I feel compelled to comment on what happened with Malcolm Harris in August of 2017 due to repeated emails, suggestions that I do so from friends, and a still-ongoing public conversation about what went down.
I don't have any questions to ask, but I just want to make a comment: props out for holding the L on this issue. I remember first learning about it on your blog (the initial statement), and it seems to me that from that moment forward, you've owned what you did in a way that many others wouldn't have the courage for.
As you say in this piece, you can never undo what you did; all you can do is try to be the best you can be--morally and otherwise--in the wake of it, and it seems to me that you're doing just that. The journalism-bashing is part of your thang--your beat, your beliefs--and it's always going to complicate the repentance issue in some people's eyes, but, again, as far as I can see you're doing as much as you can in the impossible-to-conclude process of redeeming yourself.
As far as the maddening process of disentangling what, of your behaviour, was due to mental illness and what was due to your personality: I can so, so relate! I suffer from bipolar type II disorder and OCD (at least, those are the official diagnoses--they're probably more than a bit reductive), and I've done and said awful things, both under the influence of illness and otherwise. Guilt gnaws at me every day; at first, it was instrumental to my changing for the better, but now it seems mostly like a dark residue, impossible to scrape out. I have to live with my awful speech and actions, and the autopsy-like splitting and parsing is part of that reality. As with you, this is all unlikely to change. All I can do is try to live with the meds, with their side effects, with my guilt, and with the changes I've made for the better. To put a cap on it: this piece was personally validating for me. Thanks for it.
You write that your post will satisfy no one. But as you'll see from <a href="https://twitter.com/NGruen1/status/1378550882250317834?s=20">this Twitter thread</a> I ended up here after someone warned me off you. FWIW what you've said satisfies me as far as words possibly can. And this in a world where so many apologies somehow become their own kind of self-justification.
As I said in the Tweet, of course, you could still be faking it, but then that's the situation we're always in when words is all we have to go on – which is mostly the case.
Anyway, as someone who donates a lot of my own attention to the blogosphere, I'm very loath to donate to others doing the same. In fact I've never signed up to anyone's substack or Patreon before, but there you go – there's always got to be a first time.
And then there's the ruthless marketing those Substackians are helping you with. I've just paid 50 bucks to make this comment ;)
Manic depressives are obsessed with going out of our absolute skulls in the months of July and August lol. In all seriousness thank you so much for your writing on this topic, it's really helped me
I don't have any questions to ask, but I just want to make a comment: props out for holding the L on this issue. I remember first learning about it on your blog (the initial statement), and it seems to me that from that moment forward, you've owned what you did in a way that many others wouldn't have the courage for.
As you say in this piece, you can never undo what you did; all you can do is try to be the best you can be--morally and otherwise--in the wake of it, and it seems to me that you're doing just that. The journalism-bashing is part of your thang--your beat, your beliefs--and it's always going to complicate the repentance issue in some people's eyes, but, again, as far as I can see you're doing as much as you can in the impossible-to-conclude process of redeeming yourself.
As far as the maddening process of disentangling what, of your behaviour, was due to mental illness and what was due to your personality: I can so, so relate! I suffer from bipolar type II disorder and OCD (at least, those are the official diagnoses--they're probably more than a bit reductive), and I've done and said awful things, both under the influence of illness and otherwise. Guilt gnaws at me every day; at first, it was instrumental to my changing for the better, but now it seems mostly like a dark residue, impossible to scrape out. I have to live with my awful speech and actions, and the autopsy-like splitting and parsing is part of that reality. As with you, this is all unlikely to change. All I can do is try to live with the meds, with their side effects, with my guilt, and with the changes I've made for the better. To put a cap on it: this piece was personally validating for me. Thanks for it.
Thanks man I appreciate it. And I always feel better about this stuff after writing about it.
You write that your post will satisfy no one. But as you'll see from <a href="https://twitter.com/NGruen1/status/1378550882250317834?s=20">this Twitter thread</a> I ended up here after someone warned me off you. FWIW what you've said satisfies me as far as words possibly can. And this in a world where so many apologies somehow become their own kind of self-justification.
As I said in the Tweet, of course, you could still be faking it, but then that's the situation we're always in when words is all we have to go on – which is mostly the case.
Anyway, as someone who donates a lot of my own attention to the blogosphere, I'm very loath to donate to others doing the same. In fact I've never signed up to anyone's substack or Patreon before, but there you go – there's always got to be a first time.
And then there's the ruthless marketing those Substackians are helping you with. I've just paid 50 bucks to make this comment ;)
Manic depressives are obsessed with going out of our absolute skulls in the months of July and August lol. In all seriousness thank you so much for your writing on this topic, it's really helped me