JISCMail - MEDIEVAL-RELIGION Archives

On 17 Feb 2007, at 15:17, Brunner Karl wrote:

medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture

What ist "geschmacklos" - tasteless ?
and "humorlos" - without sense of humour ?
in any case: unnecessary
very sorry Mr. Carson
Sie haben sich daneben benommen.
b.k.

Mr Karl, you are very kind to admit that you know not whereof you speak, but you needn't bother. However, I do accept your apology, since it was indeed very tasteless and humorless of you to say such things without any justification, and in a public forum, as well.

As is quite clear, I have been perfectly civil in this discussion, unlike Mr. Briggs, who, in the absence of any actual arguments in favor of his position chose instead to impugn my motives for correcting him, going so far as to suggest that I may have an inferiority complex. If that strikes you as tasteful and humorous, then there is not much I can say in return--such opinions are to be pitied rather than argued against. If you have any evidence--any at all--that I have been the least bit rude or improper, then I would thank you to point it out, rather than merely assume that it's true. In the absence of any such evidence, since you took it upon yourself to insult me in public rather than via private email I will expect a public apology. I have done nothing more than point out an error in a colleague's argument, and I did it in a polite and professional manner. This is what scholars do, Mr. Karl, and it is quite clear that Mr. Briggs knows this as well, since he does it himself all the time. He also knows full well that he can rankle, and he probably counts himself fortunate that he did not rankle me; at any rate, his complaints so far have consisted of nothing more serious than a confession that he did not understand the point I was making.

Mr. Briggs was unable to find this journal online, whether due to his own incompetence or for some other reason I cannot say, but instead of merely writing back to Dr. Postles privately asking for clarification, he chose to write to the entire list the following:

This can be read in a neutral way, of course, and perhaps Mr. Briggs actually thought he was being humorous (de gustibus non disputandum est), but as my own experience here is quickly demonstrating, what one person may intend as a neutral comment may not always be interpreted by everyone else as a neutral comment. In any event, Dr. Postles did not think this a neutral comment, for he responded as follows:

John Briggs, you must invest a hell of a lot of your time in deciding how to be purposely and effectively offensive. The URL is correct as it was sent to me by EH. No doubt, the website is behind schedule in getting the information up. I removed the subscription form because it is against the etiquette of academic lists to post such details. On Friday, when I am in Leicester, I can recover the subscription form from the UoL logs and post it off-list to anyone who wishes to receive it. Please mail me at [log in to unmask] should you wish to receive it. I am now leaving this list.

Perhaps something of an over-reaction, since if Dr. Postles really believed that this is typical behavior of Mr. Briggs then he ought not to have been so surprised to find him behaving so consistently. However that may be, in the interest of fairness I have spent some time this morning perusing the archives of the list and I have to say that I think Dr. Postles may have been on to something, since Mr. Briggs, whether he intends to or not, often presents his views in ways that are brusque and rather dismissive of the views of others. In his little kerfuffle with Dr. Postles one would imagine that someone with good taste and humor, to borrow your own peculiar moral categories, would have immediately set about trying to put Dr. Postles at ease. Here is what Mr. Briggs said--again, to the whole list:

In the present case the facts are clear and simple. Mr. Briggs made a comment that was in error. I corrected his error. Mr. Briggs tried to defend his error, and in doing so made another error. I pointed out his second error, and charitably suggested a method to help him understand the nature of his error. Mr. Briggs interpreted my charitable suggestion as a rude comment deriving from some imagined secret vendetta that I am supposed to have against him because of some putative slur against my intelligence. Mr. Briggs cannot, in good conscience, pretend that I have been anything but professional and to the point, and I hope that you will follow his example, or if you cannot bring yourself to do that, at least confine your ignorant slurs against my character to attacks via private email that I can easily direct to the trash, where they belong.