Denunciasaurs (and toadies and flunkies and lapdogs and anonymous pitbulls, hyenas, vultures and friends) are hypocrites.

Not evul immoral folk, and thus irredeemable, no -- the common Denunciasaurus-Rex is a simple, bumbling hypocrite, all too human, alas1 . . . all too human to be roasted on a spit, shredded, marinated in blog-spit, pounded to paste, spread on white toast, chewed, spat out, ground in the sidewalk, napalmed, hosed off with bleach, and finally cast off into the hideous punishing darkness of the inner 0-ring of Heck (Ottawa)2.

No, we must pity them for their un-remarked and un-corrected mistakes. We must be tolerant. We must obey our stern internal moral injunctions (e.g., do NOT act like Miss Nasty while pretending to be Miss Nice: "But she started it, the poo-poo head!! She's a fucking immoral piece of shit."3).

The plangent whinging and whining and high dudgeon are unseemly of any pretender to the throne of scholarship or the throne of Micronesia (which the SOLO archipelago brings to mind for all its truck and trade with the world, being the crossroads of reason and passion and all). The revelation of La Perigo backstage activities4 put all of this posturing and fervour in perspective: hypocrisy comes in varied delicious flavours.

Cringing hypocrisy

('I was forced to be nasty by Events. It's not my fault -- I didn't know I would be caught')

Amnesiac hypocrisy

('I disremember. I can explain the discrepancy. How can I remember everything I say in private?')

Towering hyocrisy

('Yes, I publish private correspondence. But I have a Higher Purpose!!! I am never immoral myself, in any way: all my errors are undertandable and explicable! I am King [Queen|Empress\Flying Spaghetti Monster creator] of the only moral planet in the universe, cur . . . stupid undergrad, manipulative liar, evul poo-poo head, TOC-infected sub-optimal and unfortunate Jenna Wong-wannabe. I will not engage with the uncivil (except in cases when I am busy or distracted. Don't imagine that I disagree or agree with any comment on my blog. I am strictly neutral and objective. You are banned, cretin.')

Wheedling hypocrisy

('But she hurt my feelings. And my feelings matter. And people are Nasty to me, and I NEVER almost ever except for sometimes am Nasty myself. And I was provoked by secret whispers and she hurt my feelings and none of the other kids will like me if she keeps lying about me. Boo hoo, sniffle, grizzle, snort hiccup sob screech . . . She was supposed to be my frie-eeeeeeend! She was never supposed to tell on ME! She was supposed to support ME! Boo hoo hoo hoo hoo, O woe is me, I hurt so much . . . why doesn't anybody understand?! Now I have to find a new best friend and that's HARD!!! Boo hoo whinge, wheedle, cry, snuffle, cough, load aim KABOOM!!! Hi, wasn't it fun to blow Chrissy's brains out? Wanna be my besssssst frie-eeeeend?! That's a pretty anonymous name you have. I won't ban you if you're nice to me . . . ')

Shameful hypocrisy

('all of the charges of hypocrisy are themselves hypocrisy, and bad and evul and I won't tolerate them in my comments and send me your secret emails too, huh, please? and all the charges of nastiness are themselves nasty, and you are banned from here, mister, and that's not what I said, you're banned from commenting, and you and you and you and even you if you look at me the wrong way. I'm tired. I write over 5000 words every day of top-flight philosphy. It is tiring. You tire me. You are banned. I'm going away on tour and if you are Nasty while I am gone I might have to spank everybody. I might have to pre-spank you all unless you are very very nice while Auntie is gone. I heard that. You are banned too, mister. I warned you. I don't tolerate stuff around here. And no, NOBODY GETS PIE except ME. Got it? If you don't GET IT, consider yourself pre-spanked, pre-banned, and pre-deleted.')

When an author writes "I . . . [he] . . . me . . . digusting lies,"5 we enter a new rhetorical universe. We leave the universe of 'my esteeemed colleague'6 and the planet of, 'my friend and former associate'7 and plunge into the dense atmosphere of 'immoral, contemptible, scum-sucking poo-poo head.'8 There we stagger about deprived of oxygen and cordiality, barking harsh communications at all others we can perceive.

Mertz's routine invocations of her fairness and even-handed objectivity (on her blog here, and here, and here*) are revealed to be a sham. As if a raging Borderline patient9, she turns on her closest bosom buddies, she dares not give real love for fear of melting, she feels anguish at real and imagined betrayals, she denounces what once engendered comradely devotion . . . unbeknownst to her, her ability to navigate the social landscape is significantly impaired10.

What kind of friendship did she imagine she was performing in her mentor/mentee relationship with Sciabarra? How many confidences did she extract from him? How many has she betrayed in public? How much is she holding back in the mountain of archived communications? How much is she not telling? Who opened this Box of Nasty Emails?

Her 400 email trove is then as neutral an object as is Sciabarra's opposing trove (in these two camps, a thumping historical record of their mutual communications; in the massive engorged Inboxes of both, a mountain of material for a future objective historian) -- Mertz's +/-400 vs Sciabarra's +/-400.

What can we see of these troves? Not much more than what is squoze out by one of the interlocutors.

I will reserve judgement on these matters until that future day when the material is open to view. Until then, I consider this a messy internal affair of Rand-followers which is really none of my business . . .

This leaves me with the impression of the world as it is: imperfect, full of imperfect people performing imperfect behaviours. I no more indict Diana Mertz Hsieh for her denunciation of Chris Matthew Sciabarra than I do Sciabarra for his stately, scholarly silence in the aftermath11. The are both human, imperfect and yet valuable.

With my sense of life (in which it is I, Me, Mine own universe, My precious self doing the living among a lot of imperfect Them) there is no option -- I cannot see round every corner, down every rathole or sewer, nor can I see into the hearts of all the men and women who stagger about the earth -- I can only be staggered myself by the rank hypocrisy which stinks up the public sphere from time to time.

To subvert a Fahyism, when one farts in public, the only seemly behaviour for other riders on the train is to ignore it (British and French people will allow a moue of distaste to appear on their granite faces, London/Paris often stinking in other ways12; Americans will open a window with a great irrelavant clatter12A; Scots will be stinking drunk and think it their own crepitation -- and giggle13; Brazilians will hardly notice another sewer smell on their grossly-overcrowded Metro14; Russians will imagine that someone has a trove of home-raised mushrooms in a bag somewhere between their legs and will sniff deeply in an attempt to detect its origin15; Chinese will pull up their face-masks and sign inwardly as they watch the stock ticker on the train car -- installed by the Communist Party16; Swedes will not smell the fart, as the train unit has already detected and removed the methane to a collector-tank where it is fed back into the bio-fuel engine17; Norwegians, Icelanders, Faroe Islanders will all think that the party has started and fart themselves. Accordians will appear. Foot-stomping dances will be performed, babies will be conceived18; Canadians will entertain suspicions that it is a secret Yankee** riding the train whose rectal-blurt so befouled the public sphere, and will ask their government to install fart-detector buzzers on every transit seat at an expense of $850 million tax-funded dollars19).

WSS

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