About once a week I’ve devoted a post to a drawing taken from Kara Bishop’s www.postcardsfromsplitsville.com. Bishop works with Children of Divorce, a class run by Tucson, Arizona-based Divorce Recovery. The class did an art project that included “sending away” the frustrations of divorce, and we’ve been posting the children’s art. To see what we’ve posted, click here.
Recently three posters–Norman, Novae, and Ruby, questioned the authenticity of the art work. I allowed some discussion on the issue, but limited it after a few days, and deleted one post by Novae and another by Ruby, though most of the critical posts are still there.
Norman wrote me an email which said he was “sorry I doubted some of the Postcards from Splitsville.” Novae and Ruby, however, are both very angry with me, and their letters are below in italics. My response comments are interspersed in standard type.
From Novae:
Glenn, you hypocrite. Talk about censoring…on that last post about postcards from Splitsville, you deleted my posts and RubyThea’s, and locked the whole thing from further posting. Where do you get off criticizing feminist blogs for that, when you do the same thing yourself??
You call it “censoring,” I call it “moderating,” and I think I should be doing more of it, not less. Several of you made comments stating that the Splitsville artwork did not really come from kids, but was instead created by an adult or through “coaching.” In other words, you accused Kara of being a fraud.
I allowed this, to a point, but after Kara made her response I saw no purpose in allowing this woman’s fine work to be further maligned. Most of the critical comments are still there–see for yourself at http://glennsacks.com/blog/?p=1513. However, I deleted the last two, and closed the discussion. Call me a “chivalrous male” if you want, but it hardly seemed fair to Kara to continue to allow such baseless aspersions to be cast on her character.
As for feminist blogs, what I object to is their general refusal to allow reasonable dissent. Feminist bloggers have every right to delete comments that are personal attacks, stray from the issues, employ obscenity, endlessly carp over tiny points, or are from people who just absolutely have to have the last word on any subject and will go on and on and on in order to get it. Any blogger, feminist or not, has the right to moderate that sort of thing. That aside, I think you’d be hard pressed to say I don’t allow reasonable dissent.
As for “censoring,” in the month of January this www.GlennSacks.com received 5,706 comments. Of these, excluding spam and comments which were double-posted, I deleted fewer than 50 comments. Less than 1 in 100. To paraphrase Shakespeare, “This is ‘Censorship’? Censorship should be made of sterner stuff.”
Ya know, with the censoring on top of the lack of actual issues being discussed on here the past couple months, and then the attempts to make-nice with the feminists by going out of your way to find anything you can agree with them on just so you can put it on here, it’s little wonder there’s no solidarity in this part of the equal rights community. The quality of this site has gone downhill since about the beginning of November.
I don’t go “out of my way” to “make nice with the feminists.” I follow a simple rule–when someone is right, I say it, when someone is wrong, I say it.
I have no use for the ludicrous pretense that our side is always good and right and virtuous and their side is always bad and wrong and sleazy. I write about gender issues, and in so doing I read both men’s movement material and feminist material. When I see the feminists do something good, I point it out. Were there enough hours in the day, I would do more of this, not less.
I’ve been reading since the middle of last summer. You used to allow free thought, you used to actually reply to e-mails, and you used to defend a position in the equal rights movement.
There’s as much or as little “free thought” here as there ever was–nothing has changed.
Now, you think you’re a political commentator, and aside from issues relating to baseball or things that happened decades ago and the occasional heart-wrenching anecdote, there’s no content here anymore.
I’m sorry you feel there’s “no content here anymore” but I’m not aware of anything that has changed. You say I used to be good but am not anymore, but maybe I always sucked and you just didn’t notice it until lately.
Where’d your columns go? Why’d you quit writing the great stuff you used to write?
I’ve been swamped with other obligations over the past couple months and cut back some on my column writing, but they’re coming back. Thanks for the kind words about my previous work.
There is NOTHING I hate as much as censorship. Not even feminists. (though they do censor people fairly often) When you get back to the great work you used to do, you’ll get me and my family as readers again, provided you fix the censoring you did to that aforementioned post, or at least agree not to do it again. I know a handful of readers don’t really matter to you, but at least I’ve made my position clear.
PS: I’d have e-mailed this to you so as to keep this blog post on-topic, but the only time you’ve given any indication of receiving an e-mail from me in the past few months was the *one* time I forgot to include a link…I got two words in response. Thanks a ton.
I receive over 10,000 letters a month. Ten Thousand. I can only reply to a very, very small handful, and the guys who are being hammered in their divorces and need help come first, and I can’t even get to all of those. My rule is this–I (almost) always respond to a person’s first letter. After that, it’s very sketchy. I wish I had time to respond to more letters, but there are a lot of things I wish I had more time for.
Ruby is similarly unhappy. After Novae’s comment she wrote:
Here Here! Sorry for going off topic as well, but I have to say something as well. Just because you didn’t agree with what we were saying doesn’t mean you have the right to remove our posts. I used to think that you were fair and balanced. But then you let that women put up her lies and then take us off the post when we point this out? Pardon me for thinking that this site was about discussing controversial topics. My bad. You won’t be hearing from me again. Furthermore, both Novae and I deserve an apology. If this is how your going to run the site, you might as well be one of the Feminists, Glenn.
Kara didn’t “put up her lies” and I find the vehement anger towards her very surprising. Other than that, I always thought you were a good poster here, Ruby, and it’s a shame you’ve decided to leave. Best of luck to you.
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Artfldgr said,
February 1, 2008 at 12:02 pm
amfortas said,
The ‘postcard’ items you have pointed to, and the site from which they come, are needed and valid. It is good of you to showcase them. This isn’t about feminism or censorship, but consciousness raising.
The occasional tip of the hat to women, even feminists, who get some idea or action right is also understandable, even if irksome in the feminists case. Few of us are wrong all of the time and few of us right all of the time.
February 1, 2008 at 6:57 pm