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I used to tutor math and physics near Bloom's office in Timothy Dwight. My main association with the man is that he would come on strong to every female English

I used to tutor math and physics near Bloom's office in Timothy Dwight. My main association with the man is that he would come on strong to every female English graduate student he could reach. When #MeToo first came to national consciousness about men in arts and letters who completely abused their position to take advantage of women, I thought of Harold. How could these giants of arts and letters abuse so many? Because no one spoke out. It does sound near the end of his life, he got some of the medicine he deserved: https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2017/12/16/students-organize-response-to-saloveys-e-mail-on-sexual-misconduct/ https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2017/12/16/students-organize-...

trianglem 7y ago
I feel like coming on strongly to women is something desirable now, a drastic deviation from how I used to think less than half a decade ago.
- dang 7y ago
  Please don't do this here.
  - jacques_chester 7y ago
    Or anywhere, really.
  - _edo 7y ago
    I understand why you don't like this comment. I don't understand why this is worth your commenting on but you're silent on the airing of somebody's dirty laundry between their death and their funeral. What this signals to the Hacker News community is disturbing to the extent that I'm not sure I want to spend any more time here.
    - dang 7y ago
      It's off topic, unsubstantive, and inflammatory. It takes the thread in an extraneous flamebait direction, just what the site guidelines ask people not to. This seems obvious. Am I missing something? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html The question of airing dirty laundry immediately on someone's death is more complex. I agree that accusations against Bloom should not dominate discussion over the significant things he did. But they're not off topic, and the social injunction against speaking ill of the dead isn't shared by the whole community. We can argue reasonably about how to handle all of that. From my perspective, there aren't guidelines violations in those comments, but the various other things moderators do to encourage substantive discussion are applicable. But I see no such nuance in "I feel like coming on strongly to women is something desirable now". That doesn't mean the GP was posting in bad faith, but it's the sort of post we have to moderate if we don't want the thread to burst into flames.
jlilbgusfhd 7y ago
Yeah that's not cool. What's also not cool is to judge people from another time by the standards of today.
dlivingston 7y ago
Regarding Bloom's accuser, > In 2004, Wolf wrote an article for New York magazine accusing literary scholar Harold Bloom of a "sexual encroachment" more than two decades earlier by touching her thigh. She said that what she alleged Bloom did was not harassment, either legally or emotionally, and she did not think herself a "victim", but that she had harbored this secret for 21 years. [0] [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naomi_Wolf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naomi_Wolf
- mellosouls 7y ago
  Comment removed.
  - SomeOldThrow 7y ago
    What does this have to do with the accusation? It has nothing to do with his being significant except through the window of his abusing his power.
    - mellosouls 7y ago
      I think you have misread my comment.
      - elliekelly 7y ago
        Perhaps I've misread and/or misunderstood your comment as well. It seems you're suggesting that she's an unreliable witness and her accusations shouldn't be given much (or any) weight because her academic and professional work is of low quality.
      - SomeOldThrow 7y ago
        I don’t believe I have. What do claims of plagiarism have to do with claims of sexual harassment? Your post seems to defame the alleged victim.
        mellosouls 7y ago
jerf 7y ago
You shouldn't speak ill of the dead like this. It is uncouth and crass for all sorts of reasons. It doesn't mean you need to forget or ignore it, it just means... today is not the day. More days will come.
- master-litty 7y ago
  I understand your sentiment but to clarify, that is indeed ignoring the bad behavior. It's placation, even if temporary. And it's polite. There's nothing wrong with keeping these thoughts to yourself. With rare exception, it certainly doesn't harm anyone. But when a person leaves this world, they take all their good and all their bad with them -- I think it's acceptable to acknowledge what we are left with. To some, the striking acknowledgement is that we are one harasser less. The conversation will naturally steer towards the good if it outweighs the bad. Perhaps I'm being too insensitive; Those are my thoughts for the moment, anyway.
- 0_gravitas 7y ago
  Not OP but I've never liked the notion of "too soon" as a reason for not doing/saying things, it feels very arbitrary. And I don't know much about the person of subject but I will speak ill of anyone living or dead if they are someone worth speaking ill of.
  - jerf 7y ago
    It is not for the deceased; it is for the family of the deceased and others left behind. They are grieving and don't need to also have to deal with rumors adding to their pain. They didn't do it. It is also a simple application of the Golden Rule; you would not care for everyone around you to take your death as an opportunity to slag you, neither should you do it to you other fellow humans, all condemned to die one day as well. There will be more days. It doesn't have to be done today.
    - Barrin92 7y ago
      >It is also a simple application of the Golden Rule; you would not care for everyone around you to take your death as an opportunity to slag you if I ever turn into someone who gets a reputation for molesting young college students drag me all you want, hell rent a billboard for all I care and chuck my remains into the trashcan. If I ever figured out that one of my family members engaged in behaviour like this I would not mind it one single bit if their accusers spoke about it the day they died, the only thing I'd be sad about is that I didn't know sooner.
carterschonwald 7y ago
When I was an undergrad there 2006-2010, his perviness was well known across campus. Female dorm residents had lots of stories
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- vixen99 7y ago
  And in effect, now there's one more with further reach.
WheelsAtLarge 7y ago
>>How could these giants of arts and letters abuse so many? We tend to give people that are accomplished in a field an aura of saintliness that they don't deserve. The reality is that once people attain a bit of power many find it hard not to abuse it. And also, people around them tend to ignore the abuses. The only way to fix it is to call the abusers out on their behavior but it's hard for most people to do it because of all the trouble it brings even if it's 100% true. It's easier to give it a pass and hope someone else will do something about it.
whiddershins 7y ago
You can do as you like, but for me it is a decent heuristic to not speak ill of the dead. I, personally, really don’t enjoy reading about people using someone’s death or funeral as a platform for maligning their life, regardless of the accuracy and poignancy of the claims. Would you bring up this discussion in front of a grieving family member? Do you think it impossible someone already in pain might read what is said on the internet? There’s a concept I like that even the bitterest of enemies allow the dead to be buried in peace.
- keiferski 7y ago
  Writing a short call-out comment on an anonymous internet forum is easy. Thinking deeply about the appropriate time and place to bring up and challenge a person’s perceived unethical past deeds is difficult.
- oska 7y ago
  > it is a decent heuristic to not speak ill of the dead I take somewhat the opposite view: once someone is dead they can no longer be hurt by anything bad said about them. Defamation law also follows the same principle. Not that I want to speak ill of Harold Bloom. I only knew him through reading The Western Canon, which I found a very rewarding read, and for his disdain for the Harry Potter mania, where I felt the same way.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - ncmncm 7y ago
    The law favors the idea that the dead are beyond harm.
- angry_octet 7y ago
  Your feelings are really of no consequence compared to those who were victims. If you have a personal interaction to weigh in the positive side of the scales, speak now.
emmelaich 7y ago
> Because no one spoke out. Did you?

trianglem 7y ago

I feel like coming on strongly to women is something desirable now, a drastic deviation from how I used to think less than half a decade ago.

dang 7y ago
Please don't do this here.
- jacques_chester 7y ago
  Or anywhere, really.
- _edo 7y ago
  I understand why you don't like this comment. I don't understand why this is worth your commenting on but you're silent on the airing of somebody's dirty laundry between their death and their funeral. What this signals to the Hacker News community is disturbing to the extent that I'm not sure I want to spend any more time here.
  - dang 7y ago
    It's off topic, unsubstantive, and inflammatory. It takes the thread in an extraneous flamebait direction, just what the site guidelines ask people not to. This seems obvious. Am I missing something? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html The question of airing dirty laundry immediately on someone's death is more complex. I agree that accusations against Bloom should not dominate discussion over the significant things he did. But they're not off topic, and the social injunction against speaking ill of the dead isn't shared by the whole community. We can argue reasonably about how to handle all of that. From my perspective, there aren't guidelines violations in those comments, but the various other things moderators do to encourage substantive discussion are applicable. But I see no such nuance in "I feel like coming on strongly to women is something desirable now". That doesn't mean the GP was posting in bad faith, but it's the sort of post we have to moderate if we don't want the thread to burst into flames.

jlilbgusfhd 7y ago

Yeah that's not cool. What's also not cool is to judge people from another time by the standards of today.

dlivingston 7y ago

Regarding Bloom's accuser, > In 2004, Wolf wrote an article for New York magazine accusing literary scholar Harold Bloom of a "sexual encroachment" more than two decades earlier by touching her thigh. She said that what she alleged Bloom did was not harassment, either legally or emotionally, and she did not think herself a "victim", but that she had harbored this secret for 21 years. [0] [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naomi_Wolf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naomi_Wolf

mellosouls 7y ago
Comment removed.
- SomeOldThrow 7y ago
  What does this have to do with the accusation? It has nothing to do with his being significant except through the window of his abusing his power.
  - mellosouls 7y ago
    I think you have misread my comment.
    - elliekelly 7y ago
      Perhaps I've misread and/or misunderstood your comment as well. It seems you're suggesting that she's an unreliable witness and her accusations shouldn't be given much (or any) weight because her academic and professional work is of low quality.
    - SomeOldThrow 7y ago
      I don’t believe I have. What do claims of plagiarism have to do with claims of sexual harassment? Your post seems to defame the alleged victim.
      - mellosouls 7y ago

jerf 7y ago

You shouldn't speak ill of the dead like this. It is uncouth and crass for all sorts of reasons. It doesn't mean you need to forget or ignore it, it just means... today is not the day. More days will come.

master-litty 7y ago
I understand your sentiment but to clarify, that is indeed ignoring the bad behavior. It's placation, even if temporary. And it's polite. There's nothing wrong with keeping these thoughts to yourself. With rare exception, it certainly doesn't harm anyone. But when a person leaves this world, they take all their good and all their bad with them -- I think it's acceptable to acknowledge what we are left with. To some, the striking acknowledgement is that we are one harasser less. The conversation will naturally steer towards the good if it outweighs the bad. Perhaps I'm being too insensitive; Those are my thoughts for the moment, anyway.
0_gravitas 7y ago
Not OP but I've never liked the notion of "too soon" as a reason for not doing/saying things, it feels very arbitrary. And I don't know much about the person of subject but I will speak ill of anyone living or dead if they are someone worth speaking ill of.
- jerf 7y ago
  It is not for the deceased; it is for the family of the deceased and others left behind. They are grieving and don't need to also have to deal with rumors adding to their pain. They didn't do it. It is also a simple application of the Golden Rule; you would not care for everyone around you to take your death as an opportunity to slag you, neither should you do it to you other fellow humans, all condemned to die one day as well. There will be more days. It doesn't have to be done today.
  - Barrin92 7y ago
    >It is also a simple application of the Golden Rule; you would not care for everyone around you to take your death as an opportunity to slag you if I ever turn into someone who gets a reputation for molesting young college students drag me all you want, hell rent a billboard for all I care and chuck my remains into the trashcan. If I ever figured out that one of my family members engaged in behaviour like this I would not mind it one single bit if their accusers spoke about it the day they died, the only thing I'd be sad about is that I didn't know sooner.

carterschonwald 7y ago

When I was an undergrad there 2006-2010, his perviness was well known across campus. Female dorm residents had lots of stories

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
vixen99 7y ago
And in effect, now there's one more with further reach.

WheelsAtLarge 7y ago

>>How could these giants of arts and letters abuse so many? We tend to give people that are accomplished in a field an aura of saintliness that they don't deserve. The reality is that once people attain a bit of power many find it hard not to abuse it. And also, people around them tend to ignore the abuses. The only way to fix it is to call the abusers out on their behavior but it's hard for most people to do it because of all the trouble it brings even if it's 100% true. It's easier to give it a pass and hope someone else will do something about it.

whiddershins 7y ago

You can do as you like, but for me it is a decent heuristic to not speak ill of the dead. I, personally, really don’t enjoy reading about people using someone’s death or funeral as a platform for maligning their life, regardless of the accuracy and poignancy of the claims. Would you bring up this discussion in front of a grieving family member? Do you think it impossible someone already in pain might read what is said on the internet? There’s a concept I like that even the bitterest of enemies allow the dead to be buried in peace.

keiferski 7y ago
Writing a short call-out comment on an anonymous internet forum is easy. Thinking deeply about the appropriate time and place to bring up and challenge a person’s perceived unethical past deeds is difficult.
oska 7y ago
> it is a decent heuristic to not speak ill of the dead I take somewhat the opposite view: once someone is dead they can no longer be hurt by anything bad said about them. Defamation law also follows the same principle. Not that I want to speak ill of Harold Bloom. I only knew him through reading The Western Canon, which I found a very rewarding read, and for his disdain for the Harry Potter mania, where I felt the same way.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- ncmncm 7y ago
  The law favors the idea that the dead are beyond harm.
angry_octet 7y ago
Your feelings are really of no consequence compared to those who were victims. If you have a personal interaction to weigh in the positive side of the scales, speak now.

emmelaich 7y ago

> Because no one spoke out. Did you?