This is just a note to say I’m continuing to spend hours talking to people and reading through stacks of material on the controversy related to Marc Gafni in the blogosphere. It’s a time consuming process which I’m juggling with all my other affairs, and I’ll post when I can.
Although my focus is trying to shed light on the allegations related to Gafni, I want to write a short post today to help fill in a piece of the context that ought to be of interest to everyone following the story.
That is the question, why the heck are we talking about this now? Forgive me if the question may seem tangential at first glance, but I believe it may be quite salient when a fuller story comes out.
The smoking gun in the room, so far as I can tell, is Tami Simon’s statement for Bill Harryman’s Integral Options Cafe. I am wondering why she agreed to give Bill an official statement to begin with. Does she read his blog? Is she aware that he built a blog on thousands of articles from academic journals and publications, and not securing copyright permissions for many of them? Does she know of the blog’s often caustic, acid tongue? Is she aware of its reckless trafficking in gossip? Is she aware Bill goes out on fishing expeditions to get victims of spiritual teachers to speak up on his blog? Does she know Bill likes to attack not only the character of people like Ken Wilber, but speculate wildly about their health?
I am most curious if she agrees with a list of things Bill has said over the years about Marc Gafni, such as his being a “predator” and “perpetrator.” I’m wondering how it is that Bill ended up as the spokesperson for this story? It is curious that a prolific and admitted pirate should be the mouthpiece for a reputable publisher’s statement on the ethical standards of the folks Sounds True wants to do business with.
That’s all the time I have to blog today, except to give a few quotes from Bill Harryman in his own words.
In Bill Harryman’s own words
NOT INTEGRAL (9/26/2011)
“This [Integral Options Cafe] is not an integral blog and I am not an integral acolyte – I have no affiliation with Integral Institute, AQAL, Ken Wilber, or any other integral entity. It’s better this way.”
ADMITTED GUILT TO EGREGIOUS INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY THEFT (9/26/2011)
PRAISES TAMI SIMON, CEO OF SOUNDS TRUE (9/12/2011)
“So far, Tami Simon stands as the only leader willing to take a public stand on Marc Gafni”
About Joe Perez
You and Harryman: the War of the Boring Blogs. WTF, Integral by definition is boring. But I can see your angle. Harryman is the go-to blog in the Integral World these days. And you want that distinction for yourself. Being the Go To Bog of Integral is like being the town crier of South Snowshoe, MN, but it is better than standing out there in the boring blog wastelands alone. And this deal with Gafni–I think you want to turn the boy out; get a little piece of that stuff now that no one else will take him on these days. Go for it, Big Boy.
Thank you, Jack. I needed the laugh! LOL
again thank you Joe,
for staying on top of this the way you do!
Hi Joe
You said elsewhere: “If Bill’s comment really pushed my buttons, perhaps it’s because I have the spirit of a “second-tier evangelist” within me. And I am truly disappointed when I see influential thought leaders not living up to their potential. I want to see fewer Integral bloggers asleep from the neck down. I want to see fewer Integral bloggers speaking from their wounds rather than an open heart. I want to see fewer Integral bloggers chopping off heads instead of trying to make the world a more whole place.
I want this for Us (whoever We are), I want this for the world, and I want this for my own blog. So let me say now, I know I will fall short of this ideal from time to time. If you see me falling short, God yes, do me the service of calling me out and letting me know.”
As admirably requested, I’m “Calling You Out”, in the nicest and supportive way possible.
Often when anyone feels that someone is “having a dig at them” or something similar, it is a natural response to do the same back. In this case it might be appropriate to use your own analogy, i.e that Bill has been trying to “chop off your head”, and here in this blog you respond by trying to chop off his. So, to me at least, you’re not living up to your declared highest ideals in this particular instance. (Not that there isn’t any relevance or significance in the actual content – it’s the tone and additional personal attacks that for me detract from the points you are making)
I do the same – if I feel “under attack” in my own interactions with people, I often “stand up for myself” by arguing them down. Sometimes this is necessary and seems to be skillful means in action. However, sometimes I go too far and hurt people and generate a kind of “emotional pollution” in the air for a few hours/days.
[FWIW, my recent teacher in this regard (and I'm being serious here!) is Lady Gaga. I saw her being interviewed on UK TV and she made what felt like a genuine and spontaneous off-the cuff-remark along the lines of "only jerks need to have the last word". I thought, "hmmm that sounds just like me.... so what is it that gives her the self-serenity that she can walk away from an argument not needing to feel she had to "win"? The conclusion I came to is that she knows herself well enough and believes so strongly in what she is doing that she doesn't need to push herself or her worldview onto others. O that I had such quiet self-belief at all times!]
Best wishes
James
Hi James,
I do find myself having to reign in my emotions because the act of reading Bill’s blogs is like listening to nails screeching on a chalkboard to me. The more open my heart, the more dead inside I feel doing so. My fingers dance at my keyboard ready to write uncharitable things that I don’t actually put into writing or delete just as soon as I do, and I remind myself to have compassion and love.
That said, I now suspect in hindsight that I’ve actually been Mr. Nice Guy for years and years, far too long, with Bill. I wish I had started paying more attention to his acidic writing and flagrant copyright violations years ago (we’re talking hundreds if not thousands of articles here — if he were ever prosecuted and convicted of full penalties he’d be facing fines well into the $$$$ millions or tens of millions of dollars). I’m regretful for having tried to “keep the peace” among “Integral bloggers” in a very unhealthy green fashion for far too long while he sowed seeds of poison in the name of “integral.”
Enough.
I’m calling it like I’m seeing it.
That’s the beauty of being a blogger. We don’t earn respect for always using the nicest or most respectful tone… or for being perfectly free from letting our feelings show… but people will read us if we speak the truth, do good, and create beauty, however imperfectly.
This is a bit of extreme hyperbole, Joe. I must say, when I read Bill’s blog, it’s always been abundantly clear to me that he’s quoting and linking to other folk’s work, and not taking the credit for it. At worst, he’s guilty of linkbait for extra hits, not plagiarism. Google reveals no cases of complaints against him about this apart from you: either this means the “thousands” of victims of property theft have missed it on his easily searchable public blog (and we all know how vain people can be about googling themselves), or you’re being _slightly_ vexatious about this…
Look Luke. I’ve never said Bill’s guilty of plagiarism or linkbait. The issue is illegal copyright infringement, and he’s copped to it. The legal issues for bloggers are pretty straightforward, and you can’t usually just reproduce someone else’s copyright journal article on your site, even if you tell people where you stole it from and give a link so people can see where you stole it from. (There are certain exceptions such as transformation and parody, but they rarely apply.) It’s not legal, and that’s the point. Bill has cleaned up his act, I think, since I started calling him on it. But you dip into his archives a few months back, and you’ll find HUGE numbers of pirated articles. As I’ve said, all bloggers borrow, and nobody’s totally pure (myself included), but Bill’s practices go WAY BEYOND THE NORM. I would describe it as a blight on the Integral blogosphere, except Bill’s Integral Options Cafe is no longer part of the Integral blogosphere, according to the blogger.
I have engaged Bill privately on this matter for months, and he’s refused to act; hence, I took the issue into the public space. And when I initially did so — in my “Shadow of Piracy” article — I refused to name his blog by name or link to it. In fact, I never once claimed publicly that Bill’s blog was guilty of illegal activity UNTIL he “outed” himself by linking to my “Shadow of Piracy” article and claiming that it was about him (even though his blog is never mentioned specifically). Since he owned up to his deeds on his own implicity, I continued pressing him on it until he explicitly owned up, saying essentially, “My bad.”
Unfortunately he didn’t say that he was going to change anything. We’ll see.
My hope is that he cleans up his act going forward and then goes back through his archives and deletes the the hundreds or thousands of stolen articles, before the bill for illegal piracy comes due. I doubt he will, and one day he may pay the piper.
P.S.: Are you sure you meant “hyperbole”? I saw little hyperbole in my post. His copyright violations are just as flagrant as I said, and just as massively illegal. His tone is often acidic, but that’s a pretty mild criticism in comparison to what I could have said! (Don’t forget: I’ve also said many, many nice things over the years about Bill’s blog. I don’t retract any of them; I’m just tired of pretending that the flaws aren’t there and that they don’t make me want to take a shower after reading many of his blog posts.)
I’ve noticed Bill recently only quotes portions of text, with links to read the rest, which is an improvement.
I guess I consider shouts of “massively illegal” to be hyperbolic in the context of the alleged crime: war crimes are massively illegal, for example. This is small fry, especially in the context of no complants from the authors, unlike Gafni’s alleged plagiarism.
Anyway I’m bowing out from all this… be well