Sua SponteMy law school odyssey: the ongoing narrative.
Greg posts a surprisingly vituperative response to my rant about grading post yesterday. He's called my bluff, so I should come clean: I didn't actually read his original post. In fact, my post had nothing to do with either Greg or Professor Yin at all, but was actually an extraordinarily ill-phrased paean to Anthony Rickey's Con Law outline. No, really. (It beats my own Con Law outline at this point, without a doubt.)
If I were to read both his original and current post, which I may or may not do, it would seem to me that Greg and I agree on the general suckage inherent in the law school grading process. Professors would most likely concur; honestly, who enjoys fitting a qualitative judgment into a quantitative framework? So my point, at least, was well taken, even if it ultimately sent Greg into a paroxysm of "utter amazement over SS's irresponsible drivel."
What Greg's post did, as evidenced by additional commentary, was raise a warning flag. He may well have meant no attack on Prof. Yin personally, but Prof. Yin responded nonetheless by editing his original post to add a disclaimer explaining the previously-carefree statement. That's a defensive maneuver, regardless of whether any offense was intended or taken. Prof. Althouse has now resolved to take similar care in her posts on grading. Other professors who read Greg's post (clearly more assiduously than I have, or have not, as the case may be) may be likewise inspired to self-censor, in the interest of preserving the sensitive feelings of their students.
Greg raises an interesting issue. Do we want to encourage this kind of self-censorship among blogging professors? Is it merely a question of hurting feelings? (The *result* of the grading process does that quite well enough, thank you.) Or is it a privacy problem? For the professor? For the students? To what extent is it ethical for a professor to comment on the labors of em's students in the public sphere, at all, let alone with any positive or negative inflection? But at the same time, do we want these people who so kindly and candidly share their lives with us to don veils they wouldn't otherwise choose to wear? (And ultimately, how different is blogging about blind grading from boasting in class about one's coping methods while doing so?)
I have the ideal, yet entirely unfeasible, solution to all of these problems: we all blog completely anonymously, and -- this is the important part -- no one makes any effort to unmask anyone else. But it won't happen. Too few people are willing to take a story on its face; they need the backstory as well, the Behind the Blogging special on the things the blogger doesn't post. And too few people, myself included, have the energy to maintain total inscrutable anonymity. Invariably the story, while attempting to exist in a freestanding manner, draws in details that localize and personalize and slant the worldview through the author's perspective. And then there are the people who delight in their names and do not wish to hide or shed them.
Short of my ideal frictionless situation, I'm not sure what to suggest. But I'm bothered by the idea that people who otherwise would like to blog about something are going to feel uncomfortable about doing so in the future. Self-censorship, even when wholly voluntary, is never as good a thing as candor.
thus spake /jca @ May 10, 2004 01:55 PMYou can poke all the fun you'd like at my tone, but the fact of the matter is that your response to my post was irresponsible in so far as it mischaracterized my position and put caution to the wind with respect to my stated opinion when you insinuated that I "accuse[d] [Prof. Yin] of trivializing the work of his seminar students just because he doesn't look forward to reducing all that work to points on a semi-arbitrary scale."
To the extend this was careless and childish of you, your post was drivel. There was nothing mean spirited about my post. I chose words that accurately described your response--nothing more.
Wow, Greg, you DO need a hug! Are you in finals right now? Perhaps Xanax would be better. If you prefer to avoid pharmaceuticals, I recommend a massage (in your case, at least 90 minutes).
You refer to someone as "careless and childish" and call what they write "drivel." Your initial blog post may not have been mean spirited but your comment here certainly is. If you believe that JCA has misrepresented you, you can say so but without the pejoratives. I doubt that Professor Yin and Professor Althouse hurl invectives in the articles they write; why not imitate them?
And as someone who was wrestling with my school's "grade equalization standard" today, let me say that grading sucks.
Posted by: Bill Logan at May 10, 2004 11:25 PMI have some questions for those of you in law school who blog. Wasn't sure the best place to ask, but figured this would do. I recently created a blog (mostly for my own amusement and to keep a journal of sorts) talking about my experiences choosing a law school, with the intention to keep it up once I start law school this fall. I'm having a difficult time deciding how best to remain (fairly) anonymous. I've replaced my real name on my blog with "Barbie" (full story on that on my blog) and have been careful not to give too much away. However, I'm sure it won't be hard for people at my school to figure out its me in the fall (I've mentioned in my blog where I'm from because it was important to my school decision and I wanted future students to see that).
Anyhow, my main question is, have any of you had any bad experiences with students or faculty matching you up with your blog? For example, I know lots of bloggers talking about "Prof Con Law" (which I think its a good idea not to name names) and something he/she did in class that they liked or didn't like. How do you speak honestly on your blog without ever offending that professor if they figure out who you are? Also, it seems if you said anything negative about the school or your experience there that the school could get upset because perhaps a future student would read it and be swayed by that opinion.
Not sure if any of this made any sense, but hopefully someone will understand and respond. :)
Posted by: Barbie at May 11, 2004 09:36 AMMethinks the lady doth protest too much--Wm. Shakespeare
Posted by: Patrick at May 11, 2004 10:23 AMBill:
"Careless and childish" is part of what "drivel" means. Those are not two different remarks, I was simply explaining why I used the word "drivel." When someone carelessly misrepresents your argument, "drivel" is an appropriate term for what that person wrote. To the extent my remarks were "pejorative" in the sense that they were disparaging or having the intent to lower the reputation of the person the words were directed at, you're right--they were pejorative. Sua Spone deserves to take a hit to her anonymous reputation for playing carelessly with my reputation by attributing arguments to me that were not mine--arguments that forced me to respond because of their implications for how I think about others' opinions. Thus, although pejorative there was nothing "mean spirited" about my remarks. I chose my words carefully.
Posted by: Greg at May 11, 2004 10:30 AMGreggity-poo,
That was not at all what I got from JCA's post. Far be it from me to read into what she was thinking, but her link to your original post seemed to this reader like a launching point for a meditation on the nature of grading--just how does one assign a relative value to an intellectual product? Seems like you are reading waaaay to much into this, dude.
Far from misrepresenting you, JCA said you "appear to think. . .". That is, regardless of how or what you intended to post, that was how you appeared to her. And as Bill Logan pointed out, if that was wrong, you could have corrected her misapprehension without the invective.
A word of advice: The world does not revolve around you. The sooner you learn that, the happier you will be. You remind me of an attorney at my office. He died last week of a heart attack at the age of 54.
Posted by: Patrick at May 11, 2004 11:37 AMThat really was quite amazing, Patrick. You know me well.
Posted by: Greg at May 11, 2004 02:57 PMGreg, you write pejorative (i.e. disparaging and belittling) remarks, you say that JCA needs to "take a hit" to her reputation, yet you're not being mean spirited? I'm curious to hear how you would rationalize that. Finals are over at FSU, otherwise I'd attribute your remarks to finals anxiety or end-of-semester peevishness.
Let's be clear about what happened here. You wrote a post. JCA disagreed with it. You thought she totally misrepresented what you wrote, so you got upset. You're trying to present your writings as coming from a calm, rational, and logical mind, but really, you're not Mr. Spock. People get mad all the time; the difference between them is how they act afterwards.
If you think JCA is wrong (and you do), just say so. There's no need to resort to invective. Is this what really good professors do in their writing? I rather doubt it. Since you want to be a professor, why not imitate them? Eugene Volokh's (excellent) book Academic Legal Writing says that writers should avoid "Unduly Harsh Criticism" (p.90) and "Personalized Criticism" (p.91). It's good advice, and it ought to be followed more. Did you have to write a student note for your journal? What tone did you adopt when (if) you criticized others's arguments?
Earlier today, a colleague showed me a bar journal he got. There's a flyer in it for some CLE presentations. The ethics presentation has a panel of four or five judges and is titled (from memory) "Professionalism: When You Act Like a Jerk, We STOP Listening!"
Posted by: Bill Logan at May 11, 2004 03:15 PMGreg: Just make sure you've got a good cardiologist, mmkay?
http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/1996/11.07/AngerisHostileT.html
Posted by: Patrick at May 11, 2004 03:15 PMBarbie:
JCA is right. Many people don't want to respect the wishes of authors to keep their identities somewhat secret. They feel entitled to anything they can figure out. Their actions have silenced many a good blogger and kept several others from starting. The worst part is, they don't think beyond the selfish "I want to know who this person is" bit. If they did, most of 'em would prefer to keep reading the stuff that's written without censure. It's a bummer.
I had to go back and redact a bit of my blog when I was found out earlier this year. It's definitely a real danger that you should consider while posting.
I'm happy to discuss it with you off-line if you want to shoot me an email.
Posted by: bt at May 11, 2004 06:09 PM"Were I a student in Prof. Yin's seminar perhaps I would be feeling just a little upset."
"First, my post was not of the reaction I "would" have had were I student in Prof. Yin's seminar class."
Could've fooled me!
Posted by: Nobody at May 11, 2004 08:06 PM