Elitism, Dan Epstein, and Hypocrisy
Edward Reiss
For a week, I had been following a thread in tpm, a discussion between
Dan Epstein (d...@cup.hp.com) and another poster to tpm. The other poster
happened to be well known within his field. I was amused that Dan was
making numerous personal attacks on this poster, (to which the poster
did not respond in like kind). In fact I thought Dan looked terribly
bad because of his ad hominen attacks. So,being in a quirky mood, I sent
off a terse 5-6 line message to Dan by *private email*. The essence of
the message was that Dan "was creating a joke" by the nature of his
interaction with the other poster, and if Dan wanted to appreciate the
nature of this joke with the rest of the net - he should look up the name
of the other poster in a book which I cited. That was it. It was caustic
in nature, but not threatening or otherwise offensive.
Never in my wildest imaginings did I anticipate that Epstein would publish
my email to this newsgroup, accompanied by all sorts of sinister allegations.
One reason for this post is to publicly state that this email was never
intended for public disemination, and Dan Epstein (d...@cup.hp.com) did so
without either seeking or receiving permission from me to do so. In my mind,
this entire matter would be minimal except for the fact that another poster
was mentioned by name in my email, and on numerous occassions in Epstein's
replies. Unlike Dan Epstein, I never intended to publicly embarrass any
other poster to TPM, or for that matter, draw them into a new thread based
on the contents of my email.
Not only did Epstein (d...@cup.hp.com) try to create a false issue out of
my email, but he did so in an extremely dishonest and hypocritical manner.
He sent me an email reply, which on its face appeared reasonabley toned
and non-abusive, if somewhat self-laudatory. In response, I sat down,
and spent a couple of hours composing a polite reply, which I mailed off,
but was evidently never received. Since lost email messages snake their
way through the internet for 5 days, he may eventually get it. If he does,
I'm sure he'll post it to the net like all of the other email messages that
I've sent him, and it will "soon be coming to a Newsgroup Near You!!" :')
It turned out that his email was completely insincere. It was a "hit piece",
designed to be paraded next to and contrasted with my little 30 second
email message in public. In fact, the same day that he mailed it to me, he
posted both together in one posting to TPM and AAD (his "Elitism" thread).
This has to be the cheapest of tactics, reading multiple false meanings
into a short message *not* prepared for publication, and contrasting it with
a carefully prepared self-laudatory statement, filled with self-accolades and
statements of noble purpose.
In fact, it is the absolute height of irony that Dan Epstein was attacking a
poster for supposedly making statements akin to those made by Joseph McCarthy,
the infamous senator and demagogue who intimidated the country in the 1950's.
One of Joseph McCarthy's favorite tatics was to cow, bully and humiliate
his victims by revealing their private communications during public hearings,
while hiding behind veiled accusations and statements prepared well in advance.
Dan Epstein may claim to abhor the tactics of Sen. Joseph McCarthy. All I can
say is: "Dan - imitation is the sincerest form of flattery".
I would like to apologize to any third parties who were embarassed by
Dan's publishing my private email, for my mistaken judgement that Dan
possessed even a modicum of intelligence, integrity or a sense of
proportion. He obviously doesn't - which of course, explains his
previous posts to TPM :').
Ed