Link to Glenn Kenny blog post ("How Do You Think It Feels") that's worth reading.

Whether or not you know the writings of film critic/blogger Glenn Kenny (who used to write for the now-defunct US version of PREMIERE magazine and is now a contributor to Roger Ebert's website rogerebert.com), this is a really worthwhile, thoughtful piece where Kenny examines past animosities towards some of his peers and his efforts to make amends.

Some sentences that resonate for me:
I also had some idea that it was my duty to call bullshit on everyone who I thought was propagating bullshit.

I can still be fairly intemperate, online, in person, wherever. Every day I try to be better about it, to use my wits, such as they are, for constructive purposes. But I’m in no position to pat myself on the back. I am in a position to state that my past behavior, of which my nasty baiting of Emily Gould was only a small part, cost me, and it cost me across the board, in terms of reputation, professional and personal, and other things that you can probably guess. And I earned the cost.

When you’re a drunk, and have some facility for words, and things aren’t going so great for you, you can read something and infer that the writer’s situation is better than your own, and it can throw you into a frothing bloody rage. You think, “Why is the world paying attention to this NOBODY?” or “why is this NOBODY making more money than I am?” and “why isn’t this NOBODY beset with paralyzing depression and fear like he or she deserves to be instead of me?” and so on, and then because you fancy yourself a critic or a perspicacious observer of the cultural scene, you mold these resentments into a theory that there is something VERY WRONG with the culture and that the person you hate is the one responsible for that thing being very wrong.

http://somecamerunning.typepad.com/some_came_running/2014/06/how-do-you-think-it-feels.html

Speaking for myself, I'm not quite in the place Glenn Kenny has been.  My (as Kenny would put it) "resentments and disappointments" haven't been fueled by alcohol, since I don't drink.  They've been formed from observation and personal experience.  And, akin to Kenny's relationship to East Coast literary/journalistic peers, I've been guilty of finding certain men and women now and formerly in the Southern California poetry community to be poster children for vanity, ill-treatment-of-others-professionally-personally, egotism and public boorishness.  In certain cases, my opinion of some of these people may never change.  But I do have to grudgingly accept that I have unnecessarily alienated several people in the community that extended some degree of friendship/graciousness towards me.

Having admitted this, I also need to state how difficult it is for me to make amends or be permanently forgiving when certain people in the poetry community either created or cheered on an anonymous website meant to goad and humiliate me--plus harassing me into ceasing the blog you're reading now.  That's not "community" behavior, no matter how one might justify it.  Instead, it's the equivalent of the scene in the original CAPE FEAR (1962), where Gregory Peck crouches behind a dumpster to watch two men (hired by him) beat up the threatening, villainous-in-many-ways character played by Robert Mitchum.

The present conundrum for me is to figure out how to speak out (when I feel occasions demand it) about unnecessary inequity, dubious behavior and diminishing opportunities in the LA/OC/LBC community without adding my name to more Enemies Lists.  In a way, this approaches the rigor of balancing equations in high school Chemistry.

If you've been following me on this blog (or when I contributed to various listserves), hopefully you believe that my level of vitriol has decreased markedly over the past decade.

If not, please use the comment section to speak up--using your own name.

In defense of unruly online comments.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/03/opinion/sunday/this-story-stinks.html?hp: Link to a NEW YORK TIMES opinion column which pulls out metaphorical smelling salts over "rude" reader opinions following news stories/columns.
A key passage from the column by Dominique Brossard and Dietram A. Scheufele:

In a study published online last month in The Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, we and three colleagues report on an experiment designed to measure what one might call “the nasty effect.”

We asked 1,183 participants to carefully read a news post on a fictitious blog, explaining the potential risks and benefits of a new technology product called nanosilver. These infinitesimal silver particles, tinier than 100-billionths of a meter in any dimension, have several potential benefits (like antibacterial properties) and risks (like water contamination), the online article reported.

Then we had participants read comments on the post, supposedly from other readers, and respond to questions regarding the content of the article itself.

Half of our sample was exposed to civil reader comments and the other half to rude ones — though the actual content, length and intensity of the comments, which varied from being supportive of the new technology to being wary of the risks, were consistent across both groups. The only difference was that the rude ones contained epithets or curse words, as in: “If you don’t see the benefits of using nanotechnology in these kinds of products, you’re an idiot” and “You’re stupid if you’re not thinking of the risks for the fish and other plants and animals in water tainted with silver.”

The results were both surprising and disturbing. Uncivil comments not only polarized readers, but they often changed a participant’s interpretation of the news story itself.

In the civil group, those who initially did or did not support the technology — whom we identified with preliminary survey questions — continued to feel the same way after reading the comments. Those exposed to rude comments, however, ended up with a much more polarized understanding of the risks connected with the technology.

Simply including an ad hominem attack in a reader comment was enough to make study participants think the downside of the reported technology was greater than they’d previously thought.

 

Offering a calm, noncensorious alternative to the article is commenter "Danny P":

It'd be a mistake to walk away from this piece thinking its best to avoid "nasty" comments. Throwing in ad hominems and rude attacks is not all that different from curse words; using them doesn't actually mean the user has nothing valuable to say.

Walt Whitman: "many of the slang words among fighting men, gamblers, thieves, prostitutes, are powerful words... Many of these bad words are fine." Neitzsche was not above hurling a few good insults... some... a lot of insults at the people he disagreed with.

Hidden in a paragraph beginning "You idiot," might be some very worthwhile contributions. Avoiding such comments means missing out. It's probably a better strategy as a reader to become someone that doesn't get reactionary and dismissive just because strangers are speaking with hostility or salty language. Dismiss them for the right reason; that their contribution lacked insight or meaningful addition to the subject.

One definition of bullying.

I found the following sentence in the comments section of a website devoted to activism:
"To anyone reading this -- if ANYONE screams at you or is in your face telling you what to do or calling you names, ignore him or call him out for bullying."

In my lifetime, I've been bullied by people; most often, it's been in school/work situations where the options are to either take it as unemotionally as possible or object (even if it's done in a deferential way) and risk being fired/expelled.

And sometimes, I've been on the other side of the fence and have committed one or more of ths sins listed
in the above quote (there are those who may say I've engaged in "telling you what to do" and "calling you names" on this blog).  As a response to certain things I may have said/done, I've been treated to "ignore him" and "call him out for bullying"--not to forget the occasional flare of anonymous commentary here and elsewhere.

While blogging, I've generally tried to adhere to the approach of criticizing people for things they do professionally (even when there are occasions when my and others' interpretations can be very personal). 

I'm trying a bit harder to restrain myself from name-calling (though I made an exception in reviving the George Butch Jr. nickname for George W. Bush in a recent post).

In a poetry-related context, bullying often is used as a show of standards-and-values endorsement.  And it tends to take the form of "let's-run-him-or-her-out-of-the-community."

Whatever sins I've committed, I try really really hard to avoid that one.