Years ago I was planning on entering a PL PhD program until I met Felleisen. He yelled at me, insulted me, and I left nearly crying. That was the last straw that led to me leave academia, and I never came back. A young woman I know switched out of her computer science major after taking his class and said she still had nightmares about him. Another person I know worked with him on a project as a student and said half the team dropped out due to his behavior. He would call the remaining team at 2am or 3am to yell at them sometimes (according to my friend).
I'm not sure how I feel about this coming out. I don't get the feeling that he's doing this on purpose. I've heard from people close to him that that's just the way he is and you have to get used to it. At the same time, he's been making people feel like shit for decades. Academia used to be a place for misfits who don't understand social conventions. What if not understanding social conventions comes off to others as bullying, though?
Racket could be better off without him. He might be brilliant, but he is so difficult to work with, he hurts his own project.
> I've heard from people close to him that that's just the way he is and you have to get used to it.
Perhaps, but usually bullies are only bullies when they are in a position of power and are perfectly capable of behaving different to people who have power over them.
How often to you hear about employees calling their boss and screaming at the boss at 3 in the morning? Strangely this rarely happens.
> What if not understanding social conventions comes off to others as bullying, though?
If you know who you can bully and who not to bully that means you do understand social conventions.
I'm from a culture which is perceived as abrasive, harsh, critical, and aggressive in the US. That goes up, down, and sideways. We're often perceived as bullies until we learn to code-switch.
African Americans get a pass here, since most people are familiar enough with African American culture and mannerisms to know how (or at least that) people use language differently, body language differently, and raised tones mean different things. Immigrants don't get that pass. I'm from a culture most Americans wouldn't recognize as a distinct culture -- there just aren't enough of us here.
For my culture, what you described would be a fine litmus test -- if someone is harsh downwards, they're a bully. If someone is harsh up and down, it's a cultural difference. There are other cultures which are more hierarchical there, though.
One of the key things to remember is that people condition to cultural communication styles growing up. When someone yells at me in contexts where an American would totally feel bad and bullied, I don't feel that way. The emotional meaning of expressions and communication styles changes. The same tone-of-voice can convey loss-of-control in one culture, aggression in another, and excitement in a third.
Coincidentally, without cross-cultural background, we perceive Americans as insincere, plasticity, dishonest, and political. Everyone smiles all the time, even if they hate you, and even the most common question, "How are you?" results in a lie.
I'm firmly convinced that the way to inclusiveness is on the receiving end -- it's a lot easier to learn to interpret that an American isn't being dishonest with fake smiles and constant white lies designed than it is to change how one speaks. Receiving end also doesn't mean adopting one cultural style over another.
Yeah, but assuming the GP's anecdote is true and not just hearsay, is it a cultural norm anywhere to wake people up in the middle of the night to be abrasive, harsh, critical and aggressive with them?
Because it's oppressive and stifling to be forced to culturally code-switch 100% of the time.
You try answering honestly anytime someone asks "How are you?" for a few weeks ("Not so well; I was fighting diarrhea last night, and got no sleep."). Or try following Middle Eastern norms on gender relations. Or raising your child Korean-style with after-school academic programs where your child spends more time in academics than Americans do awake.
Or if you want a simpler exercise, try mirroring Indian body language: nod sideways for yes. So how much cognitive load there is to a simple nonverbal communication change like that.
I'd advise trying to adopt African American communication mannerisms, but you'd be steamrolled for cultural appropriation (which is a very American concept).
As a footnote: Yelling is a normal, natural way to express excitement, anger, urgency, and a whole slew of other things. It's like forcing a dog to never bark. I understand how central not yelling is to some cultures (white/Western, Japanese, and a few others), but I don't think it's healthy or natural.
This is a really thoughtful comment, especially considering your personal experience.
There's a hard problem here: what should be done with people who interact poorly with others but are talented and driven? I don't know, but exiling them seems like a shame. Training them to play nice may not be possible.
A reasonable option may be recognizing that some talented people are "difficult" and providing students with a path around them. Keep the professor who makes students cry but don't require anyone to take his classes, ensure that there's a path to a degree that goes around him.
We should keep in mind that there may be no correlation between being a douchebag and being talented but there's also no correlation between being nice and being talented.
Someone doesn't immediately become a brilliant asshole. Both skillsets take time to evolve and solidify.
If we stop making excuses for people – "that's just they way they are, you know coders, they just don't have social skills, he's an asshole but the company would be in trouble without him" – then may be these people would get the feedback that they need before it becomes a problem of this magnitude.
Seriously, if you're that brilliant you can develop some basic social skills. And from what I'm getting from this thread, we are talking fundamental thinking before you engage in a social interaction skills.
It's ok not to be great at everything, but it's not acceptable to be toxic on the basis of your other skills. At the very least, sometimes that means the genius team member needs to just shut up and choose their battles.
And the first step for many of these type of asshole genius types can be to talk less. Once they master choosing their battles, they can work on how they approach the battles they choose to take.
> Seriously, if you're that brilliant you can develop some basic social skills.
I'm not entirely sure that this is always possible, since some of those people could possibly be on the autism spectrum, have Asperger's or perhaps other pathologies, that would impede their emotional intelligence. Obviously that's not always the case, but the assumption that it's always possible doesn't seem to be true.
> It's ok not to be great at everything, but it's not acceptable to be toxic on the basis of your other skills.
With this, however, i fully agree. I do find myself wishing that there was some socially acceptable way to call people out when their behaviour is not appropriate, without antagonizing them. For example, it would have probably been better to inform RMS in that way, rather than resorting to mob justice and "cancelling" him.
Autistic people are capable of following basic social protocol by not insulting or yelling at others. Anyone who says otherwise is just using their autism as an excuse for their toxic behaviour.
I'm autistic. It is possible for the socially inept to learn to be less of an asshole and to have better interactions with other people. I did it and we should expect everyone to make an effort to be kinder.
I’m autistic too, and I think what happens is that autistic people who also happen to be brilliant are not expected to learn how to interact well with others to the same extent that autistic folk of average intelligence are, so it ends up being on them whether they care enough about being kind and gentle to others to learn how to interact congenially. I know a lot of autistic people and most of them are nice but some of the more clever ones are indeed rude and socially inept. They also invariably believe that their rudeness is an inescapable aspect of their brilliance, but knowing a lot of brilliant people, autistic and not, this is just untrue.
The other side of this is that some of us do end up trying to fit in, hiding it but not well enough... Just come off as assholes or socially inept and hurting peoples feelings a lot more than if you were obviously on the spectrum,
Yes, this is really difficult problem. From my experience, doing these three things when being critical puts you in the not an asshole category by the vast vast majority of people: 1. don't raise your voice or yell, 2. don't insult people personally (say "this code is bad" instead of "you are bad for writing this code"), 3. if it is your first time critiquing someone, explain your style of criticism and note that it should not be taken personally.
Of course, there are very sensitive people, and you can't please everyone, but in my experience people will try to be accommodating if you tell them your situation.
On the one hand, people should try to fit in with society.
On the other hand, society should try to be more tolerant and understanding of people who find doing so significantly more challenging than the average person does.
I worry that this conversation seems to be focusing on the first point and not paying as much attention to the second.
What is "bullying"? Here's one definition [0]: "Bullying is an ongoing and deliberate misuse of power in relationships through repeated verbal, physical and/or social behaviour that intends to cause physical, social and/or psychological harm."
Was Felleisen's behaviour a "deliberate misuse of power... that intends to cause physical, social and/or psychological harm"? I don't know this guy personally and all I've read is some stories about him on these blog posts, but I'm not sure if he was deliberately intending to hurt other people, or merely doing so inadvertently out of social incompetence, deficits in cognitive empathy, emotional dysregulation, theory of mind deficits, difficulties in perspective-taking, etc? Individuals with neurodevelopmental and other psychiatric disorders can sometimes exhibit all of those inadvertent sources of interpersonal harm. (I'm not saying Felleisen has any such disorder – maybe he does, maybe he doesn't, I have no idea, so I must assume he might.)
I don’t mean to be crude but it’s kind of irrelevant what the specific definition of bullying is, and it’s definitely irrelevant what his intentions were. Many people find his behavior extremely unpleasant, belligerent, mean, etc, as evidenced by the thread on Butterick’s original post, and the OP in this thread, describing being yelled at and insulted. Having a disorder may be a partial explanation for why someone behaves a certain way. It’s not an excuse for behaving in a way that other people find antisocial, and it certainly doesn’t bind others to tolerate that behavior.
Ultimately even if you actually could not act any differently because of a disorder, others would still not be required to tolerate you. This is a consequence of being social animals, we set expectations for behavior and we enforce them. If you can’t play the game, you can’t exactly expect people who can to stop playing for your sake.
I think you're mistaking the relevance of his intentions as an excuse for him to continue being toxic. That's not the case at all. I think its very relevant why a person does the things they do. He still has to change and become less toxic no matter what.
If a person bullies because they have some kind of social ineptitude that makes them not realize they were bullying. That person is still a bully. However, its important to recognize if this was the case because the alternative is that he knew better and did it anyways because he knew he could get away with it.
> I don’t mean to be crude but it’s kind of irrelevant what the specific definition of bullying is, and it’s definitely irrelevant what his intentions were.
Why are intentions irrelevant? If someone is hurting me (or others), I do consider the question of whether they are doing so intentionally or inadvertently to be highly relevant to my judgement of their behaviour and how I am going to respond to it.
>On the other hand, society should try to be more tolerant and understanding of people who find doing so significantly more challenging than the average person does.
I agree completely. It took me a while to find a place where people didn't just treat me like I'm weird. Kindness, patience, and forgiveness are important things for everyone to work on.
I totally get that and it happens to me too. But I'm just talking about making an effort and the guy from OP didn't sound like he was making an effort at all.
Its possible that if he has social issues like some of us do that he didn't realize how bad his behavior was because everyone was afraid to tell him. But now that he knows I hope going forward he tries to get his anger under control a little more.
Kindness and understanding works both ways. We should also expect people that are naturally good at stuff like empathy and social skills to be patient and forgiving if they see that we try and fail.
Why don't we just assume that everyone with such an abrasive personality is very high functioning spectrum. Should we cut everybody slack, now? Is there a line where we let some have a pass and others not?
People are simply saying he might have social issues, not declaring it as a fact.
Its a realistic and common possibility in this industry and there's nothing wrong with mentioning it. My parent comment that yours falls under specifically mentions that even if he does have such issues, its no excuse to spend the rest of his life being toxic to people.
I think its probably more likely that he knew what he was doing and did it because he could get away with it as the leader of that project. However, I can't entirely dismiss the possibility that he has social issues because as I mentioned its a common problem.
Who’s “we”? Everyone has their own standards, and they’re in their right to stick by those standards. It’s whether “we” accommodate those standards that makes the difference.
I desperately want to agree with this, but something sticks at the back of my mind:
This is not acceptable behaviour.
The way we define acceptable behaviour changes from circumstance to circumstance. What's acceptable for Steve Jobs isn't acceptable for the guy at the window of McDonald's (either side of that window). That's maybe just the way it is - but it probably isn't right.
But what if everyone around this guy got together and said: There is a minimum behaviour you must conform to. We won't accept you shouting at us, we won't accept you belittling us. If you do it again, we will say "You need to calm down or leave the room please". When you're told that, those will be your only two choices, or everyone else will leave the room. And we may not come back. Because this is not acceptable behaviour.
It no longer becomes a question of training. It becomes a question of priority, of data. He can see that he is hit with this phrase day in day out, and he can understand that his behaviour is toxic. Eventually either people will stop saying it because it isn't working, or they'll stop saying it because he is getting the constant negative reinforcement. If it's the former, at least someone has tried. My worry is that with too many people, the individuals are too scared (or scarred) to try.
I also worry about the concept of "a path around him". If part of your job description is the instruction of students, you need to learn to deal correctly with those students. If good behaviour is not part of your skillset, then you do not have the skillset for the job, and that should have repercussions.
I guess there's an issue with the concept of tenure. But I don't feel like saying "You have the option of entering into this abusive relationship" is the right solution (even if it was that bluntly worded from the outset, which it absolutely should be). And I certainly don't think you should be told "You've tried the abusive narcissist, now that you've suffered you're welcome to escape"
If he truly cannot change, then that is sad for him. It should not be the source of damage for yet more people around him though. And looking at the apology, he clearly hasn't understood the effect he has on the people around him.
It's not actually a hard problem. We're not short of brilliant people who are also nice or at least not generally toxic. We don't need to exile the brilliant monsters; we just need to not make allowances for them. If they can learn to meet norms of civility, we can welcome them; if not, we can ignore them.
How many brilliant people have we lost access to because they were driven out of the field by someone like Felleisen? All we have to do is not tolerate their bad behaviour.
Everyone who met Felleisen and walked away is to be celebrated for not coddling his terrible behaviour; everyone who makes excuses for him should be shamed for enabling him.
Is there a shortage of people with CompSci PhDs to staff universities and do research? Is there a shortage of people to present at conferences?
Just because you feel like cancel culture is cancelling people who don't deserve it, doesn't mean we need those people to fill open positions. Every time we make excuses for people like Matthias, we're filling a chair that could have someone else who's not toxic in it.
Not to mention: if we have a shortage of brilliant people, why aren't you asking how many brilliant people are driven out of the community by people like Matthias? What's the opportunity cost in brilliant people that Matthias represents?
If 2 or 3 people who could make comparable contributions to the community leave because of him, we're already in a net-negative situation wrt smart people advancing the field and community. Even if Matthias is twice as smart as the next best, it only takes a few more for him to be a net negative.
> Is there a shortage of people with CompSci PhDs to staff universities and do research? Is there a shortage of people to present at conferences?
There's a shortage of people doing top-quality work that advances the state of the art.
> Just because you feel like cancel culture is cancelling people who don't deserve it, doesn't mean we need those people to fill open positions. Every time we make excuses for people like Matthias, we're filling a chair that could have someone else who's not toxic in it.
> Not to mention: if we have a shortage of brilliant people, why aren't you asking how many brilliant people are driven out of the community by people like Matthias? What's the opportunity cost in brilliant people that Matthias represents?
I absolutely do ask that. But the disproportionate number of brilliant people we see being cancelled lately makes me think that "toxicity" is practically a requirement for brilliance.
> There's a shortage of people doing top-quality work that advances the state of the art.
Ok. What do you have to back this up?
From my perspective, a PhD is defined by making a new contribution to the field, and we're graduating lots of PhDs. Part of Butterick's ire is directed at the many other prominent members of the Racket community who have passively enabled Matthias by ignoring his bad behaviour. If Matthias was hit by a bus, would Racket cease ongoing development? Of course not, there are many very smart people driving it forward in interesting ways. I would assert that Matthias isn't even necessary, now to the continuing advancement of the state of art with respect to Racket.
My perspective is that progress feels remarkably slow (despite minting an ever-increasing number of PhDs as you say), and Racket is one of a very small number of exceptions. I hope you're right that Matthias isn't necessary for Racket to keep advancing, because I fear we're about to find out.
As long as Matthias is alive, you're not going to find out. He's not going to be removed from Racket, as much as you and many others here seem to believe there's some huge problem of "cancel culture" coming for "everyone brilliant."
I think the honest, uncomfortable way of dealing with the Stallman and Felleisen fallout would be to ask "what can be done to offer non neurotypical persons an alternative career path that does not involve creating a living hell for other people by becoming managers" (saying this as someone who probably is in this category as well).
As long as there is no non managerial career (which is the case in all of academia), people will have to fake being a manager.
I don't buy the story that people who piss-off other people are "non-neurotypical" or "on the spectrum".
I piss people off quite often, and quite inadvertently. When it happens, I feel remorse. Friendships have failed terminally because of this.
But in general, people like me - they enjoy my conversation and my sense of humour.
The thing is, I'm rather blunt - I say what I mean. I don't like to lie, because once you start, things can get pretty tangled ("Oh what a tangled web we weave, When first we practice to deceive"). This bluntness isn't because I'm on some spectrum or other; it's a consequence of experiences I've had through my life, philosophical views that I've integrated into my personality, and a whole slew of unconscious biases and preferences.
(When I say "unconscious" I don't mean "subconscious" or "repressed"; I'm aware of my biases and preferences, on the whole, I just mean that they come to operate automatically).
I've known and worked with aspies. I know that Asperger's is a real thing. I don't think I've ever known anyone who was autistic. But I think there is a trend for anyone who is a bit abrasive to get labelled "spectrum" (or to label themselves). This is particularly a thing in IT.
It is not a sign that you are "on the spectrum" if you get people's backs up. A habit of speaking directly doesn't put you "on the spectrum". A dislike of small-talk doesn't put you "on the spectrum". Not caring much whether others think you're a wonderful person doesn't put you "on the spectrum".
IT people tend to steer away from small-talk, and have a preference for nuts and bolts. Their job is dealing with machinery, and machinery doesn't usually work better just because you stroked its ego, or gave it a compliment (I find that swearing at machines is much more helpful!) That's simply their training; it doesn't make them "non-neurotypical", or psychologically unwell. they're in IT because they enjoy working with machines, which isn't weird or sick.
I think there are ways between "ignoring it completely" and "unperson anybody who isn't perfectly polite", and there are ways to provide feedback to people about them interacting in a bad manner without exiling them. I think most people would be amenable to such training - just as they learn other social norms. If the professor's management would be willing to employ such training - without choosing between "ignore it" and "lose the professor" - I think many douchebags would learn to keep their douchebaggery in check. Of course, it may require some effort from the management side...
> what should be done with people who interact poorly with others but are talented and driven?
Just do not take their behavior personally. So what if he insults you. It takes two to make an offense - one to give offense, the other to take offense. Don't take offense, and there is no offense.
> makes students cry
There's no crying in baseball.
If you live to be my age, you'll experience the death of people you love. Save the crying for that.
You're getting downvoted, but there is some truth to this. Many years later, when I was much more confident in my career, I took a very well paid but short contract gig with a horrible boss. I found that the best way to deal with his outbursts was to find them funny. Screaming at the team for not making an arbitrary deadline he never told anyone about -- there's something comical about that. HOWEVER I would never want to work with someone like that for more than a few months.
In the situation with Felleisen, I was around twenty, in a new city, new to the academic world. The student I mentioned was one of one or two female students in the entire class and already unsure of her place. Asking people in those situations to not take insults from their professors, famous people in the field, gatekeepers personally is to ask them to overcome human nature itself. I would describe that as a hard problem.
I want to distinguish between a hardass and an asshole. Some people are conflating them, and the middle section of their Venn diagram is not empty, but they are not the same thing!! There are more choices than cuddly "everybody gets a trophy" snowflakes and calling children worthless morons! Everyone should have a hardass professor or a hardass boss at least once in their life. These people have high standards and push you, they don't accept excuses. You learn to work. They don't insult you or throw a fit, though. Hardass professor: "This is not good work. These are the reasons your work is bad. I expect better from you next time." Asshole: "This is not good work. These are the reasons you are a stupid and worthless person."
On the other hand, there are drill sergeants and similar situations. I don't know how to work them into my model. Some people seem to thrive in an environment like that. I wonder what the difference is?
You bring up a good point - a third category. The hardass who pushes you to be your best. The other two:
1. the bully who enjoys hurting others
2. the socially inept person who means no harm
They're very different.
As for a hardass, there's a story about Chuck Yeager who was assigned to command an Air Force base during the Korean War. Upon arrival, he went out to the field to watch the airmen land. Afterwards, he laid into them for their sloppy landings. He got some paint and laid down two lines cross-wise across the runway, and said they were going to take off and land with the wheels touching down between the lines.
One of the pilots told him that was impossible and unreasonable.
Yeager then got into an airplane, took off, made a circuit and touched his wheels down dead center between the lines. He didn't get any more crap from the pilots.
Me, I'd want to work for a hardass like that. Yeager wanted his pilots to be successful, and that means demanding perfection. I don't want a cake and ice cream commander, I'd want one who was a hardass, and keep me and my buddies alive.
You might also want to read "With The Old Breed" by Sledge. He thought boot camp was unreasonable, the drill sergeants too harsh, etc. In his combat at Tarawa, which was horrific, he realized that what kept him alive was the hardass training he got in boot camp.
On a gentler note, one of my profs at Caltech was demanding and a bit harsh. Other students had a bit of a negative opinion of him, but frankly I thrived in his class because of that. Working with demanding and "no excuses" people brings out the best in me.
There is an incompatibility here between the set of people who act like Felleisen and the set of people who react like Butterick.
There is inevitably a message from the community to one side of "change or leave." Whether explicit from action or implicit from inaction.
There is both a pragmatic and a moral side to the decission. From the pragmatic point of view, a brilliant asshole might be worth more than the sum of all those offended, or not.
From the moral side of things, we can choose to set limits to behaviors even when the benefit of their contributions is net positive considering those who avoid the community.
Your argument seems to speak to the moral side of things; that Felleisen's behavior is not so odious as to cross the moral event horizon. What about the simple fact that there are people who will take offense at his behavior, and the community will therefore lose their contributions?
I used to think very much like WalterBright as I never took offense (was raised to just listen to what people try to say, not how they say it) (and if someone goes physical (some people, when they cannot hurt you with words, start shoving you etc) I punch them in the face).
But that way, usually, the bully just moves to someone else and, even though I am untouched, the person did not change. So now that I am older, I think both sides need to work on this issue: the abuser needs therapy and the victim needs to grow a backbone and thicker skin. It is very sad, but people who start crying from verbal abuse will always be victims: in school and in companies. Bullies sniff them out intuitively. If only to have a better life, I would recommend getting less sensitive through whatever means possible. But out the bully too: they need help or get fired imho.
What's the point of this comment? That crying is wimpy and that it's fine to abuse multiple young adults to the point of tears because it's their fault for "taking offense"?
We are not talking about whether tears are a sensible and productive response. We are talking about whether it is reasonable to tolerate someone who consistently provokes them. Perhaps both sides need to take some responsibility, but redirecting the conversation like that seems to me to be making excuses for bad behavior.
1. Don't allow other people to control your feelings.
2. Be forgiving of people who do not mean offense, but are simply inept at the social graces. It's not that hard. You get to choose whether to be offended or not. Choose the not.
BTW, sometimes I listen to celebrities when they deal with hecklers trying to get under their skin. It's fun to watch how they parry the verbal knives. I recall Prince Phillip once being interviewed by "60 Minutes". The reporter really tried to get under his skin. Prince Phillip effortlessly and deftly turned the dagger away each time. He's evidently had a lot of practice :-)
Howard Stern was fun to watch, too. He knew how to get the goat from his interviewees. Except Paul McCartney. McCartney was a master at this game. Watching those two verbally duel was great sport. McCartney got the better of it!
> making excuses for bad behavior
Not at all. I've had to ban people a couple times from the D forums for unprofessional behavior. Not because they made me feel bad, but because I have no interest in running a sewer. We've been fortunate that it's only been a couple, and usually a private word can set things straight.
1. Don't allow other people to control your feelings.
Isn't that a lot like curing depression by saying "why don't you just stop being depressed?" Different people are wired differently and humans are on the whole really bad at consciously controlling their psychological state.
You even said in the previous post that crying and being sad is OK in some situations (like when a loved one died). Why didn't you choose to control your feelings and not be sad then?
I agree with your rules generally, but they're not workable when there's a big power imbalance between the offender and the offendee. Professors and grad students, in particular, have a massive power imbalance. A grad student's success in their multi-year quest for the degree is heavily dependent on the whims of the professor. The student must care about what the professor thinks. Escaping a tyrannical prof could set back the student's career by years.
I considered graduate education after I got my BS, but the risk of ending up as some professor's dog wasn't worth it to me.
That's all well and good but you're still directing your comments at the students. When there's multiple students all complaining about a single person, that's misdirected. Apply some systems thinking here.
In your comment, in response to what should be done, you replied "just [stuff the victim should do]'. That strongly implies that that is all that should be done. Very different message then is you had started with "One thing that hasn't been mentioned here is [the rest of your message]"
I suspect you are being misread due to that word choice, but to be honest I am not quite sure.
> Don't allow other people to control your feelings.
1. You offer this as an excuse for profound hostility and rudeness from someone in a position of power.
2. Every human has buttons that can be pressed and you are no exception.
3. Bullying behavior by someone who has power over others logically causes fear in the target of the bullying.
4. Bullying works. That's why people do it, even though it's a cheat. You are literally blaming the victim.
"Don't allow other people to control your feelings" as a response to a man with a career of bullying shows a profound and perhaps pathological contempt for the well-being of others.
I mean you said that behavior that offends is partially the fault of the person taking offense, I don’t understand how that’s not blaming the victim here. Having a thick skin is important but I question your priorities when your response to somebody not wanting to be woken up by a screaming phone call at 3am is “there’s no crying in baseball.”
At least one poster in this thread has attempted to bully me. He failed - and not because anyone tried to correct his behavior. It's because his insults do not affect me.
There are multiple ways to stop people from being bullied and harassed. We shouldn’t leave it on everyone to defend themselves, but set baseline standards of acceptable behavior. This is uncontroversial as far as government in general is concerned. For whatever reason, people seem to get upset about it when organizations try to enforce standards that are more stringent than the law.
I think at that stage in the movie Tom Hanks' character is not the best guy to look to for life examples.
I mean if we have to accept that some people are difficult and hard to get along with and we should try to accommodate them then I guess we should accept that some people are easily hurt and will cry and should try to maybe help them when they are hurt.
I notice there's still that fairly common trend in blaming the victim. They could have dodged the bullet, right? Well, I'm happy the society starts to point the abusers out - to their dismay and ironically also victimization.
> I've heard from people close to him that that's just the way he is and you have to get used to it.
It's an issue of power. If they didn't have power, nobody would say that. If a student behaved that way toward Felleisen, certainly nobody would say that to Felleisen.
I believe most people go to politics with genuine intentions to make things better. Then they face a situation in which they either have to sacrifice their ethics and win, or keep their ethics and lose. Guess which ones eventually prevail.
I'm from a post-communist country, and I've seen many former dissidents, who clearly had stellar ethics (often they were made to suffer for publicly opposing communism), who got into power after the revolution and their behaviour became more and more ethically questionable over time.
I also had a bad experience with him years ago at a time I was considering going back to academia, which contributed in my decision to stay in the industry. I don't think the details are important but yeah, he wasn't the nicest person on the table, made several comments that where really out of place, none of the professors around said anything but a couple just left the table in a way that made think that this was a common behaviour from him. It surprised me that such an important character in the PL community could say such things and walk out like nothing. I believe most people could easily get fired from a company nowadays if they made similar comments. Anyway, it's good to see he's taking some time to analyse how he interacts with other people.
Ha. I had a CTO who was so bad that people literally hung up in the middle of a phone call with him and walked away from his project. With "I will not work with this guy ever again". Or a freelancer who, when renewing his contract put an extra clause in it, stating something like "I officially to refuse to work with this guy". Or he unknowingly blamed another guy for a work somebody else did in the past and he recommended him to leave the company. The later was out of pure malice. Or once in a month or so he went on a psychotic rage against someone. The list is longer.
Only a handful of people are capable of working with him over the years. And even that looks a bit like some weak form of servitude. Nobody really likes him. He's been having just one buddy in the whole company of ~150 people. And even this guy is a bit antisocial, lone standing figure. And the two don't work on the same project.
It's been perfectly clear, this guy has some personality disorder and once a colleague who was interested in psychology told us what it is. Some sort of psychopathy, IIRC.
I met Richard Stallman’s lawyer several years ago, having made an appointment with him to discuss our open source framework, Qbix.
Eben Moglen had a nice office near Lincoln Center in NYC. Somehow on the way to the office, he had taken a look at our site and mistook something on it... by the time I arrived, he spent the entire time yelling at me and berating whatever he could find out about me. A very strange character.
Having said that, he did help me find out what I was after: how to make sure large corporations wouldn’t use my open source code while smaller ones could — we should use Affero GPL.
So, all in all it was a productive meeting. But still, it was pretty surreal.
Sounds like a difficult experience for you, but the other example you cite (https://observer.com/2011/12/in-which-eben-moglen-like-legit...) does not seem to reinforce your point that he's some sort of abusive individual. It belongs on one of those "Journalists Posting Their Ls" accounts on Twitter. The author comes off as an utter dolt, while Moglen's position is well-reasoned. It's hard to comprehend why some people are so allergic to the entire notion of personal responsibility; that changing the world starts with changing your behavior, not just bleating about it online and waiting for some regulator to fix your problems (whose incentives are likely not aligned with yours anyway).
Maybe this is the reason. Some people are Result-driven, and would take anything "appreciate" to get the result. Even when the word "appreciate" is at it's lowest standard (Like, "The goal is reached, and no body is dead/jailed because of my action").
I said that because I'm a Result-driven person myself. And I (and many others, not rare, really) have this sociopathic ability to completely disconnect myself from other people's emotions while still remain rational. In that mode, I'm capable to say and do a lots of awful things without feeling even a slightest of guilt, in fact, I wouldn't feel anything emotional (That is, I can be yelling while completely emotionless). Of course, I can switch it back and immediately become empathic. For me, it's all by choice.
Trying to put myself into his shoes, I guess maybe he thinks it's OK because "Things still gets done", maybe it's a compatibility test on whether or not he will still be "Accepted" after all that, or maybe it's a warning to show the bar of his tolerance.
Personally, I wouldn't think too much of it, because the goal is reached (Oh wait...)
This was my take on it. It could be that literally everyone on the leadership team was terrified into conformity, but I find that hard to believe, and that instead it was more of an inner-sanctum that held some admiration for the leader who let them in.
Talking privately to a bully rarely works. And the the one bully wasn't really the problem here. It was a social system that not only ignored his bullying but actively supported it. The real audience here is the broader community, which now has to decide what they want to do about the problem Butterick has been generous enough to explain in detail.
Social stuff can be amazingly hard to sort out sometimes.
One of the benefits of the internet is that text makes it easier to "not raise your voice" so to speak. People who trigger each other in person and yadda may not know how to get past that more directly.
This is not a justification for anything. I hope they manage to build bridges and all that. This is the first I've personally seen this particular dispute.
> One of the benefits of the internet is that text makes it easier to "not raise your voice" so to speak. People who trigger each other in person and yadda may not know how to get past that more directly.
I'd say it's generally the other way round. Twitter is infamous for bringing out the worst in people, resulting in many unproductive interactions. I've heard the comparison to road rage. When the human element is somewhat removed, as with a vehicle or Twitter, the general tendency seems to be that we're quicker to anger.
It depends heavily on the particular Internet forum though, clearly. HackerNews is one of the obvious examples of getting it right and producing good conversations.
My comment was an observation about this specific case of two people apparently actively trying to put their differences asides, build bridges, etc. in the face of a history of personal friction IRL.
It shouldn't be interpreted as somehow implying that use of the internet is a magic cure all for all human character deficits.
There is an adult way to escalate problems which is to first speak privately with the person in question to address the problem or correct the misunderstanding. If that fails, you could speak with people in the relevant social circle shared with Matthias. Dragging your problem into the public square is only something you do if those fail AND there are sufficiently good reasons to make it public.
Just to be clear: I am not defending or criticizing Matthias one way or another. I am speaking purely about process. This is a process that should be observed equally by those in positions of leadership toward those whom they serve in that role as well as the later toward the former. That is, both Matthias and Matthew.
This is one way to handle the problem, but certainly not the only way, and not a way that is blessed as "the mature solution". There are a variety of legtimate reasons not try to speak first privately to Matthias. Butterick gets at one of them in his essay, namely that allowing bullies to keep their bullying private has the effect of isolating other victims and preventing more coherent responses to it by a group.
It sounds like you don't have much experience dealing with abusers. I'd suggest reading, "Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men". Abusers will use private approaches like that as another opportunity to berate and dominate. Indeed, if you read the addenda to Butterick's piece, you'll see that Felleisen approached him privately and with "a strange mix of concilliation and hostility". That is also typical of abusers.
Your "adult" approach only works if the other person is also behaving as an "adult". Felleisen gave no indication to Butterick that he was capable of working at that level. If Felleisen wanted feedback, he could have signaled that.
Further, in the context of a project like this, bringing the behavior up to the people running it is generally a good place to start. The behaviors acceptable in a community are determined by the community. What Butterick learned was that abuse from Felleisen was considered normal and acceptable, and that the community would protect Felleisin over Butterick. In that circumstance, there's little point to approaching the abusive person because they already know they can keep doing what they want.
Instead of "just asking questions," then using that to make commentary that doesn't make sense because you don't know what's happening, try becoming familiar with the situation
If you expect people to do things they don't feel comfortable doing, you will repeatedly be disappointed. If you are depending on coworkers to go outside their comfort zone, you will lose coworkers (and probably feel they are undependable). Even if you are right and this person is "too sensitive" in some way, they were also an important contributor who has left a project where they no longer felt comfortable. No one owes it to any of us to "put up" with how we treat them.
Like, maybe a team that resolves conflict this was would really work more efficiently! But it will certainly push out anyone who isn't comfortable with that kind of interaction, while the efficiency gains seem more uncertain.
> No one owes it to any of us to "put up" with how we treat them.
No, however we do owe it to ourselves to learn better how to push back on difficult people. It’s a form of self defense because difficult people, or people having a bad day and lashing out, are not going away.
> No, however we do owe it to ourselves to learn better how to push back on difficult people. It’s a form of self defense because difficult people, or people having a bad day and lashing out, are not going away.
I think this is a key word, though—we owe it to ourselves. We can say "boy, I did a poor job confronting that bully today." But no-one else owes it to us; we are, I think, unjustified in saying, "boy, Matthew did a poor job confronting that bully today", or at least in passing any judgment if that is our belief.
It's kind of like defensive driving. No I shouldn't have to take all these precautions because others should be following the road rules... but very often they don't. If you're in a crash and you're "in the right", you're still in a crash (as my last concussion can attest to...).
Likewise if someone is being a prick to you, sometimes you've just gotta be the bigger prick right back. No you shouldn't have to be, people should always be nice and respectful... but they're not. Most people back off, and if they don't - you've learned the valuable lesson that the person is beyond reason and you can wash your hands of it right then and there.
There are very real cultural differences and taboos against questioning and pushing back against authority. What one culture may view as normal and expected process in improvement, another is horrified and ashamed to consider. Do not assume just because you've grown up or grown accustomed to it that it's 'normal' or practiced everywhere. This is perhaps one of the biggest frictions I see in teams that are full of folks from different cultures and backgrounds.
That's my experience too. I'm Hungarian and worked or collaborated with people from a handful of nations (Japan, Korea, Tamil Nadu (India), Mumbai (India), Ukraine, Russia, Portugal, Poland, Guandong (China), Hong Kong, USA, Brazil, Nepal, Pakistan, Switzerland, France, Austria, UK, Greece, Serbia, Montenegro, South Africa, Australia, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Netherlands, Canada), in person, just over the past ~13 years. Before that, I was only exposed to Hungarian work culture for the first 30 years of my life, so that was my base-line.
Some of the differences in attitude towards work, co-workers and authority truly triggered rage in me. Then someone suggested that the reason for these differences are cultural, hence very deeply rooted and I can't expect to change them quickly or at all. For that reason, I should be the one who adapts, since now I understand the situation and I care to solve the problem.
I kinda agree with this assessment, but if I can put this effort in to even out cultural differences, so as the other party can, just have to make them aware of this discovery and try converge multiple times, since our goal is to work together.
There is a lot more to say, but that's how far I have the time to go now :)
Did you read the original blog post? They clearly mention at the end they posted it because they were repeatedly asked why they disengaged from the Racket community:
"Why mention any of this now? Two reasons.
Over the last year, friends in the Racket community have asked me why I’ve reduced my involvement. Absent anything else, they assume the most obvious reason: that I’m bored or frustrated with Racket as a language. That I’ve moved on to other things.
Not true. On the contrary, it seems important to reassert: I like almost everything about Racket. It’s still my favorite programming environment. I use it almost every day. I wish I could still contribute the way I did before. But I can’t subject myself to more of the same. In that sense, it feels more like exile than withdrawal.
I’ve been involved with FOSS projects for nearly 25 years. A project that depends on free contributions of time & effort—as every FOSS project does—needs to be an appealing place for others to make gifts of their time. Sure, in any community of opinionated humans, occasional frictions and disagreements are natural. But Felleisen’s outrageous hostility went far beyond anything I’d experienced."
Also this main issue occurred three years ago. It is very odd to assume that someone decided to just sit on an issue for three years and then suddenly gotcha throw it out of nowhere.
This person was bullied out of the Racket community. They quietly left rather than try to fight against aggressive personalities. That's the real story here, and what happens in 99% of similar incidents.
> Of course, I did push back on Felleisen. But there was a limit to how hard I could push. Again—I was merely a guest. In the moment, I was struggling mostly to keep my emotions in check. I did assure him that his fears about my future performance were unfounded.
I'm not sure I would classify that as "talking plainly." Words like that would put anybody on the defensive, and being on the defensive does not make people receptive to positive change.
Matthew was an invited guest speaker, he could not push back to such an extent without putting those arrangements at risk. This of course made it more important for Fellesein to moderate his behavior in that context; he should have been aware that this meant a potential source of feedback was missing.
At the beginning: "No facts were disputed. The incidents were numerous, happening over a period of years. They were always witnessed by others on the Racket core team. For that reason, there’s no need to enumerate the details now. Though I will give one example as illustration"
If there was no need to enumerate details, why did he write an additional 12 pages in a blog post?
This whole incident, whatever it was or is, seems like two personalities with egos that won't stop. That's not something I care about.
I worked for one of these types many labelled an asshole and grew to love it, and he had the most loyal group of people around him you could imagine.
There's a super important distinction between the person with extremely high standards that skewers anything mediocre and that can legitimately be won over by doing exceptional work (my old boss), and the narcissist who is critical for the mere purposes of bullying (or the type that mixes both of those together). If the rage and ultra high standards are strictly about work quality and vary only along that dimension, then that's someone I actually really like working with.
Question of intent, surely? If someone is "skewering mediocrity" because it's an effective way to help the person they're trying to help, then great. But if they keep doing it even when it's having the opposite effect, then clearly they're just stroking their own ego and being toxic.
It reminds me, I've often read accounts that Steve Jobs used to yell at his employees because drove them to excellence. But if you think about it, it's more parsimonious to assume that he yelled at people because he was short-tempered, and the yelling sometimes coincidentally drove people to excellence.
This comment is why I said it's important to draw the distinction between narcissists and non-narcissists with extremely high standards.
Narcissistic abuse coming from either sadism or narcissistic injury is a phenomenon specific to people with NPD or perhaps subclinical narcissism
My old boss, for example, had little indication of having NPD. If someone was disagreeable and did zero to feed his ego, yet their work was exceptional, that person would get praise. That is not the behavior of a narcissist.
Doesn't sit right that he is so focused on the one example of what was supposed to be lot of bad behaviour over time. From the first blogpost/accusation it was clearly a personality problem, however here it is treated as a singular episode.
Felleisen is incredibly passionate about programming. He has strong opinions and will tell you about them. I graduated from NEU many years ago. He was not my professor and I doubt he ever knew my name. I happened to listen to a general talk he was once giving when he suddenly launched into a tangent about how much better Scheme's call/cc was than C's setjmp()/longjmp(). I completely agreed but thought that he was beating a dead horse and I might have smirked a little bit. 3 days later he accosted me in a different building and berated me for thinking setjmp()/longjmp() was better! I never got the chance to explain myself but I really think it doesn't matter. There are many people who don't like his style but I personally think it's fine. He is pretty direct and obviously gets results. I wish I would have been able to take his courses and maybe even work with him on his projects.
> 3 days later he accosted me in a different building and berated me for thinking setjmp()/longjmp() was better! I never got the chance to explain myself but I really think it doesn't matter.
I think this is sorta emblematic of the problem. People respond to the same stimuli differently, for some people, this would completely ruin their day and leave them terrified.
I want to believe that folks like Felleisen don't think they're being malicious, but they fail to empathize with others and are sometimes oblivious to the power dynamics. Over time they get used to not being called out for their behavior because people start to facilitate it for a variety of reasons. Felleisen's opinion carries weight far more than some random student. A disparaging word, even in passing, could break someone's career. Certainly people should learn to grow a bit of a thick skin, but there are many people like this comment [1] where Felleisen has crossed a line and is just clearly abusive. I can't imagine having an experience like that, then think about the fact that he might be on the committee reviewing your dissertation.
I tip my hat to you that you are able to walk off such things, but not everyone can do so and failure to empathize with that reality is a major problem in society. Nobody should be babied, but nobody should be needlessly berated.
> He is pretty direct and obviously gets results.
I really dislike this train of thought. I've heard it before and not once have I seen it as a truism. It is excessively simplistic; never mind how the sausage is made, as long as the sausage tastes good? Universities expect professors to generate grants. If you burn out 5-10 grad students a year, but you keep the money flowing in, the university will not really question it, but there are 5-10 promising careers that have been destroyed.
A culture that holds individuals accountable must also be forgiving of human foibles—especially with sincere apologies.
It’s refreshing to see two adults acting like it: Matthew limited his criticism to what was relevant, and Matthias responded promptly, politely, and apologetically. Both stances take humility and wisdom.
I wonder how much of personality is genetic and largely out of the control of the person. I know mine is. I have two separate anxiety mutations - basically high functioning autism. I often find myself accidentally offending people. I preemptively cancelled myself as a precaution long ago.
It seems society has decided that some traits are innate and deserving of understanding and others are not.
Well autism is sometimes labelled as individuals that are less "self-domesticated". Animals can be domesticated by humans and breeded to be tamer. Tame animals are more sociable towards humans, also have lower intelligenc and brain capacity since alot of their needs are met by the domesticator I guess. See the difference between cats/wild cats, dogs and wolves or foxes and domesticated foxes. Self domestication is the concept that we as humans have domesticated ourselves. At one end of the spectrum you have individuals that are less domesticated and fit in less with society (autistic people or psychopaths: generally lacking some sort of empathy (respectively cognitive and affective because there is a difference). On the other end of the spectrum you have Prader Willi and Angelman which are very tame and sociable but with lower cognitive abilities. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-imprinted-brain/...
My grandparents were farmers and used generic selection to pacify their cattle herd. It was very clear from their work that behavior was inherited. I was already predisposed to the concept. Even still it was a surprise when I found out just how much of my behavior was genetic.
I quit my BigTech job and all social media. Something I said was misinterpreted as condescending to a female colleague and I was reprimanded by HR. Within a year she made the same complaint against everyone else in the office but by that time I had already left.
You basically said that your friends told you that what you did looked bad, and based on that, you feel sorry that he "felt" hurt. Then go on saying how good and gracious you were to him?
If this isn't a real apology then what would you say a real apology looks like?
Of the many public apologies I've read in the past this reads like an honest, genuine one. He admitted guilt, explained what he did wrong and did not try to justify it, and clearly stated that he apologizes. What's missing?
Expression of regret. "I am truly sorry." - Check.
Explanation of what went wrong. "I must have directed angry words at you, who clearly had nothing to do with how the day had gone." - This is weaselly. "I must have...", not "I did".
Acknowledgment of responsibility. " I clearly forget that I am the oldest and most experienced—and I should act this way in a post-mortem conversation." - Weaselly. Whether he was oldest and most experienced or not, no one should behave this way. And rather than taking the responsibility, it's chalked up to forgetfulness.
Declaration of repentance. - Nothing here. No commitment to change. No stated intention for better emotional management.
Offer of repair. - "Finally, as you surely recall, I encouraged you throughout 2019, in person and in email, to join the Racket leadership;" In the absence of any kind of effort or commitment to change, this would not be received as a positive offer. But rather an extension of exposure to an abusive individual. Not much of a repair.
Well, I personally think asking for forgiveness is manipulative and shitty behavior. An apology should be about doing right by someone you wronged, not closing with "And last but not least: What's in it for me?!"
If they forgive you, coolios. Though it might take them more than five minutes just like it took apparently months for this apology to happen, so they don't need to promptly give you a fucking pat on the head like we give five year olds a cookie to reward desired behavior or some crap.
The request for forgiveness is indicative of the desire to restore the relationship, as the other steps can be fulfilled in the absence of that desire.
The capacity of such a request to be manipulative is dependent on first, the sincerity of the desire, and second, on the degree to which the injured party feels compelled to forgive. We do a disservice in the extent that we inculcate an expectation that a request for forgiveness must be granted, as coerced or compelled forgiveness is not meaningful as it does not represent a restoration of the relationship that was damaged.
Maybe in a private apology between two people, that works. In a public apology, it's typically performative BS that puts the person on the spot and imposes on them to find some socially acceptable response rather than giving them room to sort their feelings and draw their own conclusions.
I think it also depends on the severity of the offense. I think if someone murdered someone beloved by the person to whom they are apologizing or raped someone or ruined their career, it would also be gauche to impose and ask forgiveness.
Forgiveness is a gift. I don't think it is appropriate to demand a gift, especially if you have done someone egregious harm.
"I don't think it is appropriate to demand a gift," -- I agree completely, hence the use of the term "request".
But I would suggest that rather than making the effort to hinder what may be a genuine attempt at the restoration of a relationship, we should instead seek to help people recognize that forgiveness is voluntary, and that they have every right to decline extending forgiveness if harmed.
To use your phrase, we need to make it a socially acceptable response to deny forgiveness.
Better that forgiveness be rare and sincere, than common and meaningless.
The problem is that navigating all that in a public setting is compounded by the fact that it is public. When you make it public, for whatever reason, you must navigate not only your side as an individual and their side as an individual but the reactions of a large number of other people.
If they denied forgiveness in the first five minutes because they were hurt, many other people will reinforce their choice and actively make it difficult for them to sincerely change their mind.
At best, we can suggest that it should be socially acceptable to neither accept nor deny the apology and to not comment at all on the matter of forgiveness. But I think a public apology implicitly is a request for forgiveness and can be understood as such without a public request for forgiveness.
That's how I would handle it.
I used to write a lot of very sincere, public apologies on a small email list of a few hundred people because I was very ill and on a lot of medication and in a lot of pain and frequently not sleeping well. I certainly did not mean to offend anyone.
I wrote my apology. I explained what I had been trying to say if I felt it had been misinterpreted. I took responsibility for hurting them. I tried to write in a way that remedied that hurt.
The result was that I became the list scapegoat. If someone actively picked on me and I gave push back, then other people were all "There she goes again!"
I have probably more experience than average writing sincere and heartfelt public apologies. This is an informed opinion and it isn't going to change.
I always hated seeing on list apologies that ended with a request for forgiveness. They were consistently shitty behavior that boiled down to trying to save face and demand that the person they had wronged should make them feel okay about their sense of embarrassment. It was always an awful thing to witness.
Thank you for a well-reasoned response. I respect the depth of your experience and find much of what you say to be persuasive. I will endeavor to factor it into my viewpoint on the topic going forward.
I have no doubt it is honest, but it's not a good apology. He barely remembers the specific incident (by his own admission). That's not his fault, but it makes the apology pretty much meaningless. He seems to assume he was a bit of a grumpy-puss that day, and that "jaded" their subsequent interactions. This is incredibly glib and diminishes the specific incident.
But more importantly, he never admits to being a bully. The original post gives this incident as an example of a pattern of abusive behavior. He sidesteps that entirely.
What's a bully? Someone who loses their temper? Someone who's scary and makes enemies more easily than friends? I think a bully is someone who uses intimidation to get their way, if someone intimidates random bystanders what they have is a need to work on their emotional self-control.
The point is if you're in power it's more important to not behave badly than if you're not in power.
It's also easier in some ways, because you can get help from experienced outsiders who have a stake in your success and you can afford to experiment with improvement methods without getting fired. There are ways in which it's harder, such as if employees are too scared to tell you when you're being nasty.
It's missing the forest for the trees. The original complaint was about a pattern of abuse whereas this post addresses a single instance of abuse.
If someone hits you 100 times and issues you an apology for 1 of the times because somebody else saw him do it and thought it looked mean, does that absolve him of the other 99, which weren't mentioned in the apology?
Taking real responsibility for a pattern of abuse looks a lot different and will require some self-reflection and real steps toward justice.
the blog post that apology is linking to says that it’s only one of many incidents that the victim doesn’t want to enumerate, but the apology sounded like it only considered that one incident, like it’s the only one that the bully could recall (and not without help). felt pretty shallow.
See, this is why many powerful people have a policy of never apologizing for anything. To critics, no apology is enough, and any attempt at an apology only serves to prove (to critics) how insincere the person is. There is no way to win. The mere fact that the person here is trying to apologize indicates that the person is probably honestly trying to make amends. This is not a behavior you should discourage, if what you want is a functioning community. However, if what you want is instead more drama, by all means, flame away!
These powerful people you refer to are treating this all as a game. As if apologies are only a tool to adjust public perception.
And most of the time such people really only do give calculated, insincere apology-shaped statements. Like a child forced to say "sorry" or they won't get their dessert. These apologies are rightfully criticized, but sadly for the most part they do their intended job.
If you are sorry and want to improve, and give a proper apology as a matter of integrity, the grumblings of some bystanders should not matter.
---
That being said, I think howoldius' criticism is overly nitpicky but generally valid. Felleisen sounds genuine, but writing an apology on a post-it on his own fridge and not telling anyone about it, and only acknowledging a small part of the problem as a one-off thing, isn't particularly absolving.
> These powerful people you refer to are treating this all as a game.
I’m sure there are many such people, but in an individual instance of an apology, you can’t know that, unless you can read minds. Accept their apology and move on, and let their actions in the future speak for them.
I read it as I didn't understand how my actions were received, how I made you feel, that was not my intentions and I let other shit going on in my life feed into my grievances of that meeting. I always had so much respect for you that I thought you could be the best replacement for me (a big compliment)
I think he could be clearer on his delivery and it's obviously somewhat new territory given the context but I felt like I read a sincere apology accompanied by personal life lessons
Did we read the same article? After reading your comment and then clicking through to the article, I expected to see a half-ass “I’m sorry that you over-reacted” or something.
Instead, I saw was seems like a clear and genuine apology that takes responsibility for their actions and overtly admits that they were wrong rather than equivocating.
I agree, this doesn't feel like much of an apology.
In addition to the reasons you mentioned, it also only acknowledges a single event, when the original post describes multiple incidents spanning multiple years.
Furthermore, there's no statement that suggests he intends to change his behavior in the future.
Why is this flagged?? It seems very relevant to the HN community. You can't allow the criticism post to stay up and attract hundreds of comments and then flag the apology post.
> …I even proposed [Butterick] could replace me. I always thought that your experience and your outside view would seriously improve our work. I still think so.
I'm curious why this was flagged. If the discussion yesterday didn't break HN rules, I'm not sure why the response would. I suppose both of them technically fall into "off-topic" discussion though.
Possibly some readers are tired of the repetition, and they're not wrong [1] - that's why we downweight follow-up stories [2]. However, we make exceptions when there's significant new information (SNI) [3], which basically amounts to: is there enough of a diff from the previous thread to support a substantially new discussion? Diffs are what's interesting [4].
In this case you could call it either way: the fact that Felleisen apologized is significant new information but on the other hand the thread is...of the second freshness. I've turned off the flags for now.
Flags are from users. So to some extent it's random personal opinion and unless you identified all individuals who flagged it and asked them why?, you aren't going to actually know, though it is fairly common for someone to give their opinion about why they think it was likely flagged (and sometimes I appreciate their observations and sometimes I'm kind of like "That's just your opinion, man!").
My finger was hovering over the flag button for a while. I was following the discussion and for the first hour or so the comments were of ridiculously low quality. I think of the first 20 comments less than 5 had positive score. I was thinking of flagging it because I just didn't see how any good discussion could form on it. I didn't flag because it seemed like the post itself had relevance.
It's rare for me to flag something. I usually try to leave a good faith comment if it seems worth discussing and the initial comments are sucky.
I'm not saying that's some kind of "right" way to handle it. That's just how I behave -- or try to behave -- and there are myriad factors that influence those choices. I'm just talking here.
Except that he does not start with that — he starts with an unequivocal apology. As someone with no skin in the game and who doesn't know these people, it sounds like he's trying to explain why he didn't realize sooner that he was such a raging asshole to Matthew. (I understand that Mattias apparently has a history of this kind of behavior that this apology does not address.)
I read it as justification, which is typical in half-assed apologies. If that were the only flaw, I might call it a reasonable mistake. But given the other issues (failure to look at pattern, failure to work toward preventing similar future issues, failure to make amends), I think that's too generous a reading. To me it looks like part of a pattern.
What more can a person do? Just off the top of my head:
He could have addressed the full substance of the blog post, which was a pattern of "intentional, personalized abuse and bullying" with "incidents were numerous, happening over a period of years".
He could have used this incident to reflect on his broader behavior not just toward this one person but more generally.
He could have talked the steps he was taking to make sure he did less harm in the future.
He could have asked for forgiveness.
He could have offered to make amends to Matthew Butterick, to repair the relationship.
He could have recognized that this harmed not just Butterick, but the broader community around the project. He could ask that community for help identifying other times he was abusive. He could apologize for that too and work to make amends there as well.
He could have addressed this bit: "Nor did any member of Racket’s core team hold him to account. Everyone just shrugged and moved on. I was encouraged to do the same." In particular, he could recognize that he was part of a social structure that not only accepted abusive behavior but actually enabled it.
Once recognizing that, he could work to change the system such that abusive behavior was no longer tolerated.
A request for forgiveness indicates that the speaker desires a restoration of the relationship that was damaged. One can have regret ones actions, take responsibility for them, repair any damage, take preventative measures for the future, and still not express any desire to go back to having a good relationship with the person. A request for forgiveness speaks to the motivation of the speaker -- whether it is an interest in the well-being of the harmed party, or merely self-preservation as an individual.
It's considered part of a "four part apology", and is often taught when teaching kids how to apologize.
I'm sorry.
What I did was wrong because ____
Next time, I will ____
Do you forgive me?
Forgiveness is not required (though encouraged), but you should still ask for it. It's not perfect, but following the pattern is something that helps one demonstrate that you understand both why one's behavior wasn't OK (and how it hurt someone else), it also communicates that you intend to change your behavior.
This blog post seems to pretty solidly convey part one, but the others less so. It's still good to see the "I'm sorry".
anglo-saxon culture is shame-based not guilt-based
there's some influence from classic/Med cultures which are guilt based, through greco-roman philosophy or Catholicism, but by-and-large Northern Europe and NA are shame-based cultures and don't really believe in repentance or contrition, but social harmony and restitution
in a shame-based culture asking for forgiveness is largely an empty gesture, and conversely in a guilt-based culture asking for an apology hollows out its meaning and it's seen as a political/diplomatic thing, done outwards for social effect
I was a graduate student in Matthias’s lab from 2000 to 2004. During that time, I spent many, many hours working at my desk in close proximity to his office. I watched many individuals go in and come out of private meetings with Matthias. I TA’d a handful of courses under him. I participated in student meetings with him. I worked in his summer schools for high school teachers. I traveled with him to conferences. I saw him interact with many undergraduate and graduate students in personal, small group, and large group settings. I saw him give many talks and respond to questions at those talks. I saw him sit in the audience at many talks and faculty interviews, ask questions and interject comments at those talks. I interacted personally with Matthias many times. I gave practice talks in front of Matthias. I wrote conference papers that were rejected and were an embarrassment to both myself and Matthias. I admit that I was one of his weakest students. In every case with me, however, Matthias acted professionally, encouraged me, and went out of his way to try to help me succeed. His private and public comments to me and others were, by far, constructive. I’m honored to have had the opportunity to be mentored by him.
During that time, I never witnessed Matthias bullying anyone. Never. For clarity, I’m using the definition of Workplace Bullying written by Crystal Raypole: “Workplace bullying is harmful, targeted behavior that happens at work. It might be spiteful, offensive, mocking, or intimidating. It forms a pattern, and it tends to be directed at one person or a few people (https://www.healthline.com/health/workplace-bullying).” No one told me or mentioned in my presence that he had done so. Was he opinionated? Yes. Was he brusque? At times, yes. Did he push his undergraduate and graduate students hard? Yes. Was he critical? Yes. Did he suffer fools lightly? No. Was he outspoken? Yes. Did he ever make any ad hominem attacks? None that I ever witnessed. Did he give people second and third chances? Yes. Did he help those under him improve and excel? Yes. Was I inspired by Matthias? Yes. Could he have done some things differently? Yes, that goes without saying for any of us. Doing so, would he have had such successful results? Who can say. Were individuals hurt by his criticism? Yes, and, while I can’t speak for others, I know that it was due more to my ego being deflated, rightfully, than anything else. I never saw Matthias use his authority to belittle anyone, neither did he engage any petty retribution when provoked. Nothing that I witnessed or heard about, ever rose to the level of bullying. I saw that he was passionate and wanted to improve the quality of his craft, of his students, and of his profession.
I thought that was a good apology and I hope that it gives Matthew closure and a peaceful heart over this whole thing.
I have been, as an outsider, a fan of the Racket ecosystem. I hope that this ends up making a stronger community. I certainly enjoyed RacketCon this year.
An apology is a good first step and I'm glad he's taken it. There are several remaining steps, including gathering feedback, developing an improvement plan, and implementing it. I hope Felleisen will take these steps too.
Precisely this. I did get the feeling that the appology was heartfelt. I also felt the appology failed to recognize the that the complaint was about a sustained set of issues and not a one time incident.
The lack of any discussion of what Fellleisen and Racket will try to do going forward was glaringly missing, particularly becuase Felleisen couldn't independently identify the mistakes that he made and required outside observers to understand where the person he bullied was comming from.
I feel like a lot of damage would have been minimized if there had been people in that meeting who had made clear how out-of-line the behavior was immediately so that Felleisen could have immediately addressed the issue and hopefully learned from it.
The only one who can judge the worthiness of this apology is Matthew Butterick himself. As for me, this sounds like the first steps of the self realization process Matthias should go through in an effort to better himself.
Let's not judge it to harshly. Rather let's encourage him to keep on walking down that path of self improvement that we all should be on.
Yes, I agree that we can all do better, be better, strive for good things for all, etc, but this language borders on religious. And it’s everywhere these days. It’s as if not always living up to a set of ideals is the modern original sin that requires constant atonement.
Many people have been conditioned to believe that people in positions of power are virtuous, and that they reached that position by doing good things well. It's not that everyone expects people in power to live a set of ideals, it's that they have been marketed as such.
The apology is in response to being called out on one example in decades of behavior so toxic that a significant number of people have left academia, an otherwise amazing open source project and who knows what else, as a result of it. This has been confirmed by many people at this point.
An apology in that context is a starting point, a request to open a door that has been shut by the abuser themselves. An apology doesn't actually fix anything regarding the toxic behavior, and not getting the benefit of doubt that ths behavior, again, with a track record of decades, is suddenly over is not just completely justified, it would be naive to do otherwise.
And to think that this kind of hesitance at trusting someone who has so systemically violated it for. decades. has anything to do with "awarding retribution" or "becoming like a Buddhist monk" is incredibly tone deaf.
Okay. So what is the “path” you’d prescribe this individual? That’s the part that never seems to get defined and seems to be something the accused must infinitely chase.
At what point should spectators be allowed to treat this individual like a human again?
Matthew called him out publicly. Given that, I can’t really judge the decision to make the apology public.
Ideally, all of this should probably be private, but public discourse about internal things seems increasingly the norm. I’m not a fan.
Edit: after reading Matthew’s updates to his original post [0], I fully understand why the apology is public. Matthias responded to the original post privately via email, and Matthew chose to publicly publish key excerpts and a general characterization of what Matthias wrote privately.
He then “gave permission” to Matthias to publish any corrections.
I’m not a fan of Matthew’s general approach here (even while acknowledging that of course bullying/abuse is unacceptable).
What should he have done? Kept quiet? Attempted (and likely failed) to obtain a meaningless private apology, for multiple instances of public belittlement - while the bully carries on bullying?
No. As he says in his post - "It’s apparent that Felleisen has avoided accountability for a long time. I’m far from his only target. I’ve seen him verbally abuse and heckle others. I’ve heard other accounts privately. But I’m only part of the cover-up if I choose to be. So from now on—I’m not."
And further on he directly responds to your objection:
"In general, I have a strong aversion to sharing any kind of personal or confessional anecdotes on the internet. I’ve made an exception in this case because the concealment is worse."
We can only speculate on whether he attempted to resolve this in private or not.
My preference is that things like this should be addressed privately. I realize that this is not always possible, and at times, a public "shaming" is the only way to make progress.
My objection is to Matthew's insistence on taking a private email and making it public without permission, and then acting like he holds some authority to "permit" Matthias to respond / publish any corrections.
Matthew has every right to be upset about Matthias' behavior. He has every right to ask for an apology. But I can't help but feel he's giving away the high ground by using tactics that are pretty distasteful regardless of context. Like I said, it doesn't excuse or change how problematic Matthias' behavior was, but bad behavior shouldn't automatically justify more bad behavior.
1) No, you don't need to speculate. He describes three years of events that all happened in private (with no resolution). Starting from the very first sentence of the piece ("In January 2020, I told two members of Racket’s core team …")
2) The private email is relevant because its message is so starkly at odds with the public statement. It goes directly to the whole thesis of the piece: that bullies gain power through secrecy. He does not owe the bully any secrecy, because the bully has misused secrecy in the past. His attempt to find a principled middle ground is reasonable.
1) Nowhere does he say he ever attempted to address this in private. You could argue that "Matthias should have apologized unprompted", and I agree, but I think it's clear that this was behavior that had to be confronted. My comment about speculating is about prior attempts to resolve this privately, and as far as we can tell, that never happened (we also don't know it didn't happen, because Matthew never comments on this).
2) I'm reacting here because Matthew's message regarding the private communication is also starkly self-contradictory.
He starts by saying:
> I believe in the norm that private communications should remain so, unless everyone agrees. So I’m going to paraphrase his message. If Felleisen feels mischaracterized, I give him permission to publish it.
He seems to believe that by not publishing the exact words, he's somehow free of his own belief that "unless everyone agrees, private communication should remain so". What he's actually doing is proceeding to publish the private communication anyway by using a technical workaround, despite not having the agreement he called out moments before.
Again, I want to be extremely clear: I'm not defending Matthias here, at all. But Matthew is not being true to his own statements, and while this shouldn't invalidate his message, it certainly doesn't look great as a tactic, either.
Dunno, if you're called out publicly I see no problem with replying publicly.
I mean what's the alternative, silence? For all we know, there may have been additional private communication and if there was I'm pretty sure it's none of our business.
I see that many see the apology as innocent and sincere.
To me, this apology screams narcissism and abuse. The author cares only about his public image and tailors the article accordingly. He knows what he's doing there. And I really, really don't envy those who work for him.
I wish I could think otherwise. But once you deal with a narcissist and see them abuse people, you know it.
> I think of everyone in the room as an equal in such settings, and I expect them to see themselves this way. I clearly forget that I am the oldest and most experienced—and I should act this way in a post-mortem conversation.
Clearly this is a major blind spot, esp. when considering the "free speech experiment" section of the site... publishing what Damore posted as a mere Jr. SoftEng in Google is radically not the same as doing it as one of the most senior people in the organisation - it's pretty much the opposite of speaking truth to power and of course it can be seen as an act of intimidation, even if you are in the ideological minority.
It sounds like the author is trying to make out that it's about something that happened in 2018, but the original post he's responding to was pretty clearly about a lot more.
> I learned early on that when you tattle on the bullies, they come for you twice as hard the next time. The only workable tactic was to distance yourself and hope they found someone else to pick on.
For anyone who is bullied, or has kids who are being bullied - this is a very weak tactic. When I was bullied in school what worked was a) allies and b) violence (I had the good fortune to grow up in a place where schoolkids never carry weapons)
For some reason I don’t relive in the sincerity of those apologies. You have an adult who acted as a*le for a whole life. They were told it multiple times. They saw other people cried.
And now they finally apologizing when s*t hit thr fan. Sure. I’m also wondering whether sociopathy has something to do with this.
The blog post claims multiple incidents, not a single one.
tldr: "I barely remember the specific incident you cited merely as an example of an ongoing pattern of absuive behavior, but it sounds like I was a jerk that day. Oops! We good?"
Well put. And to me that's one of the horrors of abusers. I believe they really don't remember the details of the incidents. For them it's a momentary way to feel good. For the victims, it sticks with them for months, years, decades.
“Yeah, yeah, whatever. Saying you’re sorry doesn’t cut it. You need to pay for it before we will accept your apology.”
Hence, cancel culture.
Edit: There’s no need to therefor assume the dude is totally changed based on one apology, but good grief people. The lesson I’m learning here is, “Never apologize. It will do no good and will simply drag the situation out longer.”
It might be a bad and insufficient apology, but people always say that, about all apologies, even honest and good ones. A more workable policy would be to never criticize apologies, but accept them and move on. You never want to make apologizing a sure-losing move.
If you've ever been to a woman's shelter, most of the women stayed in abusive relationships because they were made to feel guilty like they were somehow responsible for someone else actions and feelings. Unless there is validity to the claims, which the blog author provided no actual evidence, then I see no need to apologize or feel guilt just because someone else felt a particular way.
Public apologies tend to be performative, not sincere, hence the pile on of negative stuff.
Sincere public apologies do tend to result in people going "You my bitch and whenever I'm an ass, I expect you to kiss my ass and say it's somehow your fault."
Public apologies tend to be a bad idea overall. It's a minefield of potential serious problems.
Edit: for what it’s worth, I would accept your apology for totally misrepresenting what I said and trying to make me look like an idiot. (Sort of sounds like bullying, doesn’t it?)
Years ago I was planning on entering a PL PhD program until I met Felleisen. He yelled at me, insulted me, and I left nearly crying. That was the last straw that led to me leave academia, and I never came back. A young woman I know switched out of her computer science major after taking his class and said she still had nightmares about him. Another person I know worked with him on a project as a student and said half the team dropped out due to his behavior. He would call the remaining team at 2am or 3am to yell at them sometimes (according to my friend).
I'm not sure how I feel about this coming out. I don't get the feeling that he's doing this on purpose. I've heard from people close to him that that's just the way he is and you have to get used to it. At the same time, he's been making people feel like shit for decades. Academia used to be a place for misfits who don't understand social conventions. What if not understanding social conventions comes off to others as bullying, though?
Racket could be better off without him. He might be brilliant, but he is so difficult to work with, he hurts his own project.