04th May 2008
Civil Discourse
Miss Conduct weighed in on Writers, blogs, e-mail, and civil discourse, at least partially involving the airing of literary dirty laundry post that I wrote. She manages to find the larger issue that had escaped me, which is to say, what to make of taking private correspondence (or internal communications at an organization) and making it public? She gives a number of good examples. I had a few more thoughts about the larger workplace issues that this discussion brings up:
Internal v. External I have to say that I too enjoy snark, and think that some of it may be necessary in order to survive the workday. But I think that every organization is entitled to some privacy when it comes to internal communications, and not fearing that everything ever written internally could be made public (though it certainly could). So I’m not categorically against a reader wondering why anyone would submit fan fiction or terrible work to a literary journal. I’m also not categorically against an editor arguing with a contributor, though I probably wouldn’t have done it in quite that fashion. But I do think that internal communications and private communications exist with slightly different rules than external communication. Usually there is less snark when something is broadcast externally. Less sarcasm. More spell checking. More thoughtfulness about possible interpretations. And by making internal communications external, you change the rules under which these communications were created.
Transparency But perhaps this is all done in the name of transparency. The thought that I get a glimpse behind the scenes at how literary submissions are evaluated at big deal journals (and make no mistake, these are big deal journals in which most writers of the literary variety would love to be published), or how contributors are treated is intriguing to me in both instances. And I should say that as an editor I sympathize with them. Writers can submit moronic pieces. Writers can be demanding and shallow. Writers can be just as horrible as everyone else on the planet can be. I get that. On the other hand, I’m not convinced that sharing communications of this sort is actually transparency of any sort.
The Golden Rule My fallback position on almost everything is this: Is this kind? How would I feel if this were done to me? The Golden Rule is really just about the only unifying element that I can find among major religions, and the simplest rule for me to follow and apply daily to my life. On the Golden Rule, Karen Armstrong says:
The first person to promulgate the Golden Rule, which was the bedrock of this empathic spirituality, was Confucius 500 years before Christ. His disciples asked him, “What is the single thread that runs through all your teaching and pulls it all together?” And Confucius said, “Look into your own heart. Discover what it is that gives you pain. And then refuse to inflict that pain on anybody else.” His disciples also asked, “Master, which one of your teachings can we put into practice every day?” And Confucius said, “Do not do to others as you would not have them do to you.” The Buddha had his version of the Golden Rule. Jesus taught it much later. And Rabbi Hillel, the older contemporary of Jesus, said the Golden Rule was the essence of Judaism.
I would hate to see my private email made public. And I would hate to see negative comments about my writing made public, especially comments that weren’t originally meant for public consumption, and even with some identifying details changed. I would feel deeply pained and ashamed upon reading that email or comment.
Yeah, you might say, but the person in the emails was really a jerk to the editor, and those writers were really submitting terribly inappropriate material; they got what they had coming. That may be true, but we don’t apply the Golden Rule only when we’re feeling good and the world is going well for us. It applies. Period. You act decently and generously whether or not you are having a good day, a good week, or a good year. You act this way in part because it maintains civility, and in part hoping that one day someone does the same for you when you’re having a horrible day.
Power Lastly, there is this interesting power inequity between editors and writers. Now editors are really nowhere without writers (though most editors are writers themselves), but, at times, editors can wield an enormous amount of power over writers, including the ability to accept or reject them, change their words, and apparently publish their correspondence or descriptions of their work with identifying details changed. Writers, for the most part, don’t dare do anything of the sort to editors. So in both instances, we have someone in a position of power using that power to shame others who have (supposedly) misbehaved. Hmmm..
Now what about the email I published from Prada. I feel vaguely ethically squishy about that as it is internal communication made external, so it wasn’t meant for my eyes. But note that the power relationship is reversed. The email was forwarded to the source by someone attempting to dismantle someone in power, not someone powerful making fun of someone without much power.
In short, it’s a power play to publish comments or emails without someone’s permission, particularly when you are in a position of power of them. It violates the Golden Rule, possibly the only universally applicable ethical standard for behavior. And it doesn’t reveal any transparency to your organization.
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