Since these overlap, they are best read in the order presented below.
Grey Vampire: (a) k punk's initial post, (b) ,Harman's addendum, (c) k punk's clarification
Minotaur: post by Levi Bryant
1. The Troll is constituted by the "sneer from nowhere," (k punk) the person who does not defend any particular claim, but rather attacks the claims of others. "The Troll is someone who enters into dialogue solely with the gesture of putting the other person on the defensive, while tacitly pretending that they have no need ever to play defense themselves." (Harman)
2. The Grey Vampire is like the troll in that they take no stance, except without the sneer. They "disguise their moth-greyness in iridescent brightness, all the colours of attractive sociability. Like moths, they are drawn by the light of energetic commitment, but unable to themselves commit. Unlike the Troll, the Grey Vampire's mode is not aggressive, at least not actively so; the Grey Vampire is a moth-like only on the inside. On the outside, they are bright, humorous, positive - everyone likes them. But they are possessed by a a deep, implacable sadness. They feed on the energy of those who are devoted, but they cannot devote themselves to anything." (k punk)
Some wisdom from k punk on the two:
The dominant modes of subjectivity at the end of history/ web 2.0 are those of the Troll and the Grey Vampire, the two faces of the Last Man. This isn't to say that most people are not fans; they are, but many work hard to conceal this about themselves, for it makes them vulnerable to attacks from Trolls or Grey Vampires, or the Trolls or Grey Vampires in themselves. They are subordinated to The Fear and its demand that we be irreverent, that we constitute ourselves as ironically self-deflating subjects (I'm the sort of person who....). The postmodern academic, complicit with the system that immiserates them, reflexively impotent, is required to oscilate between being Troll and Grey Vampire, between hyper-critical scholarliness and convivial sociality, kept locked into the system by just the right level of prestige and self-loathing. That's why most of the interesting work done in institutions is achieved by people who have infiltrated the academy after periods of (intellectual and subjective) destitution.
I think this is really important wisdom. Finding stuff to get really excited and obsessed about is a big part of what justifies spending more time on this wretched planet. If you don't let yourself be a fan you are really getting something wrong about life. Likewise with not passionately committing yourself to sustained projects.
3. The Minotaur "converts every philosophical opposition into a misinterpretation. The text(s) guarded by the Minotaur thus become a Labyrinth from which there is no escape." (Bryant)
I would add to the bestiary.
4. The Mole is the person who reads philosophy only with the interest in finding out what the philosopher in question said, with no regard for how this reading will contribute to a broader philosophical project whose goal is to discern the truth. Honest Moles just like burrowing around in texts and have no interest in surfacing into the sunlight. Some of them are good historians of philosophy, even though they have no philosophical passion (as opposed to a passion for burrowing and fights with other Moles). Unfortunately, in a process not well understood by extant science, Moles often metamorphose into full blown Minotaurs.
Internet anonymity works on some people like the full moon does on lycanthropes, giving us the Weretroll, and Wereminotaur (many Moles are Wereminotaurs), who can cover over their awful affliction by day (when people know who they are).
I'm sure there are more. Please share (with reference to a beast of course).
[P.S. From the discussion in the comments:
5. The Moaning Myrtle (also known as the Termagant, also known as the Konaki-Jijii) is the philosopher whose ghostly internet presence repeatedly takes every criticism personally and cries about it to the whole world, often by way of unearthly shrouding of such "arguments" as she can muster in long winded supra-referential posts/comments (such as getting sublimated revenge on the people that she is whingeing about by adding to a supposed-to-be-humorous typology).]
"The Mole is the person who reads philosophy only with the interest in finding out what the philosopher in question said, with no regard for how this reading will contribute to a broader philosophical project whose goal is to discern the truth."
This strikes me as a bit condescending, Jon. More problematically, it assumes there is a broader philosophical project whose goal is to discern the truth.
-neal
Posted by: Neal Hebert | June 23, 2009 at 02:37 PM
I honestly find all of these classifications to be quite distressing and I hope you are adding your type to them half-seriously as reading all of these posts on all of these types is just one exercise in frustration. Can't we all just get along?
As I pointed out to Levi, Minotaur is not a master of the labyrinth, but its prisoner (not that he would admit he was wrong and correct his post) - Minotaur was imprisoned in the labyrinth, how this makes any of Levi's observations valid, I don't know, but it's funny how it's still being passed around as making sense.
I find the general tone of those posts - "evil commenters making snide remarks for no reason" - childish and unbecoming of supposedly cool scholars who make them: to complaint against comments is as idiotic as complaining against TV or country music, if you don't like it, turn it off. This is not directed at you, Jon, but at the original posts you cite. If these folks have such sensitive skins, maybe they should not blog and get back to their super-important "projects" that everyone is so unappreciative of.
On the other hand, I would like to add my own type: Cry Baby - a blogger that takes every criticism personally and cries about it to the whole world, perceives the world as full of "haters" and "trolls" in order to cover over his/her own scholarly insecurities and loneliness.
Can we just drop this bullshit and either get along or leave each other alone?
(Sorry about the rant, again, it's not against you, Jon)
Posted by: Mikhail Emelianov | June 23, 2009 at 03:25 PM
Mikhail, agreed. But I suspect Jon may have been venting...
This (http://adswithoutproducts.com/2009/06/20/more-on-kpunk/) is a great response to all of this, as is Kevin's comments below the post. Really, it's just spot on.
Of late I've been feeling wary about blogs/blogging because some blogs and some interactions I've had simply verge on the desperate, or are just rather mean-spirited. What LS, Harman and K-Punk fail to notice, as Kvond so nicely points out, is that they themselves are very often exactly what they claim to hate! I think that a good many blogs have become so transparent in their obnoxious validity seeking or hope that somebody important will "discover" them or worse, provide facile and irrelevantly judgmental advice. Ironically, these types of blogs fall victim to the very same thing they claim to hate about academia. From my perspective, many blogs are reproducing some of the same things (whether power dynamics, insecurities, and nepotism) I find frustrating in the academy or don't want to deal with b/c I already have to sit on committees with people like this in my day to day life. Blech.
The internet breeds rather fearful and predatory thinkers that tend to shroud "arguments" in long winded supra-referential posts/comments, or misleading and impenetrable prose, it seems to me. When pushed they turn around and spew a bunch of nonsense about feeling oppressed, haters and the woes of having a project.
Here's a suggestion to the "Cry Baby"--don't respond, stop publicly blogging or grow a thicker skin. Yawn, really.
Posted by: Shahar Ozeri | June 23, 2009 at 04:09 PM
Neal, I totally disagree with your metaphilosophical point, and I doubt there is any way our disagreement will be resolved. Philosophy means love of wisdom. If you are not trying to get closer to the truth (however you end up construing that) in doing this, then you are not playing the same game as any of the greats. I do however agree with you that essentializing types are obnoxious though, which is related to Mikail and Shahar's points.
The thing that is obnoxious about the beastiary is that it can easily be read not as characterizing these tendencies not as seductions that we all fall prey to, but as essences of various other people (and to some extent we all become what we claim to hate). Which is ridiculous and unhelpful.
But I didn't read any of the posts linked to above as picking on specific people. But rather just as encouragements to try to be certain ways, of a piece with Graham's advice stuff. Again, with Shahar, of course anyone who gives advice is going to end up not living up to it. But that doesn't mean it's bad advice. That is, I think k punk's point about fandom and undertaking projects is spot on.
It's kind of like Kant on the good will. It's one thing to say that a good will is the only thing that is intrinsically praiseworthy, but quite another to say that you know who has a good will or even if you are acting out of it. Kant affirmed the first without the second. It's one thing to have a set of bad archetypes and quite another to implicate that they are instantiated by particular people. Again, I just read the linked to posts in the former manner.
In spite of my agreement with your criticisms, part of me desperately wants to think of an animal that fits for "Cry Baby." The eyeore? The weeping willow? There has to be a better animal or monster.
Is that bad?
Posted by: Jon Cogburn | June 23, 2009 at 04:45 PM
One more thing.
Mikhail, thanks for not putting me down when raising the problems with the bestiary trope.
But in retrospect, Shahar's right; the post constitutes venting (in the sense of letting off frustration). It wasn't a conscious attempt to "shroud "arguments" in long winded supra-referential posts/comments," but it maybe did just that?
In any case I agree with you that doing just that is a waste of time at best.
Again though, I want an animal/monster that fits the Cry Baby trope, so that I can self-referentially deconstruct the entire post by putting myself forward as an instance of one. In Harry Potter there was that one female ghost that hung out in the lavatory and cried all the time. . . .
I just looked it up. It's "Moaning Myrtle."
The Moaning Myrtle is the philosopher whose ghostly internet presence repeatedly takes every criticism personally and cries about it to the whole world, often by way of ghostly shrouding of such "arguments" as she can muster in long winded supra-referential posts/comments (such as getting sublimated revenge on the people that she is whingeing about in a supposed-be-humorous typology), or misleading and impenetrable prose.
So I was a Moaning Myrtle this morning!
I realize that offering up Moaning Myrtle may be doing something analogous to Ricky Gervais' "The Office" boss when he tries to be politically correct and completely botches it. Please let me know if I am.
Posted by: Jon Cogburn | June 23, 2009 at 05:10 PM
part of me desperately wants to think of an animal that fits for "Cry Baby."
How does termagant sound?
the suggestion aside, which I honestly couldn't resist, there is something vaguely ideological about such a typology/bestiary. It's like describing the signs of a dope fiend, invoking the red menance, describing the signs of judaizers, or listing the evils of capitalist exploitation. No matter how subtle the typology, it can only be used to persecute others. It serves no other purpose. There are no argumentative commitments, entitlements, or obligations that change simply because one is a troll, or is talking to one. So pace Jon's remark about the dangers of essentializing these positions, I don't see how else you could use them. If one is a troll, one is entitled to avoid them. Always? only when they're being a troll? when, exactly?
Furthermore, the whole idea of trolling is simply absurd. If an objection is not pertinent, then simply disregard it. I mean really, the smartest presenters I've ever seen have an uncanny ability to either transforms trolls into their best interlocutors, or else disarm them entirely.
Posted by: Alexei | June 23, 2009 at 05:35 PM
hmm the link and the suggested name disappeared. Weird. Anyway, I suggested termagant (from Shakespeare's The taming of the Shrew).
Posted by: Alexei | June 23, 2009 at 05:38 PM
Alexei,
Yeah, I'm pretty sure the Termagant beats Moaning Myrtle hands down. It's more insulting. We'd have to rewrite the description without the "ghostly's" and with reference to being bad tempered, scolding, and nagging.
I love your point about good presenters. Great teachers do this too. Somehow any comment can be taken in and made relevant and interesting such that: (1) discussion of the point will be philosophically fruitful, and (2) the interlocutor still recognizes the point as his/her point. I wish there was a name for this kind of virtue.
The best case I ever saw of it was Hilary Putnam. The person haranguing him was mentally disturbed about something and on the edge of tears. Her question was about God and didn't seem to make much sense. He managed to answer it in a way that was really interesting and such that it made her feel better too. He saw the deeper thing she was nudging up against and made it explicit and put it out there in a way that was good for everybody.
I don't know why blogging seems to undermine that kind of ethos. . . Mikhail has pointed out before just how new this is as a kind of communication and that we haven't really adapted to it yet. Maybe our generation is working through this and the good ethos will start to be something that can be more easily internalized so as to be brought automatically to internet discussion?
Posted by: Jon Cogburn | June 23, 2009 at 06:01 PM
Moaning Myrtle is excellent. I hope that you didn't take my comments to suggest you fall into any of those pitfalls I named, Jon. Damn you confusing blogging medium! Honestly, I think you are right; anyone of us can (and do) fall into those categories at any given time. The important point is that we realize it. I would be remiss if I didn't admit that I get a bit of unwarranted blood lust from time to time at committee meetings, like this morning, for one example...
I couldn't help but think of The Animals' song, "I'm crying." One of my animation crazy students from Japan was telling me about this strange creature just the other day (and somehow worked it into a paper):
Konaki-Jijii: "This ghostly creature disguises itself as a crying infant in the woods and when someone picks it up, it gets heavier and heavier until it crushes the do-gooder."
Posted by: Shahar Ozeri | June 23, 2009 at 06:08 PM
It just occurred to me, rereading this exchange, that my previous comment comes across as too agressive. To second Shahar: damn you blogging medium! I didn't mean to suggest that anyone here (or elsewhere) is involved in a witch, troll, vampire, or shrew, mole, or vole hunt. Since I've come across that way, you have my apologies. I just wanted to raise a pragmatic, maybe even marginally philosophical concern about the very nature of such a typology. Rephrased slightly: it's not like these argumentative monsters = logical fallacies. At best they point out psychological tendencies, which allow for a particular kind of rhetoric against folks who are perceived as embodying those tendencies. That's the idea, right? Is so, doesn't the very idea of a bestiary sound like Nietzsche's slave morality? I just wanted to raise this point.
Anyway, the anecdote about Putnam is excellent. I wish I was more adept at doing something similar with my students. Makes me think that perhaps the problem is really just one of experience. Putnam's been asked a lot of really tough questions, and I'm sure he's able to perceive a certain kinds of pattern in them. Like playing chess, maybe (you recognize an opening, what its objective is, and you can play accordingly; you see certain possible combinations based on previous commitments, argumentatve strategies, ect). The major difficulty online, I think, is that folks aren't necessarily playing the same game. talking to folks form 'Theory' is really different than talking to folks form 'philosophy of math.' Same with Sociology, political theory, etc etc. If anything, maybe a new Latin is needed -- one that doesn't involve emoticons or abbreviations like LOL.
Just a thought.
Posted by: Alexei | June 23, 2009 at 07:10 PM
"Philosophy means love of wisdom. If you are not trying to get closer to the truth (however you end up construing that) in doing this, then you are not playing the same game as any of the greats."
I'm familiar with the word derivation, Jon. I just don't exactly see how one can take the love of wisdom as commitment to a project whose goal is to discern the truth. How many philosophers can we both name that have said some formulation of "My argument doesn't have to be right - it just has to be in the paper so I can get it published" in the past month?
None of the above is intended to be a knock on those who actually are trying to discern the truth - just that I'm largely unsure of whether the love of knowledge automatically requires participation in a grand project that seeks to discern truth. I certainly do believe that you are participating in a grand project that seeks to discern truth, of course, just as I am certain that some of the greatest pro-wrestlers believe they are consummate artists - but the fact remains that an overwhelming percentage of the greatest pro-wrestlers (both today and historically) believed they were drawing a paycheck and punching a clock with no regard for the aesthetics of what they do. In fact, when queried about the aesthetics they are often dismissive and unmoved.
But as best I can tell, the so-called "moles" are pretty important in and of themselves - they're actually committed to figuring out what a given philosopher actually said! All things being equal, I think that what they're doing is impossible to undervalue.
That being said, "troll" is a very useful term that is quite a propos - and I do think that trollish behavior online should be severely noted (insofar as so doing does not constitute feeding the trolls).
"Thread-crapping" is also quite good, too.
Posted by: Neal Hebert | June 24, 2009 at 09:52 PM
And for those confused with this whole blogging thing, the only essential resource on the subject thus far is Andrew Sullivan's essay "Why I Blog" published in the November 2008 issue of The Atlantic.
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200811/andrew-sullivan-why-i-blog
Sully covers many of the pitfalls that attend blogging, and forges a positive way forward for all of us.
It's pieces like this that make me forgive Andrew for misjudging the Iraq War and acting unhinged for a few years - he seems to have devoted himself exclusively to creating a body of work that allows people to begin affording him credibility again. Most other writers would refuse to own their incompetence or pretend they weren't wrong and continue their careers as if nothing ever happened, knowing full well there would be no repercussions to their actions. Andrew didn't, and that deserves respect.
-neal
Posted by: Neal Hebert | June 24, 2009 at 10:04 PM
The cattiness of your "I'm familiar with the word derivation, Jon" depresses me so much that I don't want to respond.
(1) The point I was making wasn't about the word derivation. (2) I'm sorry if I was too quick in what I wrote and that you thought I was condescending to you. I thought the fact that I went on to agree with what I took to be your substantive point vitiated that.
The problem with moles is that the rules of the game assume that great philosopher's thoughts are way more determinate than they could possibly be. One, linguistic meaning is too underdetermined across historical change for it to work. Two, part of what makes a great philosopher great is that their texts permit re-interpretation as the dialectic changes such that they continue to have relevance even in quite different cultural and historical situations.
Even just passably good historians of philosophy have a deep understanding of what is at issue philosophically, and have enough stake these issues to construe the philosophers so that they are interesting and contribute to relevant philosophical issues at their point in the dialectic.
But if you have an ethic of molery people are afraid to engage with the philosophical texts as works of philosophy instead of as part of intellectual history. My historian friends tell me just few years ago this had gotten really bad in analytical philosophy. People were so afraid of being anachronistic, that you couldn't even have a footnote discussing how the historical figure related to any contemporary debate. If you did your article would get rejected.
But that ethos of molery is dying a much needed death. For a variety of reasons, there is a lot more confidence in analytic philosophy now with engaging with historical figures as philosophers, talking about the plausibility of the views one can abstract from conversation with them, applying their views in interesting ways, etc.
Molery is just to approach the text as a logical game, trying to intepret it in a more consistent way than other moles have. I'm not convinced anything of import has been accomplished anyone doing this. I just haven't seen it. There are so many good historians that are actual philosophers too; again, I think all the great historians are, and have to be.
Posted by: Jon Cogburn | June 24, 2009 at 10:37 PM
The issue isn't that I "thought" you were condescending to me - the issue is that you actually were condescending to me. And though I appreciate your feeling sorry that I perceived condescension in your response, I suspect that feeling sorry for actually being condescending would go a lot further.
Consider: this is a philosophy blog. All readers are presumed to be interested in philosophy in some way and at least minimally proficient in philosophy (proficient enough to read, at least). The only reason I could imagine someone would feel the need to expound on philosophy's word derivation - either consciously or subconsciously - is:
1) there was perceived unclarity on the derivation;
2) to position the commenter's point as somehow unserious or uninformed by implication.
The derivation is pointless to spell out, otherwise.
My response wasn't intended to be "catty" but a blunt statement of fact given the above - blogging is a contact sport.
But me taking issue with your condescending response has obscured what my issue with this "project" terminology is - admittedly, this is something I implied (and never really made apparent) so the fault is entirely mine.
This grand project to discern truth just strikes me as elitist - it establishes criteria about which there's such a great amount of vagueness and subjectivity that it's impossible for me to see how it's the least bit useful or consistent with a truth-oriented outlook. It is, at the very least, uncharitable to whomever is being held to it as a standard of behavior.
I suspect this is because participation in the grand project is a tool that has to be poorly defined to justify its existence. The only reason someone would ever invoke it is to club one's enemies - who, presumably, aren't a part of this grand project because they are philosophical philistines or lack the moral fiber to participate in such a project. Though you correctly perceived my objection to be to categorizing people in types, I don't think I said outright that this entire idea of judging a philosopher's participation in the project of truth discernment as simply another type of categorizing that is in and of itself problematic.
I'm not expressing doubt that philosophy is concerned with truth - I just think lumping all right-thinking or praiseworthy philosophers into participating in an ill-defined project of some sort strikes me as incredibly problematic, especially since all of the effort spent characterizing this project seems to have been focused primarily on defining all the ways numerous philosophers fall short of participation rather than building a positive case for those who do participate.
After all, who's the arbiter for inclusion in this project? Who decides whether one is doing philosophy or wordplay? Who makes the call on whether someone is playing a logical game or actually (actively?) discerning truth? How do we know a philosopher's mental state such that we can speak with certainty about their attitudes toward textual exegesis and truth-project orientation? Is there a ratio between exegesis and truth discernment to which we can hold a given philosopher to discover whether he is a participant in this project with any certainty?
The idea that there is "acceptable" philosophy enables the marginalization of those doing work that the person doing the judging doesn't like. The whole business is just as distasteful to me as imagining a Heideggerian looking at your recent research and declaring it unworthwhile and shallow, or Graham Priest's reception in some philosophical circles.
I'm not saying I doubt your analysis of many historians being unremarkable philosophers - just that I distrust any construct that allows someone to brush off someone's work as unworthwhile without too much trouble, especially with such broad strokes.
Posted by: Neal Hebert | June 25, 2009 at 10:34 AM
First, I agree with the overall point. Even to the extent that one wants to be negative, this should be in terms of a discussion of disciplinary norms, and not essentializing people.
But to answer your "whose to say?" question, some historians of philosophy have explicitly told me they don't care about which philosophical views are true, that they are just interested in correctly interpreting the texts.
I just think that's a bad way to be a human being. People should engage in Aristotelian contemplation to the extent that they can (which does *not* entail Aristotle's view (on Irwin's reading) that contemplation is the highest good). If you cut off what you are doing from the broader pursuit of truth your soul atrophes.
I think it's morally admirable that you don't agree with me, because by doing this you are extending a higher regard for people who aren't very much like you, with whom I resonate in part just because philosophical contemplation is part of everything you do. My take, on the other hand, can lead to all sorts of condescending and morally unsupportable nastiness.
A very, very good relevant paper is Ryan Nichols' "Why is the History of Philosophy Worth our Study?" Metaphilosophy 37 (2006): 34-52.
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/toc/meta/37/1 . I'll dig it out and do a post on it when I get back.
Posted by: Jon Cogburn | June 25, 2009 at 01:14 PM
So here's a way to make the complaint. When the ethos of molery predominates historical study, then it becomes harder and harder to actually engage with the philosophical content of the thinkers on which the moles have a monopoly.
For example, it is absolutely crucial that people need to be able to participate in the discourse of "Aristotelian ethics" without having the issue of what Aristotle actually thought being anything approaching a trump card.
Philosophy is in large part an ongoing conversation, and for it to happen, the people doing it need to be able to appropriate great thinkers as interlocutors. But rampant molery stops this, because any time anyone does this they are accused of being anachronistic or misinterpreting the text. Sorabji (who is a great, philosophically sensitive historian, and I don't mean to imply otherwise) did a real disservice to philosophy with his privately circulated paper mocking Putnam and Nusbaum for their work which used Aristotle to yield an interesting version of functionalism in the philosophy of mind. The paper (I never read it) was widely quoted (perhaps unfairly to Sorabji) to me as saying "Aristotle never read Descartes" as if that was a hilarious and absolutely devastating put-down, and Putnam and Nusbaum ought to be ashamed. About a decade ago, more than one historian who do X's theory of Y cited Sorabji's piece to me as a justification for knowing nothing about contemporary theories of Y, and next to nothing about the history of thinking about Y in between X's time and ours.
Rampant molery amounts to a dreadful censoring of philosophical discourse, and it's bad for everyone involved.
My impression is that molery is on the retreat. In the philosophy of mind people are unashamedly engaging with the great phenomenologists as interlocutors. There is a robust tradition of Kantian ethics. Pittsburgh Hegelianism is a going concern. People are actually doing metaphysics, not just talking about metaphysical systems of the past. None of this would be possible if everyone took the Sorabji letter to heart the way some of my friends did years ago.
Finally, I think that one could argue that molery in analytic philosophy was the last unfortunate hangover from logical positivism, but that's another issue.
Posted by: Jon Cogburn | June 25, 2009 at 05:25 PM
We also need good creatures in the bestiary. What would be creature who does what I described Putnam doing above?
The best people do the alchemist's trick, turning a bunch of muck into gold. In the context of the internets, you have to try to do this, if you find yourself being a minotaur or troll (and *everybody* who blogs enough does when they are frustrated or their blood pressure is up) you have to somehow make it O.K. by redirecting things such that the previous discussion wasn't a whole waste of time. If you feel like someone else is doing this to you, you have to do the same thing, the way Putnam can take a completely out of left field question and interpret it so that: (1) it is philosophically interesting, and (2) the interlocutor still recognizes it as his question. That's alchemy.
Good bloggers do this kind of alchemy, and it's something I've seen grow as the kinks in the media work out. It's something to which we should aspire both in blogs and in real life.
Maybe The Alchemist? I know that's not a beast, but it is meideval-as-construed-by-romantics enough.
Posted by: Jon Cogburn | June 26, 2009 at 07:27 AM
There's King Midas - everything he touches turns to gold.
Also there's the Peryton - a mythical monster that looks like a winged stag but casts the shadow of a man. You could use that to describe a successful philosopher whose work is now used for radically different things than was anticipated.
A good source of just a few mythological beasts (with pictures) is here:
http://www.loridillon.net/bestiarycreatures.html
Posted by: Neal Hebert | June 26, 2009 at 10:01 AM