A remarkably long walk

David Karpf on the translucently thin skin of Bret Stephens:

Bret Stephens is above me in the status hierarchy. He knows this. I know this. He has won a Pulitzer Prize and has a regular op-ed column in the New York Times. I am just some professor. I’ve written two books, but unless you are professionally involved with digital politics, you probably have never heard of me.

We have now though.

Karpf was surprised to get an email from Stephens, and surprised to see the provost of his university was cc’ed on the message.

He shares the email. I neglected to quote the whole thing yesterday so why don’t I do that now.

Dear Dr. Karpf,

Someone just pointed out a tweet you wrote about me, calling me a “bedbug.” I’m often amazed about the things supposedly decent people are prepared to say about other people — people they’ve never met — on Twitter. I think you’ve set a new standard.

I would welcome the opportunity for you to come to my home, meet my wife and kids, talk to us for for a few minutes, and then call me a “bedbug” to my face. That would take some genuine courage and intellectual integrity on your part. I promise to be courteous no matter what you have to say.

Maybe it will make you feel better about yourself.

Please consider this a standing invitation. You are more than welcome to bring your significant other.

Cordially,
Bret Stephens

Apart from anything else – it’s hilarious that he thinks that one mild joke “set a new standard” for what people are prepared to say on Twitter. Oh, dude. Not within shouting distance.

Karpf was surprised he even knew about the tweet, let alone bothered to pitch a fit about it.

But what was most striking to me was that he had gone to the effort to CC the provost. Including the Provost clarifies the intent of the message. It means he was not reaching out in an earnest attempt to promote online civil discourse.

That insultingly insincere “Cordially” at the end notwithstanding.

It means he was trying to send a message that he stands above me in the status hierarchy, and that people like me are not supposed to write mean jokes about people like him online. It was an exercise in wielding power—using the imprimatur of The New York Times to ward off speech that he finds distasteful.

I was even more surprised this morning, when he was invited to speak on MSNBC about the incident and remarked that, “There’s a bad history of being analogized to insects that goes back to a lot of totalitarian regimes in the past.” You can draw your own conclusion as to whether my joke was worth a chuckle. But equating a random Twitter account with a totalitarian regime is a remarkably long walk. I have to assume that Stephens recognizes that these words would have a different meaning and impact if they came from the ministry of propaganda than when uttered as a cheeky response to a headline about actual bedbugs in a newsroom.

The ministry of propaganda or the president of the US.

The funny thing is the joke was more at the expense of the Times than Stephens himself. Or maybe not more, but equally. I read it as aimed in the general direction of the David Brookses and Bari Weisses – the conspicuously mediocre opinionators they choose to represent The Range of Views.

But here’s what still bothers me as this strange episode recedes from the news cycle: Bret Stephens seems to think that his social status should render him immune from criticism from people like me. I think that the rewards of his social status come with an understanding that lesser-known people will say mean things about him online.

Stephens reached out to me in the mistaken belief that I would feel ashamed. He reached out believing my university would chastise me for provoking the ire of a writer at The New York Times. That’s an abuse of his social station.

But what’s the point of having that kind of social station if you don’t get to abuse it?

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