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?

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 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?

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 all bullies crave: the silence of their targets.

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.

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.

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 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.

I suspect you are being misread due to that word choice, but to be honest I am not quite sure.

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.

Nor is it making excuses for bullies any more than locking your door at night is excusing thieves.

I did not say that. Please read more carefully.

What else does this mean?

It means the offendee is responsible for the offendee's reaction.

Very, very different.

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.