Avoiding Freaks

Published by

Clarissa

February 19, 2016

People keep asking me why I don’t try to publish my non-academic writing on more popular websites or print media. The answer is that the world is full of freaks, and I have zero interest in allowing them any access to my life.

An example. A professor of musicology wrote a beautiful post on his experience of teaching opera music to prison inmates. Immediately, a crowd of overeager hysterics descended on him to chide the professor, in a tone of fake outrage, for his racism, colonialism and un-Americanness (the professor emigrated to the US from Italy 20 years ago.) The fellow patiently and kindly responded to the outlandish accusations by freaks who never did anything for inmates yet felt entitled to scold the professor for sharing his knowledge with prisoners.

I’m not endowed with the same kind of patience as this professor and prefer to avoid the freaks altogether. So I never publish anywhere where freaks might lurk.

Here is the musicologist’s post and the comments.

Rate this:

14 responses to “Avoiding Freaks”

Shakti

February 19, 2016

We already knew this. 🙂

“Don’t read the comments” is a maxim for a reason. Imagine the reactions if he said they analyzed Tosca instead.

LikeLike

Reply
1. cliff arroyo
  
  February 19, 2016
  
  ” Imagine the reactions if he said they analyzed Tosca instead.”
  
  What’s problematic about Tosca?
  
  The Magic Flute, La Forza del Destino, Aida, Madama Butterfly, Lohengrin (the list goes on) on the other hand…
  
  LikeLike
  
  Reply
Jonathan Mayhew

February 19, 2016

I thought pc was an invention of the right, but it looks like it really exists, and that these musicologists are the worst offeders.

LikeLike

Reply
1. Pen
  
  February 19, 2016
  
  A lot of them aren’t musicologists, though. Reading through the comments, so many of them start or end with “I’m not a musicologist.”
  
  LikeLike
  
  Reply
  1. Jones
    
    February 21, 2016
    
    “I’m not a musicologist” = “Within this area of my non-expertise, I cannot make any claims of having any semblance of standing at all”
    
    Of course, I use the term “standing” in its conventional legal sense as well as in a less formal, more everyday sense …
    
    LikeLike
    
    Reply
2. Clarissa
  
  February 19, 2016
  
  I could have never imagined that teaching opera could be so controversial. This was very eye-opening.
  
  LikeLike
  
  Reply
xykademiqz

February 19, 2016

I am working on a book based on the blog writing (out in a couple of months), and I must say that I am excited for the people to read it, but I am also freaked out of exposing it to the wider world and getting really mean comments…

Ugh.

So I definitely sympathize.

LikeLike

Reply
Dreidel

February 20, 2016

Why don’t you sell your non-academic writing to print or online magazines and let them publish the material? (Use a nom-de-plume if you’re worried about freaks responding.)

That’s what I’ve done with the fictional garbage that I’ve had published since I retired and stopped doing anything useful — although I’ve used my real name, since I’m vain enough to want to get the credit. (If somebody wants to pick a fight over the silly stories and novellas I’ve written, my -email address isn’t that hard to find.)

It’s not that hard to find editors willing to pay for your material. Lists of genre publishers are all over the Internet.

LikeLike

Reply
1. Clarissa
  
  February 20, 2016
  
  I have so much going on in terms of work that I don’t feel like more work. Some time in the future, maybe.
  
  LikeLike
  
  Reply
2. Jones
  
  February 21, 2016
  
  I think this is an excellent suggestion, but not for the obvious reasons …
  
  It’s because your critics will have to show that they possess some sort of standing in order to be regarded as believable and credible.
  
  Simply “giving away the plot”, so to speak, encourages a broad range of “concern trolls”, “attention magnets”, and other denizens of the Swamp of the Internet to come forth to speak as if they actually have credible voices.
  
  They don’t, and I’ve encouraged others online (Mike Cernovich for one) to avoid behaving in a way that implicitly grants these people standing.
  
  These things being discussed in comments on this music scholar’s blog are not facts, theories, or opinions — they are simply sentiments, grounded in little and easily dismissed as being worth little.
  
  Raising the bar by allowing your editors and their staff to muzzle any over-sentimental noise making can only be seen as a generally positive thing …
  
  LikeLike
  
  Reply
cliff arroyo

February 20, 2016

For masochists…. there’s a link in the comments to a livejournal site where people whimper and complain about how musicology as a field is “not safe” for scholars of color….

I read through part of it but I couldn’t find anything really resembling any concrete thing that they were complaining about beyond the suggestion that the professional work of scholars and composers can be evaluated separately from their personal lives which is apparently an unbearably oppressive idea.

LikeLike

Reply
1. Clarissa
  
  February 20, 2016
  
  My term as the chair of the research committee ended this year, and I was pretty much the only obstacle in the path of the new regulation that will obligate scholars to accompany grant applications with narratives of personal hardship they have experienced in their lives. This is the so-called shadow CV where people basically compete in who’s the biggest victim. And it’s not even suggested as an option but as a pre-requisite for any research grant application. Now that I’m off the committee, I have no idea who’ll oppose the measure.
  
  LikeLike
  
  Reply
  1. Jonathan Mayhew
    
    February 20, 2016
    
    Yes. I’ve railed against the shadow cv concept many times
    
    LikeLike
    
    Reply
Jones

February 21, 2016

Although “hate mail” will not be graded, as is the custom of one writer who wrote a book on the subject, I do in fact keep score by keeping tabs on the quality as well as quantity of my “enemies” …

The quantity measurement allows me to gauge how many (usually febrile) minds I’ve temporarily hijacked with a base-level emotional reaction.

The quality measurement allows me to gauge the competence, agility, and potential threat level of my enemies.

To wit, to most of my would-be “enemies” with little to no standing:
YOU ARE AN ACCEPTABLE LEVEL OF THREAT
AND IF YOU WERE NOT YOU WOULD KNOW ABOUT IT

[thanks Banksy, it’s always a load of laughs with you …] 🙂

LikeLike

Reply