The American Dissident: Literature, Democracy & Dissidence
Divide (University of Colorado at Boulder's Program for Writing and Rhetoric)
—Free Speech in Peril
Literature should not be suppressed merely because it offends the moral code of the censor.
—Chief Justice William O Douglas
The selector begins, ideally, with a presumption in favor of liberty of thought; the censor does not. The aim of the selector is to promote reading not to inhibit it; to multiply the points of view which will find expression, not limit them; to be a channel for communication, not a bar against it.
—Lester Asheim, “Not Censorship but Selection” (Wilson Library Bulletin, 1953)
All censorships exist to prevent anyone from challenging current conceptions and existing institutions. All progress is initiated by challenging current conceptions, and executed by supplanting existing institutions. Consequently, the first condition of progress is the removal of all censorships. There is the whole case against censorships in a nutshell.
—George Bernard Shaw
Divide operates as one of many modern-day LITERARY CENSORING ORGANIZATIONS akin to the Catholic Church of yesteryear which put together the Index Librorum Prohibitorum. Democracy continues its downward spiral thanks in part to the democracy-indifferent, censoring editors of Divide.
Professor Wingate is founding editor of Divide, sponsored by the University of Colorado at Boulder's Program for Writing and Rhetoric. The journal's website notes the annual is "an interdisciplinary print periodical designed to present a multiplicity of voices and visions clustered around each issue's central theme. We are committed to fostering creative and intellectual debate, and to placing side-by-side ideas which would not easily rest together elsewhere." "What kinds of work worldwide are getting writers and artists into trouble, and causing them to seek refuge in other nations?" "Are artists—consciously or unconsciously—obliged to play the tune that the piper calls?"
Well, it sounded like Divide was right up my alley. Unfortunately, one had to play the tune Professor Wingate dictated or be silenced. As for the Program for Writing and Rhetoric, "We are committed to training students to think critically about the texts they read and the writing they produce and to enable them to shape and express ideas with clarity and grace in any context, academic, professional, civic, or personal." Now, if only I could get Wingate's students to examine HIS "clarity and grace." In fact, would not students in his Program benefit more from the analysis of this very web page than all the texts Professor Wingate might serve them? The crux of the problem is that the Program exists really for the professors, not for the students. It provides the former with money and faux-stature. The following is our correspondence. The essay in question, "The Cold Passion for Truth Hunts in No Pack: Democracy and Literature: the Case for Parrhesiastic Poetry, Writing, and Art," will eventually be posted on this website, though the website really does constitute its essence. It has been sent to and rejected by nearly 50 academic literary journals. Pacific Coast Review has published it, but I'd like to get it published, for evident reasons, by an academic journal with an academic audience.
Date: Thu, 5 May 2005 12:06:24 -0700 (PDT)
From: "George Slone" <todslone@yahoo.com>
Subject: Steven Wingate
To: divide@colorado.edu
Dear Steven Wingate, Publisher, Divide:
It is too bad for your students, though fortunate for the faculty, that you decided not to publish “The Cold Passion for Truth Hunts in No Pack,” a most damning essay with regards the latter… while at the same time a desperate attempt to warn and otherwise wake up the former… before they start filling your ranks.
Thank you for the letter, explaining why you were forced to reject the essay. Your response in lieu of form-card silence does make you stand out from the academic herd. Just the same, I am quite surprised you state “much of what you say in the core of your essay struck us as right on the money.” I’m not sure how you can possibly make such a statement, but evidently you can and do. Most likely the severe denial afflicting the large bulk of the nation’s professors permits your mind to think thusly. It is the same denial that afflicted the German professorate during the rise of the Nazis. When I was college teaching I was able to witness it amongst almost all of my colleagues, each believing that he or she was different from the bulk herd thanks to all sorts of twisted rationalizations.
In any case, how can a logical person possibly make that statement, while at the same time arguing “the vituperative nature of the bulk of this piece […] obscures its essence”? Is it not absurd to declare an essay obscure, while at the same time “right on the money”? Yet I doubt you can possibly comprehend this, and for that I pity you. In academe, Orwellian double speak has, for the most part, replaced sound logic, and you have most likely, consciously or not, fallen prey to it. You might have money in the bank and job security, but you evidently do not possess a sound sense of reasoning.
The fundamental premise in the essay, which by its very nature must personally implicate you and your colleagues, is that “the tone is the message is the tone” and to alter that tone would ineluctably alter the message. In other words, you would have published it if it had been sufficiently castrated to render it non “vituperative” and, in that sense, it would have simply become yet another lame academic essay, one that would not shock the ear, one that would not incite the mind to question and challenge, and one that would simply be listed on the curriculum vitae of an academic functionary.
Debate in academe has been severely stifled by the ubiquitous censorship of “vituperative” commentary, replaced by self-serving “collegial” and politically-correct discourse. Academics, for the most part, have pitifully rejected truth, logic, and courage for job security and general comfort in a well-buffered ivory tower.
Would you care to rethink or even retract your statements? Why not publish this “vituperative” letter in Divide?
Sincerely,
G. Tod Slone, PhD
PS: By the way, it just dawned on me that your committee has rationalized its rejection of my questioning and challenging of certain academic and literary authorities and precepts by simply labeling that questioning and challenging “vituperative.” How easy to get rid of uncomfortable ideas and thoughts! If you open your ears and listen to the sounds of the past, perhaps you too might be able to hear the Soviet apparatchiks dismissing Solzhenitsyn’s “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” as “vituperative.”
In a democracy such facile dismissal of ideas and thoughts from the agora of debate is no less than frightening. Yet evidently, it has become widespread in academe. You and your committee should be ashamed that you’ve decided to join the “litany” of group thinkers, who seek to restrict that agora. But of course you are not… for how else does one ascend in the academy, if not to think and behave like everyone else?
Oh, I’d give anything for the transcript of comments uttered during your meeting on whether or not to publish my essay. What a gem it would be.
Please share my letter with the committee members.
From: "divide" <Divide@colorado.edu>
To: "George Slone" <todslone@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Attention: Steven Wingate
Date: Fri, 6 May 2005 09:35:02 -0600
Blah, blah. blah. Boring.
From: "divide" <Divide@colorado.edu>
To: "George Slone" <todslone@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Attention: Steven Wingate
Date: Fri, 6 May 2005 09:34:35 -0600
We figured you couldn't leave well enough alone, Mr. Slone. But since you find a way to challenge my use of the word "vituperative," let me speak a plainer truth: nobody wanted to deal with you because you seem like such a creep.
sw
From: "George Slone" <todslone@yahoo.com>
To: "divide" <Divide@colorado.edu>
Subject: Re: Attention: Steven Wingate
Date: Fri, 6 May 2005 12:18:53 -0700 (PDT)
Dear Steven Wingate, Publisher, Divide:
Yours is a sad, though apparently, classic response from someone in academic/literary power who is challenged, who is not used to being challenged, and who does not know how to respond to such challenges! One would expect a retort of truth and logical argumentation from a professor with a doctorate like you, not facile, unoriginal, base name-calling. If only I could make you see how easily you and yours turn uncomfortable criticism of your placid positions and discourses into “boring,” “creep,” “vituperative,” and other childish epithets. If only I could show your students the kind of responses of which their very professors are all too capable. By the way, what is the point of debating with someone who shares the same ideas and thinks the same way? Indeed, I attempted debate with you… because we are evidently very different. Why have you deleted healthy debate, cornerstone of democracy, from your curriculum and literary journal?
That’s a question you need to ask yourself while looking in the mirror.
I shall add your curious response to my essay—it certainly will add to the piece.
Sincerely,
G. Tod Slone, PhD
Blacklisted professor and founding publisher of
The American Dissident
A semiannual literary journal in the samizdat tradition of writing engaged against the machine
www.theamericandissident.org
1837 Main St.
Concord, MA 01742
From: "divide" <Divide@colorado.edu>
To: "George Slone" <todslone@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Attention: Steven Wingate
Date: Sat, 7 May 2005 11:49:08 -0600
George--
Your commentary is, for the moment, amusing.
I'm used to being challenged all the time, George. The simple fact is that nobody wants to talk to you because it is unpleasant. I don't believe that you're capable of debate, anyway--or even of something as simple as listening to another human being. You're simply a serial diatribist.
Apparently by not publishing you, we're being anti-democratic. Can you see the ridiculousness of your own assertion? We're simply publishing you because we don't feel like it.
Move on! Put me in your endless book of people who haven't published you. But stop emailing, okay? It's been fun "debating" with you, but I'm done.
sw
Date: Sun, 8 May 2005 21:05:30 -0700 (PDT)
From: "George Slone" <todslone@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Attention: Steven Wingate
To: "divide" <Divide@colorado.edu>
Dear Steven Wingate, Publisher, Divide:
The question is whether or not YOU, not I, are capable of debate… and, in that respect, your emails bear witness to your pitiful failure. How sad for your students. I can see you now mocking the odd student who somehow escaped educationist indoctrination and dared make an unapproved statement in your classroom. Calling me names as in “unpleasant” is not debate. Here’s two pertinent quotes that you ought to contemplate, but will not or simply cannot.
"I do think it’s convenient for some to focus on the messenger—why?—it conveniently deflects attention from the message."
—Bernard Goldberg, Bias
"The ideas that rebels expound tend not to be attacked by those in power. The latter are inclined rather to kill the messenger by character assassination. For example, one rebel was said to be a womanizer... bitter... disloyal... and even, in the words of one accuser, dangerously mentally ill."
—C. Tarvis, social psychologist
What is “unpleasant” for you is not necessarily unpleasant for everyone else. Anything that challenges you is necessarily “unpleasant.” That’s why I’m “unpleasant.” I have certainly “listened” to you, but I’ve also responded to you. You have simply called me names, hardly a reaction that one would expect from a professor. “A serial diatribist”? Now, that’s a good one. I’ll have to draw a cartoon around it. Bravo for your creative wittiness with regards epithets. “Anti-democratic”? Since when have academics and academe been “democratic”? Academe and its cogs have been as authoritarian and hierarchical as any corporation and its functionaries. Indeed, academe has been copying the corporate model for years. Open your eyes! Even the corporate lingo has been co-opted (e.g., “classroom behavior management,” “team playing,” “team building,” “three letters of recommendation,” “assessment,” “executive director,” and “networking”).
Your assertion regarding your not publishing me is in itself “ridiculous.” You seek to eliminate certain viewpoints from the agora of debate. That is obvious and certainly makes you and Divide “undemocratic.” What you have done is hardly what an intelligent person would call “debating.” All you’ve done is call me names. Issues I’ve evoked in the essay and in my emails are simply ignored… because they are “unpleasant” for the thin-skinned, paradigmatically paralyzed and protected Joe-average professor used to praise.
In each issue of The American Dissident (unfunded by the academy, thus no glossy cover), I always include the opposite point of view; that is, any harsh commentary lodged against me and/or the journal. That’s what clearly makes it different from the Joe-average academic journal, including Divide. Your letters labeling me “diatribist” and “boring” will certainly be included in next issue. They are gems and support my assertions about the academic modus operandi of closed-mindedness. What clearly makes us different is that I am not afraid of what others say or think about me, while you clearly are which is why you will keep my comments out of Divide.
You certainly have the option to terminate this exchange, so why order me “to stop emailing” you? God, how did you ever get a doctorate? It is all quite sad… hardly what I’d call “amusing.” Tearing down democracy and replacing it with authoritarianism is hardly “amusing,” at least not to individualist thinkers like me, who do actually step outside and exercise our cherished first amendment rights, won only by blood and guts from our brave patriots of the past. It is so sad to observe people like you who are all too willing to erase what those patriots fought so hard for.
Sincerely,
G. Tod Slone
Date: Fri, 13 May 2005 09:41:06 -0700 (PDT)
From: "George Slone" <todslone@yahoo.com> Add to Address Book
Subject: Rhetoric at U of C
To: Mebraht.Gebre-Michael@Colorado.edu
CC: Jeremy.Jimenez@Colorado.edu
Dear Student Government:
Is there a student newspaper? If so, do you have an email? I would like to lodge a complaint about a professor in the Writing Program. I was astonished when he called me a “creep” because I simply did not agree with him. Sure, I criticize faculty… that is my specialty. But I wonder is that the kind of rhetorical strategy they teach at U of Colorado or is it unique. Do you have an email for the Regents? I have decided to contact you because I doubt other professors in the Writing program would give a damn. Many thanks.
G. Tod Slone, PhD
Date: Fri, 13 May 2005 12:06:08 -0600
From: "Jeremy Jimenez" <Jeremy.Jimenez@colorado.edu> Add to Address Book
To: "George Slone" <todslone@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Rhetoric at U of C
Mr. Sloan,
I am sorry to hear of your experience. One route besides the paper is
to go to
the Ombuds office. This provides informal dispute resolution. 303 492
5077.
There are two main news sources at this campus one is the colorado
daily and
the other is the campus press. letters@coloradodaily.com and
cpress@spot.colorado.edu. You can contact the regents at this address
Millie.Cortez@colorado.edu however the route for this action will be
best
explained by Ombuds.
Thanks,
Jeremy Jimenez
ps please keep me posted and do not hesitate to write me agian.
Date: Sat, 14 May 2005 09:45:43 -0700 (PDT)
From: "George Slone" <todslone@yahoo.com> Add to Address Book
Subject: Dubious professors and blatant hypocrisy...
To: patricia.sullivan@colorado.edu
CC: piper.murray@colorado.edu
To Whom It May Concern:
Several months ago I submitted an essay, “The Cold Passion of Truth Hunts in No Pack,” which was quite critical of professors and poets, to Divide: “the University of Colorado’s journal of writing and ideas,” sponsored by the University of Colorado at Boulder's Program for Writing and Rhetoric.
What astonished me was not the essay’s unsurprising rejection (After all, what academic journal would have the guts to publish rude-truth critique of professors?), but rather the response of Divide’s founding editor Steven Wingate, who actually states quite incredibly on Divide’s website: “We are committed to fostering creative and intellectual debate, and to placing side-by-side ideas which would not easily rest together elsewhere.”
What I’d done was challenge Professor Wingate’s illogical reasoning regarding the rejection. He responded to my challenge in two separate and brief emails: 1. “Blah, blah. blah. Boring.” And 2. “We figured you couldn't leave well enough alone, Mr. Slone. But since you find a way to challenge my use of the word ‘vituperative,’ let me speak a plainer truth: nobody wanted to deal with you because you seem like such a creep.”
Needless to say I was astonished that a college professor would respond to logical critique in such a cheap manner. In other words, if you don’t agree with someone, call him a “creep” and diminish his message by calling it “Blah, blah. Blah. Boring.” Is this the kind of rhetorical strategy and writing taught at the University of Colorado? If so, perhaps the Regents ought to be informed and rethink the process of hiring writing professors.
Finally, I doubt I’ll receive much of a response with regards my concerns. Perhaps Professor Wingate is one of those revered professors with many letters of recommendation and publications. Just the same, it is my duty as an American citizen to question and challenge our public institutions and publicly-funded literary journals even if the University of Colorado at Boulder's Program for Writing and Rhetoric is evidently adamantly against such things. The next issue of The American Dissident, the literary journal I’ve founded and publish, will include my correspondence with Professor Wingate (see below). Thank you for your attention. By the way, I’d love to send you my essay, so you might examine the kind of subject matter that is no doubt categorically rejected by Divide, despite its duplicitous statement of commitment to creative and intellectual debate.
Sincerely,
G. Tod Slone, PhD and editor of
The American Dissident