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?
I’m reminded of a previous incident involving Stephens getting into it with a critic.
I tried and failed to find a link, so I’ll give you the shortest version I can. Writer for Gawker Media tosses off a brief email to Stephens along the lines of fuck you, you suck, the Times should give your column to someone decent. Stephens emails back with his indignant why-I-never-such-language! civility cop routine, gets another nasty email in reply. The Gawker writer does not cover himself in glory during this exchange; in fact, arguably, Stephens is being very polite and patient with someone whose superficial and nasty criticism didn’t merit engagement. But what struck me about that exchange when I re-read it yesterday is (1) Stephens, after sending his first email, decided to Google the critic, discovered he was a writer for Gawker, and then (2) sent a second email where he says your comments would be a disgrace to your parents — who he names, as if to show off his “research,” — and adds that a young writer shouldn’t talk shit to someone like him because someday Stephens might be on an award committee or otherwise in a position to influence his career. Stephens added a P.S. that he, of course, would recuse himself in that situation but that other, less ethical, people might not. So, you know, be nice to your betters if you know what’s good for you.
See, Karpf’s analysis above is far more stinging and damaging to Stephens than the original joke. The best thing is that it is absolutely on the money. Stephens bought this on himself. It must come close to requiring that the Streisand Effect be renamed surely?
Screechy, I remember that incident. Much of the blow-back against Stephens at the time was that he was clearly issuing a veiled threat that he could, if he so choose, damage a young persons career out of pique.
““There’s a bad history of being analogized to insects that goes back to a lot of totalitarian regimes in the past.”
It’s amazing the disproportion of this. The lead up to genocide in Rwanda had the radio stations calling Tutsis “cockroaches”, but one University guy in the USA calling another columnist guy a bedbug?
I usually eschew both the words “hysteria” and “entitlement” but both are showing in spades here.
Also the social context. “Come over to my house and call me that.” – No, in print I’d call you all sorts of things like pompous, self-centred, as thin-skinned as a salamander, but if we met we’d exchange remarks about the weather and our discussion would probably be more civil.