Agreed… hence my 5:26 apology.

You may be happy to take that risk, but not everyone shares that predilection. (Here Thomas Edsall’s fascinating reflections on the Republican party as the home of risk-lovers, and the Dems as the natural abode of those favoring security, are particularly compelling…they’re in his book “Building Red America”).

Anyway, check out this presentation by Danielle Citron:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVEL4RfN3uQ

It’s a compelling description of how quickly online discussions can get out of control.

I love the Humpty Dumpty reference. This is what I was talking about when I (admittedly impolitely, I’m sorry) I made the “classic liberalism” crack. Natch, it is a disease that infects both sides of the aisle.

‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone,’ it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.’

‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’

‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master – that’s all.’

http://www.negotiationlawblog.com/2008/05/articles/abcs-of-conflict-resolution/b-is-for-bully-the-abcs-of-conflict-resolution/

No bullying around here.

I did nevertheless put my thoughts somewhere on the comment thread over at Prawfs. I just want to add something here about Larry Sheldon’s comment. It seems to me there’s some tension between “your blog, your rules” and “follow the rules your mother taught you.” The statement “your blog, your rules” is true enough but also quite incomplete. You have the power to do what you want on your own blog, but that doesn’t answer the question of what you ought to do on your own blog — both as a general matter of wanting to win respect on the broader blogosphere, if such things matter to you, and because, on your own blog and everywhere else, you ought to behave as your mother taught you. My mother taught me to be respectful and courteous without backing off from your principles. I can say what I think is right without being rude about it. I politely stated on the blog that I didn’t think I was strictly speaking obliged to contact Prof. Bernstein in advance; but nothing prevented me from doing so, it seemed polite in the circumstances to do so, and so I did.

One last point: conversations on the web often devolve into personality conflicts and unnecessary sparring that detracts from the substantive issue at hand. I find that deeply counter-productive. By contacting Prof. Bernstein in advance, I made clear to her and the world at large that I was interested in discussing the substance of her comment, not in engaging in some kind of personality conflict. Isn’t that supposed to be the point of blogging among academics? Prof. Bernstein herself said that she considered her comments fair game because they had been posted to the world at large. But by proceeding as I did (and by Prof. Bernstein proceeding as she did, in the spirit of open dialogue), both of us did our part to try to make the conversation productive. Shouldn’t we all welcome that? It might not have been bullying if I had acted differently — that is my view, at least — but I think the conversation was potentially more productive given that both she and I attempted to act in the spirit of mutual respect and openness.

AJ, maybe the colleague is Pat, from SNL. Did you ever think about that?

A blog author should expect that, by putting her opinions out on the internet, she will be quoted in another blog. The quote may be favorable or unfavorable. She’ll get praise, or someone will take issue with what she writes. If she doesn’t want that, she shouldn’t be writing for a blog.

You post, someone comments to praise or criticize, readers decide. That is the marketplace of ideas.

Only a moron who has nothing but rotten skins to sell in the marketplace of ideas needs to take a negative term like “bullying,” and then re-define it to protect her inability to bring anything meaningful to the marketplace of ideas.

Naturally, that is classic academic liberalism at its core… so don’t expect the notion to go away anytime soon.

But apropos of correctness, I was intrigued by a comment of Dave’s in the PrawfsBlawg thread: “When I picked a contract casebook, I was told by a senior colleague that it would be crazy to use Randy Barnett’s book, because he was so ‘extreme.’ (I doubt that s/he had read Randy’s extremely well-edited book, that is as free from editorial intervention as any I’ve seen).”

Given that you’re referring to a specific colleague, isn’t your use of “s/he” a little much? I mean, isn’t your colleague one or the other? (Or if your colleague is in transition between genders, or doesn’t self-identify as either, mightn’t this politicized pronoun focus attention on your colleague in exactly the kind of way you seem to have been at pains to avoid?) If you want to make it more difficult to guess your colleague’s identity, the simple phrase “my colleague” seems to finesse the issue nicely. Is there some other “norm” I am missing here?

While I’m blathering, I should clarify my earlier response. (Brevity may be economical as to space, but costly in other ways.) Assuming that one’s intent is benign (and, having no reason to believe otherwise, I assume that yours is), providing notice allows folks to continue an off-topic discussion in another venue. If one’s intent were not benign, then the provision of notice would do nothing to mitigate an intent to bully or any bullying that might ensue.

One last thought: After reading the earlier discussion, I think that the sticking point was not so much the definition of bullying, but rather, from whose viewpoint should we define bullying – that of the “bully” or the “bullied.” I think that both viewpoints are valid. Sometimes, the viewpoints coincide. But when they do not and someone is feeling bullied, I’m not inclined to gainsay those feelings.