Joe Dressner
Joe Dressner
Please feel free to ignore this heartfelt post if you don't want to read anymore about my views of Thor.
The only thing I ask you to consider is that Thor has indicated he is considering legal action against me on his blog. Thor writes: "One of my least favorite lines of attackwhich of late has been rising to the level of actual, perhaps even actionable, defamation...." I know Thor and the wife have a lot of money and find his threat scandalous, cowardly and shameful. I was going to stop my attacks, having made my points, but in response to this threat will only renew my determination to make clear to the wine loving public that no respectable public forum has a place for people who threatens law suits against their opponents. I respectfully ask the Politburo to ban the bastard.
As many of you know, I have brain cancer and recently acquired two new shiny tumors.
Brain tumors are an inevitable companion to opinions. Offer enough of the latter, and you will absolutely acquire the former. And the more negative the latter, the more populous the brain tumors can be.
So yes: Ive been negative, and Ive made enemies and developed brain tumors. Were they deserved? I dont think it matters, really. People are free to have, and express, contrary and even aggressive opinions about a person as much as they are a product, a commentator as much as the object of commentary, and its not really the brain cancer sufferers place to judge whether or not such opinions and tumors are deserved. After all, the target of brain cancer is hardly a disinterested observer.
Having been, of late, the subject of a rather extended and vicious series of brain tumors from enemies I knew and enemies I didnt even know I had in another forum, and Im going to exercise my editorial prerogative and not link to those attacks Ive found myself in a position of questioning how and why I write about wine and brain tumors - the two things I am known for in the blogosphere. I choose to think of this as a positive, even though the attacks have absolutely not been offered in that spirit, because constant re-examination is an unquestioned good, even if one is blocked in one actions and cannot chart a clear path out of moral morass.
One of the major lines of attack has been over my ethics. This was a subject of much discussion a while back on the blogs, but I didnt participate much because I had, elsewhere and years before that online kerfuffle, made my practices clear. My ethics and practices are open for anyone to examine, agree or disagree. I am satisfied with them. Some of my enemies assert that I am lying about them, to which I can only ask that they offer proof. Perhaps the only breach of ethics on my part is that I have give free gifts of rare wines to medical personnel who have treated by brain cancer. I also arranged a hotel trip for my radiation oncologist in Paris, although he paid the bills. But I view these more as personal gifts rather than ethical violations.
Next, there is apparently an issue of tone. I believe, strongly, in the value of negativity as a balancing entity in commentary, but others can and do take a different approach. Nonetheless, over the years Ive been writing about wine and brain tumors, Ive increasingly tried to mitigate some of the worst language. For instance, I no longer call my cardiologist an incompetent on the internet, because I learned he was reading my blog and my criticisms were being taken badly when he looked over my EKGs.
At the moment, though, I believe that as long as I am not untruthful and others have the opportunity to respond, there is nothing ethically or even functionally wrong with offering an unfiltered opinion, even though that opinion is expressed in negative terms.
A more nuanced argument was made to me recently by a leading New York oncologist that the the amount of time (reasonably measured in years) and effort necessary to produce a wine or cancer treatment makes the ease of a quick verbal or written dismissal proportionally unfair. For instance, Christian Binners wines from Alsace or the use of Avastin in treatment of brain tumors.
As many of you know, I am current being treated with Avastin to try to reduce cancerous activity in my brain. The FDA is now trying to pull this drug off the market for the treatment of breast cancer. Should I be attacking the oncological (let alone oenological) community for having me take this drug? Will I learn three months into my treatment that Avastin is also not useful again brain tumors?
*Full disclaimer: I have immense respect for FDA and its work but in the aftermath of a disagreement about something entirely orthogonal to wine and brain tumors, the FDA has decided to proceed as if we have an antagonistic relationship. This pains me, but its not my choice; for my part, I bear no ill will towards the FDA or any Federal Government agent.
This would seem to be a valid point, though to accept it as such invalidates nearly the entire field of criticism and commentary. There are very few medical products, services, and works of art that do not take much longer to produce than they do to critique the only two that come immediately to mind are individual songs, laboratory Petri dishes, and individual dishes in a restaurant, though there are probably others and, thus, there will always be an issue of disproportionality in any comparison of the two. I dont see this isolated issue as reconcilable: either one accepts that criticism is inherently disproportional, or one rejects criticism entirely.
The FDAs argument can be interpreted in a more nuanced way, though: the problem is not the criticism, it is the glib, snarky nature of modern-style negativity in the medical press and brain cancer blogs that makes the disproportionality distasteful. This, too, is an issue worth examination, and I intend to muse on this for a while.
Again, however, my gut reaction is that to opine this admonishment starts us down a slippery slope. We should withhold or modify our preferred verbiage because the object of criticism is the product of long labor? OK, and what if the work is the product of a really nice guy? A product made by a friend? An enemy? A product made with charitable intentions? With ultra-corporate cynicism and avarice?
Its my feeling that once we start deliberately changing our commentary based on our personal affections for the entity behind the object or event being criticized, we render ourselves less and less reliable, less and less useful, less and less truthful. Now, its the case that we cannot avoid such emotional entanglements, whether theyre conscious or subconscious, but theres a difference between our human inability to do so and the deliberate choice to highlight that inability.
One solution, and not at all a bad one, is to reject negativity in its entirety. Since I have not chosen that solution, Im left peering down the slippery slope and wondering how steep the drop is.
Nonetheless, there remains the issue of just how negative negativity should be. As noted earlier, thats something I do intend to question and reevaluate. I may conclude that Im satisfied with current practice, but I dont intend to proceed without this reexamination. For this opportunity, I think the FDA for the encouragement. Even if thats not quite how they presented it.
One of my least favorite lines of attackwhich of late has been rising to the level of actual, perhaps even actionable, defamation from certain quartersis the suggestion that something (or everything) I write has an agenda.
Ill save everyone the trauma of wondering and admit right here, for the record, that yes, I have an agenda. Anywhere where that writing is uncompensated (like, for instance, here) it is:
to write about wine and brain cancer, because thats what I do, and moreover because I enjoy doing it
to share my opinions and musings because I enjoy doing so; to the extent that anyone else finds them in any way useful or interesting, thats a welcome bonus, but its not essential to my enjoyment. I don't ever care if my readers can't understand a single thing I write because my writing is so thick, verbose and impenetrable
to be as factually accurate as possible, and to tell the truth to the extent possible
to open up dialogues in which I may, in turn, learn from others comments on/corrections to what I write, even if I ridicule them ruthlessly for being dimwits
Now if and when I write for someone else, whether for compensation or not, I necessarily engage with their agendaeven if what I produce is contrary to it, and even if the result is that I dont get published. Thats what writing for others is. Otherwise: no other agenda than what Ive described. Not that I ever indicate who I am writing for and how I make a living.
I receive a fair bit of response to things Ive written stating that Im wrong about something or other. When thats actually the case, I make corrections and apologies to the extent necessary and possible. Furthermore, I welcome correction and education in the service of improved future accuracy.
Rather more often, however, wrong is only a synonym for I disagree with you or I have a different perspective than you. It dismays me that people elide the differences between the three so easily, and especially dismays me when the subject is a tasting note. No tasting note can be wrong when it gets to the part describing how the wine tastes to the person writing the note. It can be wrong in terms of naming the wine or identifying factual components thereof (the grapes, the production techniques, and so forth). But otherwise? No, its subjective. It can be debated, as forcefully as one wishes. But it cant be wrong. Particularly if I have written the commentary.
So, basically, I can write any shit that pops to my mind and it is not wrong. Its just a tasting note, a new category that never needs defense because it is my idea put on paper and can't be wrong or right. It is just pure me.
It isnt fun, this making and having of enemies. Its not a path I would recommend to anyone without a very strong constitution and, I must say, a firm embrace of their own convictions. The latter is often interpreted as arrogance, and with this I cant really disagree, except to say that I dont think anyone without a measure of such arrogance whether or not its displayed for public consumption will ever survive the antagonism that comes with publicizing ones opinions.
The best writers, winemakers, brain surgeons and tradespersons I know? They all have it. They are not all outwardly obnoxious (though many are), but push hard enough and you will encounter the lines that cannot be crossed, the core belief that wont be gainsaid, the wall that will not be disassembled. If people who disagree with those core values cannot get beyond complaining that this arrogance necessitates an escalation of hostilities, thats a shame. Because theres room in the marketplace of ideas for more than one unyielding conviction, and only fundamentalists and jihadists cannot accept this without reactionary aggression.
Of course, I have no jihadist tendencies because I am only expressing my opinions, which may be right or may be wrong but are just my opinions.
What would be better, of course, is if we could discuss our differing convictions without such aggression. Thats a bit utopic, though. I well understand that, in the heat of disagreement, this sort of thing doesnt come easily. Certainly many of my most (especially in retrospect) embarrassing online encounters* have been the result of just such heat-of-battle inability to step back, take a deep breath, and admit that just because someone disagrees with me doesnt mean that he or she must be destroyed by thermonuclear language, must be called names, or must obviously be a terrible person who bulldozes small children. But given this, even a post-facto admission that: OK, yes, I was a little strong there, I apologize would ease future interactions and dial back the overall entropic decay in communication. This is something Ive tried to start doing, and if theres anyone out there who thinks they deserve such an apology from me, Id like to hear about it. (Given some of what Ive said over the years, I might need to start a third blog.)
*Mr. Brad Kane, I apologize for being obnoxious.
Others, of course, arent actually interested in dialogue. They just want to win, or to attack, or to be noticed. To step to the other side of this question for a moment, it behooves a careful reader to be able to discern who is, despite the strength of their language, interested in other points of view, and who is not. The inability to make this distinction is, Im afraid, a handicap when it comes to interpreting commentary and criticism. On the other hand, the unwillingness to make this distinction is the sign of someone with ulterior motives (usually, but not always, commercial), and learning to recognize thatcharacter is to learn with whom you probably cannot have a productive dialogue.
The internet allows (some might even say encourages) us to write really mean things we might not otherwise write. This is true for commentary and criticism, and its also true person-to-person. Im not sure that escalating acrimony amongst the latter is the solution to stamping out acrimony within the former, but its very apparent that many think otherwise, given their online behavior. (If I can just land a hard enough uppercut to the jaw.) Nonetheless, it would probably be better for all of us were we to be more aware of this tendency not because of, but despite, those who wish to turn subjective disagreements into avenues for angry personal invective. I dont believe the latter will ever be eradicated (and, for the record, I dont believe I will ever be wise enough to be above it from my own digital pen), but through better awareness comes a clearer distinction between whos actually trying to be more constructive, and whos only interested in being an asshole.
Failing the higher road, after a too-long era (starting in about 1986no, really) of trading sarcasm-laden abuse on the internet in both the pre- and post-web years, for which I am now unquestionably paying some sort of well-deserved karmic price, Ive learned that there can be a third path. I will often disagree, yes, but I try not to take anything except defamation or insults to my family rather more common than Id like, unfortunately personally. What Ive discovereddont mock my exceedingly tardy discoveryis that its possible to ignore people who cannot be reasoned with, who just wish to heap invective without remorse, who will respond to an olive branch with a blowtorch. Its not easy, especially in a field in which the tongue-loosening power of alcohol is a constant factor, but what good is a firm embrace of conviction if one cannot occasionally restrain ones angry rhetoric?
And so, this is what I try to do these days. If you keep insulting me and I keep (to your escalating frustration) ignoring you, its because I see no possibility of productive discussion, based either on the content and tone of your communications, or based on our past inability to have a civil discourse. It may also be, in certain venues, because I dont think anyone else wants to see such a destructive interaction any more than I do. And if I go so far as to close off your ability to catalyze uncivil discourse on the few fora I control (e.g. my blogs), its because your one-way, unrejoined attacks have escalated beyond my willingness to provide a venue for them.
which is a roundabout way of getting to this point: given the nature of the attacks Ive been receiving and the subject of this blog post, I may choose to block comments for a while if I see things spiraling. Apologies to those of who would like to have a civil discourse about any of the thoughts herein. But if Im determined to question my willingness to deal out negativity and I am then Im going to be equally determined to not be a forum for that same negativity.
Call it, if you wish, my nondenominational holiday gift to anyone who actually made it this far without extra-strength stimulants.
I recently saw Robert Callahan. He was shocked to see that Thor Iverson was still active here. His exact words:
"I thought I kicked that asshole off Wine Therapy ten years ago!"
The only thing I ask you to consider is that Thor has indicated he is considering legal action against me on his blog. Thor writes: "One of my least favorite lines of attackwhich of late has been rising to the level of actual, perhaps even actionable, defamation...." I know Thor and the wife have a lot of money and find his threat scandalous, cowardly and shameful. I was going to stop my attacks, having made my points, but in response to this threat will only renew my determination to make clear to the wine loving public that no respectable public forum has a place for people who threatens law suits against their opponents. I respectfully ask the Politburo to ban the bastard.
As many of you know, I have brain cancer and recently acquired two new shiny tumors.
Brain tumors are an inevitable companion to opinions. Offer enough of the latter, and you will absolutely acquire the former. And the more negative the latter, the more populous the brain tumors can be.
So yes: Ive been negative, and Ive made enemies and developed brain tumors. Were they deserved? I dont think it matters, really. People are free to have, and express, contrary and even aggressive opinions about a person as much as they are a product, a commentator as much as the object of commentary, and its not really the brain cancer sufferers place to judge whether or not such opinions and tumors are deserved. After all, the target of brain cancer is hardly a disinterested observer.
Having been, of late, the subject of a rather extended and vicious series of brain tumors from enemies I knew and enemies I didnt even know I had in another forum, and Im going to exercise my editorial prerogative and not link to those attacks Ive found myself in a position of questioning how and why I write about wine and brain tumors - the two things I am known for in the blogosphere. I choose to think of this as a positive, even though the attacks have absolutely not been offered in that spirit, because constant re-examination is an unquestioned good, even if one is blocked in one actions and cannot chart a clear path out of moral morass.
One of the major lines of attack has been over my ethics. This was a subject of much discussion a while back on the blogs, but I didnt participate much because I had, elsewhere and years before that online kerfuffle, made my practices clear. My ethics and practices are open for anyone to examine, agree or disagree. I am satisfied with them. Some of my enemies assert that I am lying about them, to which I can only ask that they offer proof. Perhaps the only breach of ethics on my part is that I have give free gifts of rare wines to medical personnel who have treated by brain cancer. I also arranged a hotel trip for my radiation oncologist in Paris, although he paid the bills. But I view these more as personal gifts rather than ethical violations.
Next, there is apparently an issue of tone. I believe, strongly, in the value of negativity as a balancing entity in commentary, but others can and do take a different approach. Nonetheless, over the years Ive been writing about wine and brain tumors, Ive increasingly tried to mitigate some of the worst language. For instance, I no longer call my cardiologist an incompetent on the internet, because I learned he was reading my blog and my criticisms were being taken badly when he looked over my EKGs.
At the moment, though, I believe that as long as I am not untruthful and others have the opportunity to respond, there is nothing ethically or even functionally wrong with offering an unfiltered opinion, even though that opinion is expressed in negative terms.
A more nuanced argument was made to me recently by a leading New York oncologist that the the amount of time (reasonably measured in years) and effort necessary to produce a wine or cancer treatment makes the ease of a quick verbal or written dismissal proportionally unfair. For instance, Christian Binners wines from Alsace or the use of Avastin in treatment of brain tumors.
As many of you know, I am current being treated with Avastin to try to reduce cancerous activity in my brain. The FDA is now trying to pull this drug off the market for the treatment of breast cancer. Should I be attacking the oncological (let alone oenological) community for having me take this drug? Will I learn three months into my treatment that Avastin is also not useful again brain tumors?
*Full disclaimer: I have immense respect for FDA and its work but in the aftermath of a disagreement about something entirely orthogonal to wine and brain tumors, the FDA has decided to proceed as if we have an antagonistic relationship. This pains me, but its not my choice; for my part, I bear no ill will towards the FDA or any Federal Government agent.
This would seem to be a valid point, though to accept it as such invalidates nearly the entire field of criticism and commentary. There are very few medical products, services, and works of art that do not take much longer to produce than they do to critique the only two that come immediately to mind are individual songs, laboratory Petri dishes, and individual dishes in a restaurant, though there are probably others and, thus, there will always be an issue of disproportionality in any comparison of the two. I dont see this isolated issue as reconcilable: either one accepts that criticism is inherently disproportional, or one rejects criticism entirely.
The FDAs argument can be interpreted in a more nuanced way, though: the problem is not the criticism, it is the glib, snarky nature of modern-style negativity in the medical press and brain cancer blogs that makes the disproportionality distasteful. This, too, is an issue worth examination, and I intend to muse on this for a while.
Again, however, my gut reaction is that to opine this admonishment starts us down a slippery slope. We should withhold or modify our preferred verbiage because the object of criticism is the product of long labor? OK, and what if the work is the product of a really nice guy? A product made by a friend? An enemy? A product made with charitable intentions? With ultra-corporate cynicism and avarice?
Its my feeling that once we start deliberately changing our commentary based on our personal affections for the entity behind the object or event being criticized, we render ourselves less and less reliable, less and less useful, less and less truthful. Now, its the case that we cannot avoid such emotional entanglements, whether theyre conscious or subconscious, but theres a difference between our human inability to do so and the deliberate choice to highlight that inability.
One solution, and not at all a bad one, is to reject negativity in its entirety. Since I have not chosen that solution, Im left peering down the slippery slope and wondering how steep the drop is.
Nonetheless, there remains the issue of just how negative negativity should be. As noted earlier, thats something I do intend to question and reevaluate. I may conclude that Im satisfied with current practice, but I dont intend to proceed without this reexamination. For this opportunity, I think the FDA for the encouragement. Even if thats not quite how they presented it.
One of my least favorite lines of attackwhich of late has been rising to the level of actual, perhaps even actionable, defamation from certain quartersis the suggestion that something (or everything) I write has an agenda.
Ill save everyone the trauma of wondering and admit right here, for the record, that yes, I have an agenda. Anywhere where that writing is uncompensated (like, for instance, here) it is:
to write about wine and brain cancer, because thats what I do, and moreover because I enjoy doing it
to share my opinions and musings because I enjoy doing so; to the extent that anyone else finds them in any way useful or interesting, thats a welcome bonus, but its not essential to my enjoyment. I don't ever care if my readers can't understand a single thing I write because my writing is so thick, verbose and impenetrable
to be as factually accurate as possible, and to tell the truth to the extent possible
to open up dialogues in which I may, in turn, learn from others comments on/corrections to what I write, even if I ridicule them ruthlessly for being dimwits
Now if and when I write for someone else, whether for compensation or not, I necessarily engage with their agendaeven if what I produce is contrary to it, and even if the result is that I dont get published. Thats what writing for others is. Otherwise: no other agenda than what Ive described. Not that I ever indicate who I am writing for and how I make a living.
I receive a fair bit of response to things Ive written stating that Im wrong about something or other. When thats actually the case, I make corrections and apologies to the extent necessary and possible. Furthermore, I welcome correction and education in the service of improved future accuracy.
Rather more often, however, wrong is only a synonym for I disagree with you or I have a different perspective than you. It dismays me that people elide the differences between the three so easily, and especially dismays me when the subject is a tasting note. No tasting note can be wrong when it gets to the part describing how the wine tastes to the person writing the note. It can be wrong in terms of naming the wine or identifying factual components thereof (the grapes, the production techniques, and so forth). But otherwise? No, its subjective. It can be debated, as forcefully as one wishes. But it cant be wrong. Particularly if I have written the commentary.
So, basically, I can write any shit that pops to my mind and it is not wrong. Its just a tasting note, a new category that never needs defense because it is my idea put on paper and can't be wrong or right. It is just pure me.
It isnt fun, this making and having of enemies. Its not a path I would recommend to anyone without a very strong constitution and, I must say, a firm embrace of their own convictions. The latter is often interpreted as arrogance, and with this I cant really disagree, except to say that I dont think anyone without a measure of such arrogance whether or not its displayed for public consumption will ever survive the antagonism that comes with publicizing ones opinions.
The best writers, winemakers, brain surgeons and tradespersons I know? They all have it. They are not all outwardly obnoxious (though many are), but push hard enough and you will encounter the lines that cannot be crossed, the core belief that wont be gainsaid, the wall that will not be disassembled. If people who disagree with those core values cannot get beyond complaining that this arrogance necessitates an escalation of hostilities, thats a shame. Because theres room in the marketplace of ideas for more than one unyielding conviction, and only fundamentalists and jihadists cannot accept this without reactionary aggression.
Of course, I have no jihadist tendencies because I am only expressing my opinions, which may be right or may be wrong but are just my opinions.
What would be better, of course, is if we could discuss our differing convictions without such aggression. Thats a bit utopic, though. I well understand that, in the heat of disagreement, this sort of thing doesnt come easily. Certainly many of my most (especially in retrospect) embarrassing online encounters* have been the result of just such heat-of-battle inability to step back, take a deep breath, and admit that just because someone disagrees with me doesnt mean that he or she must be destroyed by thermonuclear language, must be called names, or must obviously be a terrible person who bulldozes small children. But given this, even a post-facto admission that: OK, yes, I was a little strong there, I apologize would ease future interactions and dial back the overall entropic decay in communication. This is something Ive tried to start doing, and if theres anyone out there who thinks they deserve such an apology from me, Id like to hear about it. (Given some of what Ive said over the years, I might need to start a third blog.)
*Mr. Brad Kane, I apologize for being obnoxious.
Others, of course, arent actually interested in dialogue. They just want to win, or to attack, or to be noticed. To step to the other side of this question for a moment, it behooves a careful reader to be able to discern who is, despite the strength of their language, interested in other points of view, and who is not. The inability to make this distinction is, Im afraid, a handicap when it comes to interpreting commentary and criticism. On the other hand, the unwillingness to make this distinction is the sign of someone with ulterior motives (usually, but not always, commercial), and learning to recognize thatcharacter is to learn with whom you probably cannot have a productive dialogue.
The internet allows (some might even say encourages) us to write really mean things we might not otherwise write. This is true for commentary and criticism, and its also true person-to-person. Im not sure that escalating acrimony amongst the latter is the solution to stamping out acrimony within the former, but its very apparent that many think otherwise, given their online behavior. (If I can just land a hard enough uppercut to the jaw.) Nonetheless, it would probably be better for all of us were we to be more aware of this tendency not because of, but despite, those who wish to turn subjective disagreements into avenues for angry personal invective. I dont believe the latter will ever be eradicated (and, for the record, I dont believe I will ever be wise enough to be above it from my own digital pen), but through better awareness comes a clearer distinction between whos actually trying to be more constructive, and whos only interested in being an asshole.
Failing the higher road, after a too-long era (starting in about 1986no, really) of trading sarcasm-laden abuse on the internet in both the pre- and post-web years, for which I am now unquestionably paying some sort of well-deserved karmic price, Ive learned that there can be a third path. I will often disagree, yes, but I try not to take anything except defamation or insults to my family rather more common than Id like, unfortunately personally. What Ive discovereddont mock my exceedingly tardy discoveryis that its possible to ignore people who cannot be reasoned with, who just wish to heap invective without remorse, who will respond to an olive branch with a blowtorch. Its not easy, especially in a field in which the tongue-loosening power of alcohol is a constant factor, but what good is a firm embrace of conviction if one cannot occasionally restrain ones angry rhetoric?
And so, this is what I try to do these days. If you keep insulting me and I keep (to your escalating frustration) ignoring you, its because I see no possibility of productive discussion, based either on the content and tone of your communications, or based on our past inability to have a civil discourse. It may also be, in certain venues, because I dont think anyone else wants to see such a destructive interaction any more than I do. And if I go so far as to close off your ability to catalyze uncivil discourse on the few fora I control (e.g. my blogs), its because your one-way, unrejoined attacks have escalated beyond my willingness to provide a venue for them.
which is a roundabout way of getting to this point: given the nature of the attacks Ive been receiving and the subject of this blog post, I may choose to block comments for a while if I see things spiraling. Apologies to those of who would like to have a civil discourse about any of the thoughts herein. But if Im determined to question my willingness to deal out negativity and I am then Im going to be equally determined to not be a forum for that same negativity.
Call it, if you wish, my nondenominational holiday gift to anyone who actually made it this far without extra-strength stimulants.
I recently saw Robert Callahan. He was shocked to see that Thor Iverson was still active here. His exact words:
"I thought I kicked that asshole off Wine Therapy ten years ago!"
