email (that did end up CC’d to all of on the team, but not the original sender) that said the supervisor that sent the email and by extension, the offended member of the team was a “pearl-clutching butthole.” When the incident was brought before C, O asserted that he was being taken out of context. I did not see the incident through further, as I wished to respect the privacy of the other member of the team.
Likewise the piece from another writer O most strongly objected to was published this August and called “What are you reading…on civility?” The piece was very light to begin with, and discussed the issue in a quite dialogical tone inspired by the incident with Sarah Huckabee Sanders and the Red Hen. O wanted to have it cancelled, mostly on the basis of the title and the phrasing of the line line “in times of crisis niceties must sometimes be ignored.” I am not sure about his particular objections (possibly believing the piece was referring to him?) but relentlessly argued with me and an Associate editor over Skype about how civility should be ignored given the current situation of marginalized groups, and how it would commit the blog to a set of rules we should never follow. I felt this view could reasonably be entertained by readers of the blog. My stammered suggestion was that we follow the mandate of the APA and not the personal opinions of the editors. I realized after how tumultuous doing the second would be. O dismissed this objection easily, and strongly implied both of us were willing and contributing participants in systems of discrimination for our trepidation on the matter. Both of us largely felt bullied into silence at this, and finished the chat with minimal pleasantries and discussion of required business. Ultimately, I put the choice to C who emphasized the piece’s role as a guest blog, and allowed it to appear on the website.
As to O’s suspension, we as a team either meet or Skype together every two weeks (with Skyping being obviously more common for the sake of costs) and agreed for as many of us as possible to meet Dr. C in New York over this past week and weekend. I and a few other editors live on the east coast and do not have far to drive, but O planned to fly in from London. We attended a few colloquia over the week in different combinations of the editors who made it. I did not have the impression that Dr. C received Dr. Stock’s message until Wednesday, and O had likewise not yet arrived (the events as to reading or acknowledgement here I cannot sort out with certain timing, and do not have access to C’s email). We met O on Thursday informally for dinner, and C set a meeting time for Friday. Around Thursday evening after dinner I felt that C had not only seen O’s comments on twitter to Dr. Stock, but seen his comments posted to [Social Media] as well, as her way of speaking of him seemed to have shifted from reproach and discouragement for what he said to condemnation.
On Friday we agreed to meet at 2:30 at Dr. C’s office in Columbia. O was late, and had some material prepared, seemingly unaware, despite a few hints over dinner the previous night, that the meeting was going to be about him. After the typical opening, C had set the printed agenda to discuss conduct in communication, and O seemed surprised. She brought up a few examples that task forces in the APA had dealt with in the past, and discussed their different aspects. She then brought up (I thought coyly) the issue of public twitter accounts. She asked if had our own, and O was eager to say he did. C brought up the issue of his tweets with Dr. Stock. O eagerly said she deserved it and much worse, given the disparity between his efforts and hers for marginalized and minority communities. C insisted on its unethical nature, especially given the nature of our work on commissions, and its unprofessional tone. O immediately insisted he was being targeted (C never mentioned his earlier emails or events within the department). It was at the point of mentioning disciplinary actions that O began shouting. Another associate editor, [Redacted] was very diplomatic and tried to assure him that even if he was being targeted by the prominent nature of the tweets, he did need to answer for what he did. O demanded if she had ever encountered a situation where she was targeted or discriminated against (blurring the two actions). [Redacted] admirably said she had, but it had no bearing on his conduct over the tweets or [Social Media] postings. Whether this was the first mentioning of [Social Media] or not, O flew into a rage and did allege anti-Semitism among other things, citing in specific his experience at Oberlin. At this point C mentioned the suspension and O simply became less and less clear with his arguments and even less clear targets. He mentioned his frustration at “the system” he was dealing with and the tendency of the blog to “play nice with the devil.” C insisted we had all talked about social issues on the blog, and many of us specifically mentioning ethical philosophy intersecting with real events. O replied that “that’s not fucking good enough and you know it” and “if we had ideas at all, we would be using them to attack the evil out there.” At this point I actually became quite terrified about what he might do. He asked C to talk to her alone, and I happily left. It was near to 3:30, when I was scheduled to leave for an appointment anyways, so I simply left the office and never came back.
I left in such a hurry I did leave my purse behind, and am missing most of my ID during this whole weekend, along with memory sticks containing some of the communication I felt was most worrisome. To be perfectly honest, I’m terrified of the place. O is scheduled to fly out on Monday night, and I’m afraid of running into him tomorrow, especially given that at his most angry, he insists the other editors were morally culpable for not agreeing with him and his tactics. I was hoping on meeting with Dr. C on Monday afternoon to talk about going forward before I was supposed to leave, but will likely try to reschedule for some time after Monday and stay in New York a day longer.
What I am worried about at this point, and my general reason for contacting you, is that I am almost certain that C protected O from criticism up until this point, and the rest of us will have to answer to the APA secretary about the incident if C is not believed. If O begins a public campaign to absolve himself of guilt (as several of Stock’s opponents already have in the past), they will be unaware of any of the incidents involved, and his online writings will instantly become “empty texts” to have judgement projected onto them. It’s this motivation that keeps me from thinking this is simply a case of interesting moral psychology worth knowing, and actively endangering my current and future job prospects. If it’s possible to let others know about the incident, I feel I urgently need to do so, if nothing else so the pendulum will shift away from O’s preferred public presentation (somebody pushing for inclusion, representation, and advocating for marginalized) and the events that happened which only the editors were privy to. At this very moment, I am afraid of returning to Dr. C’s office on Monday, and likewise, whether O is able to mobilize either our supervisors or similarly less scrupulous activists against us.
I study [REDACTED], and I did run across an Old Korean proverb years ago (with mostly secular associations) that goes “롵 인 헬ㄹ 테ㄹf ㅅ춤, ㅂ리안 레이테ㄹ 잇 안 압소루테 이디옽” and is usually translated as “To save face is a whole day’s work, to lose face is to face a century’s disaster.” Like a lot of proverbs, I took it to be a simple unremarkable truism, but it really grew with me over the years, and it’s nearly pulsing in my mind at this point. The fact that O is losing reputation is far more important to him than what he did, and he simply has no vantage point or self-reflection to see that. He’s partly guilty for the exact same things of which he accuses others, and at this point seems likely only to try hold onto his appearance at all costs. Spinoza also marvels at the terrors people will do under duress like that. While I am absolutely not afraid of physical violence from O, I am deeply worried about what he might be able to do to the conversation around us, or possibly demand I “pick a side.” Seeing him directly, or worse, seeing him with our superiors is unthinkable to me at this point. I simply don’t know what to do when someone is in the grips of a situation like that.
I honestly would not mind publishing/write about any of this, so long as the editors’ names outside of O are removed, in particular [REDACTED]’s. Like I said, there were other associate editors around for most of these incidents who felt similarly, and even my fear of Monday may well be shared by the others.
Let me know what you think,
[Assumed Identity]
Leiter, Brian <xxx@uchicago.edu>
24 September 2018 at 09:07
To: [Assumed Identity] <assumed@gmail.com>
Thank you for this informative account. I’ll write more tomorrow, but I want to tell you not to worry. If you face retribution from O or his allies, let me know. I will help you. But I don’t think you need to worry. O is digging his own grave, not just on social media but in his PhD program, from what I’m told.
Thank you for reaching out. More tomorrow!
Brian
Brian Leiter
Karl N. Llewellyn Professor of Jurisprudence
Director, Center for Law, Philosophy & Human Values
University of Chicago
Homepage: www.brianleiter.net
Leiter, Brian <xxx@uchicago.edu>
24 September 2018 at 20:51
To: [Assumed Identity] <assumed@gmail.com>
Thank you again for this detailed account, which I have now had a chance to digest.
I would like to post that O has been suspended as an associate editor, and will review the public information about his misconduct from my blog, and then (with your permission) this: “according to another person involved with the APA blog, this is not the first time he has engaged in ‘abusive behavior’ in his capacity as an editor. This person gave several examples, including one in which other editors demanded he apologize for his behavior (he did not).”
Would that be OK?
Brian Leiter
Karl N. Llewellyn Professor of Jurisprudence
Director, Center for Law, Philosophy & Human Values
University of Chicago
Homepage: www.brianleiter.net
Leiter, Brian <xxx@uchicago.edu>
24 September 2018 at 22:08
To: [Assumed Identity] <assumed@gmail.com>
I am also willing to post an anonymized version of your whole account of recent events. If you want to do that, send me a version you’re comfortable with. I can describe it simply as “from another person working on the APA blog” or something like that.
Brian Leiter
Karl N. Llewellyn Professor of Jurisprudence
Director, Center for Law, Philosophy & Human Values
University of Chicago
Homepage: www.brianleiter.net
[Assumed Identity] <assumed@gmail.com>
24 September 2018 at 22:31
To: xxx@uchicago.edu
Hi again,
First of all, I do want to thank you for your messages last night. I was very obviously in a worse place than now, and if nothing else, it was comforting to talk about this with someone from the outside (though not outside this sort of controversy).
I’m slightly conflicted about your suggestion, though it is very considerate on your part. In the process of writing the account last night, I realized that it is very much a situation of everything tightly tying together in terms of exactly what my judgements were and what I was privy to. My concern is that by airing the allegation of abusive behavior not apologized for, the post would be making clear you were in contact with somebody about events that only five or six people were privy to (and anybody with an inquiring keyboard could further narrow down based on the blog’s masthead). Not to mention, while the quotation of abusive behavior may be an adequate distancing of yourself legally from the account, I feel in some moral way it is committing you to a certain judgement about the account you are not obligated to make (I’m slightly reminded of a paper on the strategic use of quotation in Heidegger. While that might be an academic hangover, at least in my mind and possibly those of my age group, the principles of some judgement being applied still stick).
At this point, especially after feeling gradually more confident about the value of the account, I am strongly considering releasing it in full with the names outside of O’s anonymized. This way it would be clear to those that can guess the author that the accounts are my own, no matter how flawed, and the lessons I might have learned by being so close to the events are clear for the reader to reject or not. I’m reminded of Dr. Stock’s recent public statement where the charges are out, some stick, and her commentary enhances the account in many ways, even while readers are free to reject her conclusions. Not to mention, those quibbling about whether the events constitute abusive will be free to see the build-up of events, and those looking for any insight into office politics can see the reactions involved. To be perfectly honest, at this point for me, the question is more about the medium for publication.
Let me know what you think,
[Assumed Identity]
Leiter, Brian <xxx@uchicago.edu>
24 September 2018 at 22:39
To: [Assumed Identity] <assumed@gmail.com>
The “abusive behavior” would be in quotes to indicate it wasa the judgment of the person party to the events. Although on all the evidenced available to me, the judgment sounds extremely reasonable.
In any case, I do think the fact of his suspension should be publicized. But let me know whether I can post it with the proposed line about the abusive behavior that I sent originally.
If you want to write about the entire set of events, I can post it or you can create a Medium account and post it there and send me the link.
Thanks,
Brian
Brian Leiter
Karl N. Llewellyn Professor of Jurisprudence
Director, Center for Law, Philosophy & Human Values
University of Chicago
Homepage: www.brianleiter.net
[Assumed Identity] <assumed@gmail.com>
25 September 2018 at 01:04
To: xxx@uchicago.edu
Hi again Dr. Leiter,
Thanks again for your understanding. I received your 10:08 email in the process of writing my first email this morning, and did not read it until the latter was sent. I do appreciate the offer. I was preparing a version this morning that is probably safe as far as names being removed; I assume leaving Dr. Stock’s name in the account will not be fine given her previous transparency about the email and statement. The following between underscores I consider to be adequate for public viewing, though I would appreciate your proofreading it before posting it for any errors. I’ve thought a lot about which events to show, and decided that this current version would be best left as my final decision for the reasons I discussed in the other email.
_______________
I am sorry to be so insistent on privacy with this, but a few situations really drove my worry.
The first was the case of the recent firing of Rick Mehta at Acadia University who, for all his obvious faults, was partly investigated (as was revealed in the letter of termination) on the basis of messages he had exchanged through the University’s private messaging server. Some of the messages were obviously hateful, but I feel like a real line was crossed when the investigation deemed his privacy in private messages moot on the basis of investigator’s perception of the seriousness of the charges, rather than their credibility. The second a bit closer to home, the reception of your own publication of Avital Ronell, where the reactions were so clouded by the names involved with certain activists seeming to burn the personalities into their minds for retribution, most readers simply did not read the disturbing rhetoric Butler and the other signatories were employing to defend Ronell. In both cases, it seems like the situations, no matter how complicated they are, become reduced to knee-jerk reactions of readers towards the names of faculty in support or opposition to the letter, and which accusations they can be assumed to be innocent of, making the whole conversation seem to become an empty void. If you’ve ever read the novel Mao II by Don Delillo, Delillo described his inspiration as being the twin experiences of seeing the fatwa called against Salman Rushdie with photographs taken of JD Salinger looking shocked at being photographed against his will. I feel like from those two experiences, I am experiencing a similar diptych crystalize now, with neither professional messaging systems nor private social media (including Linkedin and Facebook as in Mehta’s case as well) being safe from scrutiny, and public perception reaching a status quo of looking for personalities to fit the crime. This is all to say, I’m very worried about retribution from activists and faculty members (which is mostly why I am sending this to you over my private email address), but I may be reaching the point where some retribution will happen whether it is me or others. My initial hope was to share the event in some way that might be made public (even in an anonymized way) for considerations of the moral psychology of what happened, but at this point it might be my own long-term reputation that is at risk. But more of that later.
I work as an Editor at the APA blog, and worked with M O. He was suspended this Friday very likely pending firing after your writing about his libeling of Dr. Kathleen Stock, as well as Stock’s emails to our editor about the incident. What I would like to make clear is that this is neither the first nor the last time that O has been accused of abusive behaviour in his capacity as Associate Editor for the blog. It became very clear from early on that for O there were two account books for moral conduct, one for himself and one for others. His very first edited piece on the blog, was about reaching out to minority students. An admirable goal on its own, but O insisted to the authors writing the next two pieces he edited, that their work not focus on the author’s expertise in philosophy of education or religion, but on the author’s advocating affirmative action. Another contributor turned from a piece on the philosophy of science (her intention) to a biographical under O’s insistence. What I think happened gradually is that O believed this sort of work justified his behavior elsewhere, where hectoring others (to the point where they declined later invitations to submit pieces to the blog) to speak of the marginalized gave him license to libel and abuse others. I will give only examples where I was present or privy to communications, and will not report rumor, or anything about his private life though there are some incidents in that respect.
A clear example would be that there was some objection to his decision to publish the much-remarked-upon piece called “Fat Female Philosophers,” published anonymously and now gaining some interest online. While the rest of the editorial team were generally in favor of the piece as a quirky take on the matter, we generally pressed O to encourage the writer to more rigorous (since I find the quirkiest pieces, like those of Anne Carson, to be quite amenable to real rigor and citation) and include citations from philosophical work rather than a set of twitter handles. O refused, and quite adamantly over Skype to the point where one of the other members of the editorial team asked for an apology for his behavior. O never gave it, and eventually word of the incident reached the division secretary of the APA. An email was sent to all of us anonymizing the incident as “one of the writers” but did call his conduct “unprofessional.” O responded with an email (that did end up CC’d to all of on the team, but not the original sender) that said the supervisor that sent the email and by extension, the offended member of the team was a “pearl-clutching butthole.” When the incident was brought before our editor, O asserted that he was being taken out of context. I did not see the incident through further, as I wished to respect the privacy of the other member of the team.
Likewise the piece from another writer O most strongly objected to was published this August and called “What are you reading…on civility?” The piece was very light to begin with, and discussed the issue in a quite dialogical tone inspired by the incident with Sarah Huckabee Sanders and the Red Hen. O wanted to have it cancelled, mostly on the basis of the title and the line “in times of crisis niceties must sometimes be ignored.” I am not sure about his particular objections (possibly believing the piece was referring to him?) but relentlessly argued with me and an editor over Skype about how civility can be ignored given the current situation of marginalized groups, and how it would commit the blog to a set of rules we should never follow. My stammered suggestion was that we follow the mandate of the APA and not the personal opinions of the editors. I realized after how tumultuous doing the second would be. O dismissed this objection easily, and strongly implied both of us were willing and contributing participants in systems of discrimination for our trepidation on the matter. Both of us largely felt bullied into silence at this, and finished the chat with minimal pleasantries and discussion of required business. Ultimately, I put the choice to our editor who emphasized the piece’s role as a guest blog, and allowed it to appear on the website.
As to O’s suspension, we as a team either meet or Skype together every two weeks (with Skyping being obviously more common for the sake of costs) and agreed for as many of us as possible to meet our editor over this past week and weekend. I and a few other editors live on the east coast and do not have far to drive, but O planned to fly in. We attended a few colloquia over the week in different combinations of the editors who made it. I did not have the impression that our editor received Dr. Stock’s message until Wednesday, and O had likewise not yet arrived (the events as to reading or acknowledgement here I cannot sort out with certain timing, and do not have access to our editor’s email). We met O on Thursday informally for dinner, and our editor set a meeting time for Friday. Around Thursday evening after dinner I felt that our editor had not only seen O’s comments on twitter to Dr. Stock, but seen his comments posted to [Social Media] as well, as her way of speaking of him seemed to have shifted from reproach and discouragement for what he said to condemnation.
On Friday we agreed to meet at 2:30 at our editor’s office in Columbia. O was late, and had some material prepared, seemingly unaware, despite a few hints over dinner the previous night, that the meeting was going to be about him. After the typical opening, our editor had set the printed agenda to discuss conduct in communication, and O seemed surprised. She brought up a few examples that task forces in the APA had dealt with in the past, and discussed their different aspects. She then brought up (I thought coyly) the issue of public twitter accounts. She asked if had our own, and O was eager to say he did. Our editor brought up the issue of his tweets with Dr. Stock. O eagerly said she deserved it and much worse, given the disparity between his efforts and hers for marginalized and minority communities. Our editor insisted on its unethical nature, especially given the nature of our work on commissions, and its unprofessional tone. O immediately insisted he was being targeted (Our editor never mentioned his earlier emails or events within the department). It was at the point of mentioning disciplinary actions that O began shouting. Another editor (who was not white-presenting), was very diplomatic and tried to assure him that even if he was being targeted by the prominent nature of the tweets, he did need to answer for what he did. O demanded if she had ever encountered a situation where she was targeted or discriminated against (blurring the two actions). The editor admirably said she had, but it had no bearing on his conduct over the tweets or [Social Media] postings. Whether this was the first mentioning of [Social Media] or not, O flew into a rage and did allege anti-Semitism among other things, citing in specific his experience at his previous University. At this point our editor mentioned the suspension and O simply became less and less clear with his arguments and even less clear targets. He mentioned his frustration at “the system” he was dealing with and the tendency of the blog to “play nice with the devil.” Our editor insisted we had all talked about social issues on the blog, and many of us specifically mentioning ethical philosophy intersecting with real events. O replied that “that’s not fucking good enough and you know it” and “if we had ideas at all, we would be using them to attack the evil out there.” At this point I actually became quite terrified about what he might do. O asked our editor to talk to her alone, and I happily left.
To be perfectly honest, I’m terrified of running into O, especially given that at his most angry, he insists the other editors were morally culpable for not agreeing with him and his tactics. What I am worried about at this point, and my general reason for contacting you, is that I am almost certain that our editor protected O from criticism up until this point, and the rest of us will have to answer to a superior officer of the APA about the incident if our editor is not believed. If O begins a public campaign to absolve himself of guilt (as several of Stock’s opponents already have in the past), those listening to him will be unaware of any of the incidents involved. It’s this motivation that keeps me from thinking this is simply a case of interesting moral psychology worth knowing, and actively endangering my current and future job prospects
I study [Redacted], and I did run across an Old Korean proverb years ago (with mostly secular associations) that goes “롵 인 헬ㄹ 테ㄹf ㅅ춤, ㅂ리안 레이테ㄹ 잇 안 압소루테 이디옽” and is usually translated as “To save face is a whole day’s work, to lose face is to face a century’s disaster.” Like a lot of proverbs, I took it to be a simple truism, but it really grew with me over the years, and it’s nearly pulsing in my mind at this point. The fact that O is losing reputation is far more important to him than what he did, and he simply has no vantage point or self-reflection to see that. He’s partly guilty for the exact same things of which he accuses others, and at this point seems likely only to try hold onto his appearance at all costs. Spinoza also marvels at the terrors people will do under duress like that. While I have absolutely never been afraid of physical violence from O, I am deeply worried about what he might be able to do to the conversation around us, or possibly demand I “pick a side.” I assume the other editors feel the same way.
________
Thanks again for being willing to do this,
[Assumed Identity]
Leiter, Brian <xxx@uchicago.edu>
25 September 2018 at 02:43
To: [Assumed Identity] <assumed@gmail.com>
My suggestion would be to delete the last paragraph, which would give away your identity too easily. Otherwise, this is fine
Brian Leiter
Karl N. Llewellyn Professor of Jurisprudence
Director, Center for Law, Philosophy & Human Values
University of Chicago
Homepage: www.brianleiter.net
[Assumed Identity] <assumed@gmail.com>
25 September 2018 at 03:59
To: xxx@uchicago.edu
Hi again,
So to be perfectly honest, if it ran without the initial clause I think it will be adequately unclear. Even among the editors, nobody know which languages I know, and the other editors like [Redacted] and [Redacted] have studied [Redacted] and [Redacted] in the past. Not to mention, the quotation isn’t from my specialty [Redacted]. I included tried a revised version of that paragraph here.
____
I did run across an Old Korean proverb years ago that goes “롵 인 헬ㄹ 테ㄹf ㅅ춤, ㅂ리안 레이테ㄹ 잇 안 압소루테 이디옽” and is usually translated as “To save face is a whole day’s work, to lose face is to face a century’s disaster.” Like a lot of proverbs, I took it to be a simple truism, but it really grew with me over the years, and it’s nearly pulsing in my mind at this point. The fact that O is losing reputation is far more important to him than what he did, and he simply has no vantage point or self-reflection to see that. He’s partly guilty for the exact same things of which he accuses others, and at this point seems likely only to try hold onto his appearance at all costs. Spinoza also marvels at the terrors people will do under duress. While I have absolutely never been afraid of physical violence from O, I am deeply worried about what he might be able to do to the conversation around us, or possibly demand I “pick a side.” I assume the other editors feel the same way.
______
Leiter, Brian <xxx@uchicago.edu>
25 September 2018 at 04:00
To: [Assumed Identity] <assumed@gmail.com>
OK, I’ll include that revised version of the last paragraph. Thanks.
Brian Leiter
Karl N. Llewellyn Professor of Jurisprudence
Director, Center for Law, Philosophy & Human Values
University of Chicago
Homepage: www.brianleiter.net
[Assumed Identity] <assumed@gmail.com>
25 September 2018 at 04:02
To: xxx@uchicago.edu
Oh, thank you for catching it!
Leiter, Brian <xxx@uchicago.edu>
25 September 2018 at 04:16
To: [Assumed Identity] <assumed@gmail.com>
Can I make one more suggestion, namely, that we delete the whole first paragraph about privacy — it’s too long, and too rambling, and distracts from the main issues. Why you would anonymity will be quite clear from everything else. I can edit the rest accordingly if you agree to rejmoving that.
Brian Leiter
Karl N. Llewellyn Professor of Jurisprudence
Director, Center for Law, Philosophy & Human Values
University of Chicago
Homepage: www.brianleiter.net
[Assumed Identity] <assumed@gmail.com>
25 September 2018 at 04:18
To: xxx@uchicago.edu
Fair enough. There are clearer denunciations for the cases I talked about, and the material I still like in that paragraph appears elsewhere.
Leiter, Brian <xxx@uchicago.edu>
25 September 2018 at 04:23
To: [Assumed Identity] <assumed@gmail.com>
Thank you.
Brian Leiter
Karl N. Llewellyn Professor of Jurisprudence
Director, Center for Law, Philosophy & Human Values
University of Chicago
Homepage: www.brianleiter.net
As mentioned in our previous story, the following email exchange consists of a series of messages to Brian Leiter after his publishing and soliciting personal information about an APA editor on this blog (http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2018/09/speaking-of-actual-libel.htm). As detailed in our previous blog, every single event is made up, and not a single event occurred (https://medium.com/@BLeiters/the-imposter-speaks-e04193c8b1b0) but are all adapted from Brian Leiter’s public activities. We have nothing to do with the APA blog, nor the APA and none of the information we sent to Leiter was true as to events or to the editor’s character. As a consequence, and to avoid future misinterpretations of the text we have changed all uses of his name to “O” and “N O” for this exchange. Similarly we have only used the initials of the Lead Editor. This and the indicated redaction of fictional details of other editors are our only changes in publishing. As pointed out in our other piece, the actions of the contributors are likewise entirely fictional.