My AmazonReview of "The Reasonable Woman," allegedly by Wendy McElroy

[George H. Smith]

An interlude before I finish up with the last post of my narrative.

Recall what I said about the informal conversational nature of some of the FOR transcripts. Recall also what I said about the typos in those transcripts. Consider my telling of this doctor joke, which I posted previously.

Smith, FOR Transcript (cont., lines 4-22): “For example, there is an old joke in philosophy about a man who runs to the doctor and says “doctor, doctor I’m dead.” The doctor looks at him and says, “no, you are not.” The man replies, “yes, I am; I am dead.” The doctor thinks of how to convince the man that he isn’t dead. Finally he says to the guy, “would you agree with me that dead men don’t bleed?” The guy agreed. The doctor pricks the man’s [sic] and he bleeds. “Aha,” the doctor proclaims, “see, dead men don’t bleed and you bleed; therefore you are alive.” The man reflects on this and replies, “I was obviously wrong. Dead men do bleed afterall [sic].””

McElroy, p. 212: “There’s an old joke in philosophy about a man who says to his doctor, “Doctor, doctor, I’m dead.” The doctor replies, “No you are not.” The man persists. “Yes, I am; I am dead.” The doctor argues with the fellow, “Would you agree with me that dead men don’t bleed?” The man agrees. The doctor then pricks his patient’s finger and he bleeds. “Aha,” the doctor proclaims, “See, dead men don’t bleed and here is blood, therefore, you are alive.” The man reflects on this and concludes, “I was obviously wrong. Dead men do bleed.”

My version of the doctor joke reads as it does because I was speaking extemporaneously, without any text or notes in front me. Yet, according to Kinsella, the FOR transcripts are actually the draft of a book that Wendy and I co-authored.

So I ask: Who the hell would write a joke like the one that appears in my FOR transcripts? This is not something that I or anyone else originally wrote down as a first draft. Rather, it is a transcription of my verbal telling of the joke. I got away with the rough and ready wording of the joke in class, because of the way I told it. But I would never actually write a joke in this way.

Note also the many errors in this one short passage -- not only the errors that I noted with [sic] in 1998, but also the failure to capitalize the first letter of direct quotations. I suspect Wendy did not bother with capitalizing these letters while she was transcribing my joke from a tape because she had to type very quickly to keep up with the pace of my patter, and such mistakes didn't matter in a transcript. These errors could always be corrected later, should my verbal joke ever be reworked for the draft of a book.

And guess what! Wendy made exactly these corrections in the published version of the joke, as it appears in TRW.

Btw, I heard this joke in the early 1970s. It was told to me by John Hospers, R.I.P.

Ghs

[Brant Gaede]

No, George, you helped Nathaniel Branden develop his psychotherapeutic techniques before you were exposed to them. For instance, after he published The Psychology of Self Esteem in 1969 you got this idea and called him up: "Nathaniel, have you ever heard of sentence completion? Did you know you might be able to use it in a structured way for very effective results?" "Golly, George. Tell me more. You know how much indebted I am to you for my theoretical work." From that conversation came Breaking Free. Then apropos further conversations he became more sophisticated in the usage of s.c. resulting in its maturation in The Disowned Self.

--Brant

[George H. Smith]

No, George, you helped Nathaniel Branden develop his psychotherapeutic techniques before you were exposed to them. For instance, after he published The Psychology of Self Esteem in 1969 you got this idea and called him up: "Nathaniel, have you ever heard of sentence completion? Did you know you might be able to use it in a structured way for very effective results?" "Golly, George. Tell me more. You know how much indebted I am to you for my theoretical work." From that conversation came Breaking Free. Then apropos further conversations he became more sophisticated in the usage of s.c. resulting in its maturation in The Disowned Self.

--Brant

Dammit, Brant! I told you that story in strict confidence, and you said you wouldn't reveal this well-kept secret to anyone else. I promised Nathaniel years ago that I would never reveal my role as the co-developer of everything he published after PSE, and now he will know that I didn't keep my word.

Btw, although I haven't been in touch with Nathaniel for years, I am co-developing his next book. I can't wait for it to come out so I can tell you what it is about.

Ghs

[Rich Engle]

I heard George is getting ready to re-plagiarize Wendy's work under the title "Goop: How to Write It."

Sounds like he's jockeying for movie rights. I hear the Coen Brothers are already reading the script, but they have experienced several mini-strokes during the review process.

Like I said, George--she can drain it from a sow's nether regions.

Where's BERTIE?

rde

[Rich Engle]

The rumour mill is going buck-ass on this one. The latest is that there is going to be a slim style manual written by GHS titled "The Fundamentals of Plagiarism, (FOP)" which is said to be a violent backlash to the Strunk & White mainstay. It is supposed to give gory, accurate field reports of plagiarism in action.

The groundbreaking idea here is to re-re-plagiarize plagiarized work and reduce it to gelatinous goo. It is going to be a go-to tutorial, the way things look. Plus, it will have the pathos, the bitterness, the agony of the feet, and even a monkey and an organ grinder, done as a surprise pop-out section midway in.

Personally, I think it would do better as a coffee table book. Pictures, George. Go into the trove and find those Polaroids. You know what we want.

r

You want me to peel the grapes?

Edited June 21, 2011 by Rich Engle

[George H. Smith]

I heard George is getting ready to re-plagiarize Wendy's work under the title "Goop: How to Write It."

Sounds like he's jockeying for movie rights. I hear the Coen Brothers are already reading the script, but they have experienced several mini-strokes during the review process.

Like I said, George--she can drain it from a sow's nether regions.

Where's BERTIE?

rde

There is a story here somewhere. Consider the plot:

Two anarchist writers hook up and live together for a decade. They get deeply involved in the Hollywood swinging scene, drugs, and intense psycho-sexual experimentation. They split, she marries a dimwit, he crashes and burns, and years later the guy accuses the gal of plagiarizing his unpublished manuscript. Then they duke it out in public forums. To top everything off, the publisher of her book is the same publisher of his books.

The irony is that these ex-lovers have maintained a disturbing connection through the years via a plagiarism scandal.

Now that's a plot, if ever I have seen one. The problem is deciding how all this ends.

Ghs

[Brant Gaede]

Not many people remember, I suspect, that George did the second Branden interview for Reason magazine, published in 1974.

--Brant

[George H. Smith]

Not many people remember, I suspect, that George did the second Branden interview for Reason magazine, published in 1974.

--Brant

Ah, yes. I took Roy Childs and Tibor Machan (quite a team)with me to Nathaniel's office to assist with the interview, but I asked most of the questions, many of which were theoretical questions about psychology.

I don't wish to speak out of school, but the interview that we conducted was, shall we say, not exactly the same interview that was published in Reason. I think I spotted one or two of my questions in there somewhere.

[Brant Gaede]

My current avatar is the only pic I have not too big to upload onto OL. You can see me on SoloPassion without a shirt in the Mekong Delta, South Vietnam, the fall of 1966 a few weeks before I got combat seasoned. Go to Recent Posts and click on the "SEE!" thread. It won't be there for long.

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

Not many people remember, I suspect, that George did the second Branden interview for Reason magazine, published in 1974.

--Brant

Ah, yes. I took Roy Childs and Tibor Machan (quite a team)with me to Nathaniel's office to assist with the interview, but I asked most of the questions, many of which were theoretical questions about psychology.

I don't wish to speak out of school, but the interview that we conducted was, shall we say, not exactly the same interview that was published in Reason. I think I spotted one or two of my questions in there somewhere.

LOL. Could that have somnething to do with Reason's dependency then on its relationship with N.B.? The first Interview made Reason and was why I began my multi-decade subscription. I think the tenth anniversary issue (1978) was the single best issue ever published.

--Brant

[George H. Smith]

Not many people remember, I suspect, that George did the second Branden interview for Reason magazine, published in 1974.

--Brant

Ah, yes. I took Roy Childs and Tibor Machan (quite a team)with me to Nathaniel's office to assist with the interview, but I asked most of the questions, many of which were theoretical questions about psychology.

I don't wish to speak out of school, but the interview that we conducted was, shall we say, not exactly the same interview that was published in Reason. I think I spotted one or two of my questions in there somewhere.

LOL. Could that have somnething to do with Reason's dependency then on its relationship with N.B.? The first Interview made Reason and was why I began my multi-decade subscription. I think the tenth anniversary issue (1978) was the single best issue ever published.

--Brant

Here is the skinny. Some time after the interview, Nathaniel told me that he thought the questions we asked were too theoretical to be of interest to many readers of Reason. For example, in The Purchase of Friendship, William Schofield argues that there is little difference among different schools of psychotherapy when measured in terms of their "cure" rates. Schofield based his thesis on extensive interviews with former patients who underwent different types of psychotherapy, all of whom reported basically the same results. I therefore asked Nathaniel what he thought of this thesis, and how he judged the success rate of his own clients. We also asked Nathaniel a number of questions based on Thomas Szasz's critique of mental illness.

I thought Nathaniel handled himself extremely well. (Roy and Tibor agreed with me.) He had obviously thought about these problems before, and his answers were lucid and sensible. Indeed, he mentioned some theoretical insights that I had never heard (or read) from him previously. I therefore believed the interview would demonstrate that Nathaniel was anything but a narrow, neo-Objectivist psychologist. On the contrary, his intellectual waters ran deeper and wider than many people realized.

Despite this, and for whatever reason, the original interview was never published.

Ghs

[Brant Gaede]

Well, I hope there's a record of it for scholars someday.

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

Not many people remember, I suspect, that George did the second Branden interview for Reason magazine, published in 1974.

--Brant

Ah, yes. I took Roy Childs and Tibor Machan (quite a team)with me to Nathaniel's office to assist with the interview, but I asked most of the questions, many of which were theoretical questions about psychology.

I don't wish to speak out of school, but the interview that we conducted was, shall we say, not exactly the same interview that was published in Reason. I think I spotted one or two of my questions in there somewhere.

LOL. Could that have somnething to do with Reason's dependency then on its relationship with N.B.? The first Interview made Reason and was why I began my multi-decade subscription. I think the tenth anniversary issue (1978) was the single best issue ever published.

--Brant

Here is the skinny. Some time after the interview, Nathaniel told me that he thought the questions we asked were too theoretical to be of interest to many readers of Reason. For example, in The Purchase of Friendship, William Schofield argues that there is little difference among different schools of psychotherapy when measured in terms of their "cure" rates. Schofield based his thesis on extensive interviews with former patients who underwent different types of psychotherapy, all of whom reported basically the same results. I therefore asked Nathaniel what he thought of this thesis, and how he judged the success rate of his own clients. We also asked Nathaniel a number of questions based on Thomas Szasz's critique of mental illness.

I thought Nathaniel handled himself extremely well. (Roy and Tibor agreed with me.) He had obviously thought about these problems before, and his answers were lucid and sensible. Indeed, he mentioned some theoretical insights that I had never heard (or read) from him previously. I therefore believed the interview would demonstrate that Nathaniel was anything but a narrow, neo-Objectivist psychologist. On the contrary, his intellectual waters ran deeper and wider than many people realized.

Despite this, and for whatever reason, the original interview was never published.

Ghs

Yeah, but you see that would seemingly be a concern of Reason's editors, not Nathaniel. Like I said, he had a lot of clout then.

--Brant

[Greybird]

I'm very tired, and I'm very frustrated — having spent so much time in recent days dealing with the plagiarism issue on OL instead of attempting to find a writing job. (I sold my guitar on Saturday to buy food; how depressing.) [...]

Please forgive my being blunt — but shouldn't extremities such as these tell you something? About whether your pursuing this obsession is doing YOU any good?

[Brant Gaede]

I'm very tired, and I'm very frustrated — having spent so much time in recent days dealing with the plagiarism issue on OL instead of attempting to find a writing job. (I sold my guitar on Saturday to buy food; how depressing.) [...]

Please forgive my being blunt — but shouldn't extremities such as these tell you something? About whether your pursuing this obsession is doing YOU any good?

Blunt for blunt: If you'd really been reading this thread you'd know George is wrapping it up.

--Brant

[Xray]

Anyway, I need to tie the preceding material to my theory of Wendy's motive (or motives) for plagiarism, and I shall do this in my next post.

Ghs

I've been spending more time writing posts than I can afford to spend, so rather than engage in elaborate speculation about Wendy's motives for plagiarizing so flagrantly and so massively from my FOR transcripts, I want to present the basic paradox, as I see it. Only if you can resolve this paradox can you hope to understand the motive that pertains to me personally. This is where the information in my posts from earlier today becomes relevant.

Here is the paradox:

On the one hand, Wendy's plagiarism is as massive and flagrant as plagiarism can possibly be. It therefore seems that she made no effort to conceal her plagiarism.

On the other hand --as illustrated by my recent posts (there is much more)-- Wendy took great care, when it came to details, to conceal her plagiarism. She mentions my name only once; she never mentions "Fundamentals of Reasoning" or "FOR" by name, referring instead to an "intellectual therapy" group, which she abbreviates "IT"; she mentions other writers as possible sources for my ideas (again, without mentioning my name), etc. In short, in these and other areas, Wendy was meticulous in covering her plagiaristic tracks.

So what explains this apparent paradox? If Wendy was so concerned about covering her tracks, then why didn't she spend a lot more time rewriting my FOR transcripts rather than quoting them verbatim, or nearly verbatim? This would have been much more effective than her tinkering with minute details.

To put the problem differently: Why would a person go to the trouble of removing all her fingerprints from the scene of a crime, along with bits of hair, etc., while simultaneously videotaping her crime and then distributing that visual record for the entire world to see? This appears to make no sense.

That's the paradox. To resolve the paradox, and to understand the reason for its existence, is necessary, if not entirely sufficient, to understand what I previously described as the intensely personal nature of Wendy's plagarism.

I will stop here so as to give the more psychologically astute OLers time to ponder this cosmic puzzle. I will present my own resolution of the paradox later on.

Meanwhile, feel free to post your own theories.

Ghs

I'll give it a shot. It's just a theory based on speculation, which means there is no claim on my part that what I'm going to write about W.McE's possible motive(s) is presented by me as a statement of objective fact.

A paradox refers to an issue containing contradictory, even mutually exclusive elements.

You have already pointed out Wendy's complex personality; if this is what we're dealing with here, then it would not be unusual for her to act in ways which at first glance may seem paradoxical.

So what explains this apparent paradox? If Wendy was so concerned about covering her tracks, then why didn't she spend a lot more time rewriting my FOR transcripts rather than quoting them verbatim, or nearly verbatim? This would have been much more effective than her tinkering with minute details.

To put the problem differently: Why would a person go to the trouble of removing all her fingerprints from the scene of a crime, along with bits of hair, etc., while simultaneously videotaping her crime and then distributing that visual record for the entire world to see? This appears to make no sense.

Strange as it sounds, but in some true crime cases where the perpetrators tried to stage the scene to conceal evidence leading to them, the scenes are so poorly staged that one would think their subsconscious mind 'speaks', directing the investigators right toward them.

Of course the poor staging is often due to the offenders being pressed for time; poor staging occurs more often in unplanned crimes; thus it is not unusual to find e. g. a knife where the fingerprints have been wiped off next to another item of evidence where the offender forgot to do this. Stagers acting in a panic are usually no professional criminals and therefore will make a lot more 'mistakes' when it comes to removing evidence.

Now as for how the FOR files were dealt with, the issue is not about infraction of law, but about violating the expectation of intellectual honesty.

In the quotes you have posted, the "ominous parallels" as another poster called them, are so obvious that it looks like Wendy did not really go to the trouble of altering the original.

She obviously did not want to alter them. Why?

I don't have the feeling that she wanted to hurt you with that, George. I don't believe that this was a case of her triumphantly 'thumbing her nose' at you, knowing you couldn't sue her because you never copyrighted the FOR material. I believe it was something running far deeper than that and that with your 'Body Snatcher' comparison you have come very close.

I believe that Wendy has been influenced so strongly by you as a thinker that you had the role of a guru for her. Not that you activley sought that role (I don't think you are the type) - you simply were her guru. Guru understood as mentor and guide through the world of philosophy to which you had opened the door for her.

This influence as a thinker you had one her may well have worked long after the two of you separated.

Could it be that Wendy identified so much with what you had said on many issues that she incorporated it into her mind, so to speak? The distance between her mind and the guru being blurred because she sought a 'union'?

Maybe her mind operated in that mode when she transferred what your wrote nearly unaltered into her book.

Now to the other parts: those where the tracks were covered. Again, I'm speculating, but alongside with the admiration for the guru and mentor, in the psyche, a movement going in the opposite direction can be at work too, and that is the paradox: the desire to free oneself from the mentor's influence.

So maybe when she tried to alter original passages, her mind was in this other mode: bringing more of her own thoughts into the text.

So the switching between the two modes might explain the apparent contradictions, the paradox.

Just my speculations though.

Edited June 22, 2011 by Xray

[Brant Gaede]

Small lies tend to bigger lies, which is as much explanation as I'd be comfortable with. It's so hard to understand one's own motivations in all their properly weighted facets at one time and that one place, never mind who isn't you. Look at the bottom line and treat the other person as a responsible adult.

--Brant

[George H. Smith]

In the quotes you have posted, the "ominous parallels" as another poster called them, are so obvious that it looks like Wendy did not really go to the trouble of altering the original.

I believe the expression was The Obvious Parallels. My version is less humorous and even twisted, but more accurate: The Omnivorous Parallels.

I think your observations are very astute, but I decided not to comment any more on Wendy's psychology and deep underlying motives. It was a mistake for me to get into this subject in the first place, and I get a queasy feeling while reading some of my earlier posts on the subject. True, Wendy is very complex, but so am I -- indeed, in some respects I am more complex than Wendy. It is for this reason that I must constantly monitor my own motives, especially when I am inextricably involved in a highly charged controversy. And that Little Man Within, as Adam Smith dubbed the conscience, does not always like what it sees.

Moreover, writing a book is not one act. It is a series of hundreds of interrelated acts, as the writer decides how to word a particular paragraph, and so forth. Wendy's primary motive for writing TRW was probably quite mundane. She probably thought my FOR material, much of which had excellent potential for a book or books, would enable her to establish a reputation for herself in philosophy -- a field in which she had previously been insecure.

This may sound strange, but it annoys the hell out of me that Wendy mucked up some of my ideas. My FOR transcripts needed a lot more work, and a number of my ideas should not have not gone into a book on reasoning at all.

My FOR transcript actually includes material from three different courses I gave -- FOR, FOR II, and PPP (Principles, Purpose and Practice). PPP was much different than my two FOR courses. The foundation of FOR was philosophy, whereas PPP had a different focus and didn't deal with philosophy at all. Much of the touchy-feely stuff in TRW was taken from transcripts of PPP, not FOR, and it had no business in a book on reasoning and reasonableness. Nevertheless, Wendy eagerly and indiscriminately stuffed virtually everything in my FOR transcripts into TRW, as if she were stuffing a Christmas goose.

I came to regard PPP as a failure and discontinued it after teaching only two series of eight-week classes. I always offered a money back guarantee for all my classes. If a person who attended every session felt that the course was not worth the fee, I would give him or her a full refund, with no argument and no questions asked. This never happened in any of my FOR classes; I cannot recall even one disgruntled student, even though I asked for honest feedback and criticism at the conclusion of each course. But it happened once in PPP. A woman whose judgment I respected very much, and who was enthusiastic about the two FOR courses she had taken, approached me after the last class of PPP and asked for a refund. She explained that PPP amounted to little more than pop psychology, and that it lacked the energy and originality of my FOR classes. I refunded her money and told her that I appreciated her frankness. This perceptive and intelligent attorney articulated a vague feeling of discomfort that I had experienced while preparing and teaching PPP. so after thinking things over for a couple days, I decided to discontinue the course permanently.

Contrary to Wendy's descriptions in TRW, FOR was never an "intellectual therapy" group; rather it was applied philosophy that employed some psychological techniques as exercises. The purpose of such exercises was not to delve into the deep recesses of the mind, but to loosen people up and provide a break from the more serious philosophical subjects. In TRW, however, Wendy blended the pop psychology of PPP with the philosophical emphasis of FOR, and the result was a mish-mash of chapters, some of which have no relationship to each other.

What really drives me up the wall about TRW are the two chapters on how to form your own "intellectual therapy" group. Wendy's plagiarism is especially egregious in these two chapters, but her attempt to apply my FOR methods to a group without a knowledgeable teacher is laughable. During the years that I pondered how to adapt FOR to a book, I understood that the group environment, which was essential to the success of FOR, was far different than an individual reading a book. I therefore concluded that any exercises that could not be profitably undertaken by a lone reader should not be included in a book version of FOR. Wendy, however, had no such concerns and padded TRW with material that was of no use to anyone.

Lastly, the title, The Reasonable Woman, was a transparent marketing tactic. Although there are some specific discussions of the problems encountered by women, most of the book is generic and applies as much to humans with a penis as it does to humans with a vagina. In her chapter on definitions, for example, in which Wendy plagiarized nearly verbatim from one of my published articles in the LD/Extemp Monthly, she frequently did little more than change "he" to "she."

Well, I seem to have wandered off into yet another digression, but I am more comfortable discussing substantive intellectual issues than I am exploring Wendy's psychology. Many men have ventured into the labyrinthine corridors of Wendy's mind, but few have come out in one piece.

Ghs

[Dennis Hardin]

That I began teaching FOR at least a year before Wendy moved in with me is indisputable. Dennis Hardin has even posted an unsolicited comment on this thread, stating that he took FOR during the first year while I was still living with Diane Hunter (my wife). Dennis also stated that Wendy was nowhere to be seen, nor was she ever mentioned. This is because I had not met Wendy at that time.

This hard fact puts Wendy in a terrible bind. Since she obviously didn't have anything to do with FOR for at least the first year, what role did she play in developing FOR? Will she say that I changed FOR substantially after I met her, and that she somehow co-developed the changes? But what changes? I didn't change anything in FOR after I met Wendy. If Wendy claims she helped to make changes in FOR, then let her state specifically what those changes were and what role she played in them. She will not do this, of course, because her claim is one Big Lie, and there is no way she can defend it.

To be continued....

Ghs

George,

I looked through some old files and found several copies of a flyer from the Forum for Philosophical Studies from 1975. It reads as follows:

Forum For Philosophical Studies announces The Fundamentals of Reasoning. Presented by George H. Smith, The Fundamentals of Reasoning is an eight – session workshop designed to improve your thinking skills. The stress in this course is on giving you the tools to think more effectively, thereby increasing your intellectual confidence. FREE INTRODUCTORY SESSION: Monday, June 9, 7:30 PM, at 433 1/2 N. Van Ness, Hollywood…. Tuition for the entire course is $50.

No mention of Wendy, needless to say.

During the 1970s, the only June 9 that occurred on a Monday was in 1975. I am quite certain this was the specific time frame when I took this course. This may well have been the first time you offered these lectures. The other FOR flyers in my file all show an increased tuition of $60.

Brings back a lot of fond memories. I always looked forward to driving from Encino to Hollywood on Monday evenings to attend the lectures. I learned a lot. Several specific points you made still stick with me today. And I really enjoyed Diane's company. She was lovely and refreshing and such a delight.

[George H. Smith]

George,

I looked through some old files and found several copies of a flyer from the Forum for Philosophical Studies from 1975. It reads as follows:

Forum For Philosophical Studies announces The Fundamentals of Reasoning. Presented by George H. Smith, The Fundamentals of Reasoning is an eight – session workshop designed to improve your thinking skills. The stress in this course is on giving you the tools to think more effectively, thereby increasing your intellectual confidence. FREE INTRODUCTORY SESSION: Monday, June 9, 7:30 PM, at 433 1/2 N. Van Ness, Hollywood…. Tuition for the entire course is $50.

No mention of Wendy, needless to say.

During the 1970s, the only June 9 that occurred on a Monday was in 1975. I am quite certain this was the specific time frame when I took this course. This may well have been the first time you offered these lectures. The other FOR flyers in my file all show an increased tuition of $60.

Brings back a lot of fond memories. I always looked forward to driving from Encino to Hollywood on Monday evenings to attend the lectures. I learned a lot. Several specific points you made still stick with me today. And I really enjoyed Diane's company. She was lovely and refreshing and such a delight.

Dennis,

Thanks.

Diane, my first love, was sui generis in many ways. Few people could match her boundless energy.

I first met Diane at the University of Arizona during one the meetings of the UA Students of Objectivism that I held on campus. After my lecture, Diane walked over to tell me how much she enjoyed my talk. Carrying a motorcycle helmet, she was dressed in a skimpy tube top, jeans, and boots. Diane told me about some of the NBI courses she had attended in New York. I was very interested, but, given the way she was dressed, it was difficult to stay focused on our conversation.

While driving home I asked Greg, my best friend, if he knew anything about that sexy redhead. Greg replied, "Forget it, she's out of your league." That's the problem with old friends: They know what you're thinking, and they can be painfully blunt.

I didn't see Diane again until the following semester, in a class on ancient Greek. (I wanted to be able to read the Greek philosophers in their own language, but the professor was one of the worst teachers I had ever encountered, so I didn't continue after one semester.) Diane was very friendly, but, being a virgin who had not yet departed the Land of Geekdom, I didn't pick up on the signals. Diane finally gave me her number and asked me to call her sometime. She said she would like to meet for coffee so she could "pick my brain."

I still didn't think Diane was interested in me, so she finally called me. After we became involved, she said, "How could you have been so dense?"

Diane was nearly three years older than I and much more experienced in the ways of the world. Things might have worked out between us if we had been more equal in this respect. But I was very naive. For example, I seem to have assumed that once you sleep with a woman a few times, this automatically means you are in a monogamous relationship. I later learned that this is something that needs to discussed explicitly, not assumed.

Diane and I had a tumultuous, on-again/off-again relationship for five years. We finally married in 1974, shortly before I moved back to Hollywood, but I'm afraid our past had taken its toll on me, and that was that.

With Diane you had to expect the unexpected. She could handle awkward situations like no one I have ever met. Here is a true story.

We were anxious to see "Jaws" when it was released in 1975, but the the lines were horrendous, and I hated standing in line. At that time there were a couple "all night" theaters on Hollywood Blvd, so we decided to go to a screening that began at 2 a.m. (The theater was still over half full.) Around an hour into the film, we heard an odd sound behind us. Diane turned around and then poked me with her elbow, indicating that she wanted me to look. Seated directly behind us was a man with his pants pulled down to his knees. He was holding a jar of Vaseline in one hand and masturbating with the other.

I whispered to Diane, "Let's move," but she said, "No, I'll take care of it." Diane proceeded to hum "Hurray for Hollywood!" in a voice so loud that the entire audience could hear her. Many in the audience, those you knew what was going on, laughed, and some even hummed along. The guy pulled up his pants and left immediately.

As we were leaving the theater, Diane said: "Jaws? Jaws? Deep Throat I could understand, but Jaws?

Classic Diane.

Ghs

[George H. Smith]

I'm very tired, and I'm very frustrated — having spent so much time in recent days dealing with the plagiarism issue on OL instead of attempting to find a writing job. (I sold my guitar on Saturday to buy food; how depressing.) [...]

Please forgive my being blunt — but shouldn't extremities such as these tell you something? About whether your pursuing this obsession is doing YOU any good?

My going public with many details of the plagiarism scandal that I had never revealed before has done me a world of good. Yes, this can be frustrating and exhausting, even painful, in the short run, but that is normal. What ultimately counts is the long-term effects, and those have been entirely positive. I feel like an enormous weight has been lifted from my shoulders.

I'm almost done with the more grueling posts. I am now writing the last installment of my narrative and will post it presently. After that, I will have said everything that needs to be said, at least for now. I will still discuss this topic if people are interested enough to post comments, but that's it -- except for piecing together another "Master Post" with essential links.

Ghs

[George H. Smith]

[snip]

To be continued....

I will now discuss the contract that Wendy and I signed on November 29, 1989. Here we find the key opening sentence that Kinsella, in his letter to me, called incontrovertible proof that Wendy was the co-author of the FOR transcript, not merely a transcriber.

Kinsella's claim rests solely on this part of the contract.

CONTRACT ON REASONING BOOK/UNTITLED

By George H. Smith and Wendy McElroy

George H. Smith and Wendy McElroy, having co-authored a book on reasoning (hereinafter "the book"), which they now wish to market and publish, do declare the following to be their understanding and agreement. (My emphasis.)

Kinsella's claim hinges on the words "having co-authored," which suggest that the "book on reasoning" was already written at the time that Wendy and I signed the contract.

Wendy, who used to work as a legal secretary, wrote this contract and asked me to sign it on one of her visits to California. When I said that I didn't see the point of a contract, since we trusted one another and had not even started working on our project yet, Wendy explained that the contract was intended for our publisher, if and when we found one.

As Brad R. himself acknowledged in his OL post, Wendy feared that people would suspect that I wrote the book on reasoning in its entirety, given that I was better known than Wendy. The problem, as Wendy saw it, was that I was so closely associated with FOR that some people might doubt that she had actually contributed anything substantial to our book on reasoning.

I still didn't think a contract was necessary, since I would explain in the Introduction to our book exactly what Wendy had written. But I looked it over for no more than a minute and agreed to sign in order to alleviate any fears that Wendy might have.

Anyway, the fact that our contract was intended for a publisher explains why the opening clause uses the words "having co-authored" instead of "shall co-author." By the time our publisher received our manuscript, our book would already have been written.

People need not take my word for this interpretation, for two reasons: First, Kinsella's interpretation is not consistent with other parts of the contract; second, my interpretation is consistent with other parts of the contract

Note well what else the key passage, quoted above, says: It states that Wendy and I "now wish to market and publish" our co-authored book on reasoning. Thus, if we follow Kinsella's line of interpretation, according to which Wendy and I had already co-authored a book on reasoning, we must conclude that our book was also in a final draft form at the time the contract was signed. But this flatly contradicts Kinsella's claim that "the book" refers to the FOR transcript, which is as far removed from a final draft as it is possible to get.

So I ask once again: Where is this final draft? -- a draft ready to be sent to a publisher-- of a book on reasoning that I co-authored with Wendy? Where is the final draft of the manuscript that was "now" ready to be submitted to publisher, as of November 29. 1989? This final draft clearly cannot be the FOR transcript, which is very rough in many places, so it must be another draft.

If, as Kinsella asserts, "the book" refers to a book that Wendy and I had already co-authored; and if, as the contract also states, Wendy and I, as of November 29, 1989, "now wish to market and publish" our co-authored book," then why was our final draft never submitted to any publisher? And why, when I finally did submit a proposal to Tarcher two years later, did I write in my cover letter:

2040 Florida St., #8

Long Beach, CA 90814

Nov. 7, 1991

Jeremy P. Tarcher

Tarcher Publications

5858 Wilshire Blvd.

Los Angeles, CA 90036

[snip]

The current status of the book is as follows. We have around 160 manuscript pages -- some of it very rough -- out of a projected total of 250 pages. We estimate that a final draft of the entire book will take around six months.

I obviously am not talking about a final draft here, one that was ready to be submitted to a publisher. No progress whatsoever had been made on the book that Wendy and planned to write, as specified in the contract we had signed two years earlier. On November 7, 1991, when I submitted my proposal to Tarcher, I had in hand the same material that I had on November 29, 1989 -- namely, my FOR transcripts and nothing written by Wendy. The 90 pages that remained to be written -- 250 pages of an estimated total minus the 160 pages that I thought could be used from my 200 page FOR transcript --referred to the three chapters that Wendy was supposed to write, but never did.

The fact of the matter is that neither Wendy nor I made any effort to get our book published until two years after we signed our contract. (I took the initiative here with Tarcher; Wendy never made any attempt to contact a publisher.) Why? Because there was no final draft that we "now wish to market and publish," as of November 29, 1989.

The present tense was used here for the same reason that Wendy used the past tense ("having co-authored") when referring to "the book," namely, our contract was meant to be read by a publisher after our book had been written and submitted. At that point in the future, it would make perfect sense to say:

George H. Smith and Wendy McElroy, having co-authored a book on reasoning (hereinafter "the book"), which they now wish to market and publish, do declare the following to be their understanding and agreement. (My emphasis.)

I had planned to include what I have to say about the contact in one post, but, given how much more I have to say, it would be better to pick this up in one last post.

To be continued....

Ghs

[George H. Smith]

[snip]

To be continued....

It is essential that people read my previous post -- the one linked above -- before reading this one.

Here once again is the key passage in the contract that Wendy and I signed.

CONTRACT ON REASONING BOOK/UNTITLED

By George H. Smith and Wendy McElroy

George H. Smith and Wendy McElroy, having co-authored a book on reasoning (hereinafter "the book"), which they now wish to market and publish, do declare the following to be their understanding and agreement. (My emphasis.)

Kinsella claims that the book referred to here is my FOR transcript, and he concludes that Wendy must have co-authored that manuscript.

But do you notice anything peculiar here? Why, if "the book" refers to the FOR transcript, did Wendy write "REASONING BOOK/UNTITLED"?

My FOR transcript already had a title, viz., The Fundamentals of Reasoning -- or FOR, as Wendy wrote on the label affixed to the floppy disk that contains my FOR files. So think about it: If "the book" was intended by Wendy to refer to FOR -- a "book" that Wendy supposedly co-authored, according to Kinsella -- then why did Wendy specify an "untitled" book, instead of writing "Fundamentals of Reasoning"?

The reason for this wording should be obvious to anyone who has read my previous post. "The book" referred to in the contract was never meant to refer to my FOR transcript at all. Rather, "the book" refers to the book that Wendy and I planned to write. "The book" was untitled because we had not yet decided upon the title for a book that had not yet been written.

In my letter to Tarcher, written two years after Wendy and I signed the contract, I assigned the working title The Psychology of Reasoning to the book that Wendy and I planned to write, should Tarcher agree to publish it. (My proposal was rejected.) I floated this title by Wendy before writing to Tarcher, and she had no problem with it.

In my letter to Tarcher, I also clearly distinguished The Psychology of Reasoning from FOR:

2040 Florida St., #8

Long Beach, CA 90814

Nov. 7, 1991

Jeremy P. Tarcher

Tarcher Publications

5858 Wilshire Blvd.

Los Angeles, CA 90036

[snip]

The idea for this book grew out of a workshop that I gave for over ten years -- "The Fundamentals of Reasoning." Over the years, as I worked with eight adults once a week, I learned a valuable lesson that was confirmed many times over. Intellectual problems usually involve fear, anxiety, lack of confidence, and other psychological factors. And dealing with these psychological factors can bring about remarkable intellectual improvements.

I will now move on to the next point. Consider this clause from the contract:

2. Any necessary alterations or polishing of the book are the responsibility of McElroy. Smith will have six weeks to review in which to review the final manuscript.

This clause was intended for a publisher. Should our book have been accepted for publication, this clause specifies the respective responsibilities that Wendy and I had after acceptance.

In other words, if a publisher requested any "necessary alterations or polishing of the book," these changes were Wendy's responsibility. And after Wendy did her job, I had six weeks to review what she had done. After that, we would return the corrected manuscript to the publisher.

Now, let's proceed to another clause:

3, The order of the authors' names on the published book will be first Smith, and then McElroy.

This is yet another instruction, in effect, aimed at a publisher. It tells a publisher the order of our names on "the published book."

This proviso also indicates that I would be the primary author of the book that Wendy and I planned to co-author. Note how this clause conflicts with Kinsella's claim that "the book" refers to the FOR transcript and that Wendy was an equal co-author of that transcript. If Wendy was in fact a co-author of FOR, then why was it necessary for Wendy to specify that I should be listed as the primary author?

Furthermore, Wendy planned to write three additional chapters; and if she had actually written those chapters, this would mean that Wendy would have written more of our book than I had -- perhaps 80 or 90 pages, depending on the length of her three additional chapters. So I ask: Why would someone who had written considerably more of a book than her co-author insist that the lesser contributor should receive credit as the primary author?

Every clause on our contract clearly indicates that it was intended for a publisher after our book had been completed and submitted. The remaining clauses are as follows:

1. All proceeds from the publication or other use of the book are to be divided equally between Smith and McElroy.

4. They hold each other harmless against any debts, or liabilities that the other may incur.

5. In the case of the death of one co-author, the entire rights and profits of the book will return and accrue to the other co-author

Again, all these clauses were intended for a publisher. They specify provisions that Wendy and I agreed should be included in the contract drawn up by a publisher.

To conclude: Kinsella's interpretation makes nonsense out of other clauses in the contract, whereas my interpretation -- i.e., the understanding that both Wendy and I both had when we signed the contract --is perfectly consistent with all clauses and with the contract as a whole.

Case closed.

Ghs

[Brad R]

For those who might be interested, Wendy has updated her page at http://www.wendymcelroy.com/reason/libel.htm to include her 1998 correspondence with George. I am taking the liberty of posting here, in full, his original email to her, in which his threat of legal action against Wendy and/or Prometheus is quite clear.

From ???@??? Sun May 17 18:42:24 1998

Received: by www for mac

(with Cubic Circle's cucipop (v1.21 1997/08/10) Sun May 17 19:19:03 1998)

X-From_: vamp97@sj.bigger.net Sun May 17 18:01:42 1998

Return-Path: vamp97@sj.bigger.net

Received: from sjmail.bigger.net (sjmail.bigger.net [206.111.129.1]) by www.greynet.net (8.8.8/8.7.3) with ESMTP id SAA06907 for <mac@zetetics.com>; Sun, 17 May 1998 18:01:41 -0400

Received: from Laura.bigger.net (sjas-25-1-2.sj.bigger.net [206.111.134.218])

by sjmail.bigger.net (8.8.6/8.8.6/@bn) with SMTP id PAA10016

for <mac@zetetics.com>; Sun, 17 May 1998 15:26:38 -0700 (PDT)

Message-ID: <355F64F5.62E3@sj.bigger.net>

Date: Sun, 17 May 1998 15:30:13 -0700

From: Laura Kroutil <vamp97@sj.bigger.net>

Reply-To: vamp97@sj.bigger.net

Organization: Residence

X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01C-KIT (Win95; U)

MIME-Version: 1.0

To: mac@zetetics.com

Subject: W. McElroy, Plagiarist

Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1

Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

Wendy,

You had better read this letter, and read it carefully. You are in

extremely serious trouble, legally and professionally. Your professional

career is in your hands, and it reeks of death. I am accusing of

extensive and deliberate plagiarism.

Both you and I know that most of “your” Reasonable Woman book is sheer

unadulterated plagiarism. And though I half expected you to pull this

stunt some day, I thought that you would at least be clever enough to

cover your tracks better. I suspect that, upon hearing that I had lost

“everything” in storage some years ago, you figured I no longer had

access to my original notes, drafts, etc., from those years that I

taught Fundamentals of Reasoning – and therefore would be unable to

prove any charges against you. Wrong. I HAVE IT ALL. Every handwritten

note and outline, every typed segment of lectures on canary-colored

paper (many of them with dates), every printed handout, and all those

verbatim transcripts that you made some years ago of the tapes from

dozens of classes – a volume of material that fills nearly two file

boxes.

This is why I was able to give several FOR classes for Sharon Presley

about two years ago – and, by the way, I do have tapes of those classes,

which sound strangely like a prevision of “your” book. Maybe you can sue

me for my psychic ability to foretell what you would write in the

future, word for word, even before you knew what it would be. Or, let me

guess – you wrote all this some time ago, and I stole it from you. Or –

I know, you actually wrote this in 1972, I wrested it from you

psychically in 1973, and then began using it in 1974, one year before we

actually met. Yeah, that’s the ticket..

You seem to have forgotten that I customarily opened a session from

extensive notes, often reading for the first forty minutes or so. Hence

what you recalled as my extemporaneous discussions might leave you in

the clear, because you have the tapes, not me. But I have THE ORIGINAL

MANUSCRIPTS from which I read, which then ended up on the tapes, then in

the transcripts you made, and finally in “your” book. Even O.J. would

have been convicted with this kind of blood-trail. .

Before reading further, you may wish to scan the second transmission

coming shortly after this, which quotes line by line from “your” book

and the handout I wrote for the first class in 1974, one year before I

even met you. This took me less than an hour to cull. I have sketched

around ten additional pages of the same kind of miserable stuff, and I

can produce all the original documents to back it up. If this becomes a

legal battle – as it very well may – I presently estimate that I can

specifically nail you on at least HALF of “your” book. And I don’t mean

your version of my ideas (that covers an additional one quarter, with

the remaining quarter being the only thing you actually contributed. ) I

mean, in many cases, identical word for word, line for line, paragraph

for paragraph. What you see here is only the small tip of a very big

iceberg. This is not only plagiarism, this is stupid plagiarism.

Couldn’t you have at least taken the time to paraphrase a bit, rather

that just changing a word here and there? And what of the hundreds of

people that took that course over many years? Did you figure that they

wouldn’t recognize my material, even though some of them still have the

original handouts themselves?

I was amused by your comment when you suggested that the “intellectual

therapy” chapters were based on your recollections from attending five

sessions. You did indeed attend a number of sessions – mainly because we

lived together, and you had nowhere else to go -- but your account is

based entirely on the verbatim transcripts of my classes. You failed to

note – gee, I wonder why --that you have dozens of tapes from several

years of classes, and that you typed them up word for word a long time

ago – often three or four versions of the same class. You have literally

hundreds of pages of verbatim transcripts, AND YOU SENT COPIES TO ME,

dummy. These constitute the core of your entire book – often with

identical sub-headings, for example (one of many) all that stuff on

types of error, the entire text of which is nearly verbatim in “your

book” and the psychology of reasoning (exactly the same as one of the

sessions, as is most of the text.) But – and here is one among many of

your screw-ups -- I have, not only the printouts, but the ORIGINAL

FLOPPIES WITH LABELS IN YOUR (GREEN) HANDWRITING, WITH YOUR LETTERS AND

NOTES TO ME INCLUDED.

You quote me extensively, as I interacted with the participants, but

always as the “facilitator” and as “she.” So, after screwing me, you

proceed to castrate me. (Freud would have been very proud.) Of course,

if you had been honest, and prefaced the quotes with “George Smith,”

people would have wondered why on earth you were quoting me so

extensively without permission. And, of course, you add your own touches

of pure fabrication from time to time – things that never happened

except in your imagination. What’s that business about charging only a

modest fee? I was charging $120 per person by the time they ended,

hardly a modest fee for the early 1980s. Those classes were pure

business, as you well know, and I made my living off of them for seven

years, even opening up a suite of offices on Sunset Blvd. under the

name, “Forum for Philosophical Studies,” during which I gave those

classes twice a week for nearly two years. You attended no classes

during those two years, yet the material I revised for them specifically

somehow found its way into your book..

Morever 5 single-spaced typed pages on the Types of Error were not

written until after we separated in 1985, when I held classes in my

place on Franklin Ave. I wrote that stuff immediately after one of the

classes in 1986. You had no direct knowledge of that class. Instead, you

simply took my notes and inserted them in “your” book under the same

heading and in the same words -- and I mean verbatim. That’s some memory

you’ve got.

If you feel you are in the right, then send that box of tapes to

Prometheus, and let them listen to everything first hand – unless, that

is, those tapes have mysteriously disappeared. And if you claim never to

have had those tapes, then how in the hell did you transcribe those

hundreds of pages that are in my possession? From memory???? When

leaving the scene of the crime, you left behind footprints so large

Godzilla could stand in them and still leave room for your ego.

I can no longer publish my own material, because it would look as if I

have stolen from you. THIS IS SEVEN YEARS OF MY LABOR ABSOLUTELY RUINED

BY YOU. And you knew very well that I was planning to publish this as a

book. I do not want to sue Prometheus for damages, even though this may

be my only recourse. They were innocent victims in all this. You played

them for fools, violating your contract extensively and explicitly, in

which you guarantee that the material you gave them is original. You

knew exactly what you were doing. This was all clearly premeditated and

deliberate. (That must have provided a nice chuckle for you, but what

are you going to say now ?–that you somehow inadvertently copied huge

chunks of your book from someone else, but are very sorry and promise

never to do it again?)

If I have to sue Prometheus (two attorneys have told me they are fully

liable for what they publish, even without knowledge of the plagiarism)

they will doubtless turn and sue you for fraud, breach of contract etc.

(hence the clause in your contract where you swear to originality). If

this happens, you may be looking at one big fucking lawsuit, in which

case you will be “slam-dunked” (as one of those lawyers put it, after

looking at just a fraction of my evidence.) Publishers do not

appreciate being defrauded like this. I will happily provide them with

everything I have when they take you to court. These are no incidental

slips, as when a writer may inadvertently quote someone else from a

repressed memory. This is page after dreary of page of outright,

clear-cut plagiarism.

I doubt if any book in recent decades has contained such an

astonishingly large amount of word-for-word duplication of someone

else’s work – easily 75 pages nearly verbatim, with dozens more

consisting of nothing more than superficial rewrites, which are put in

the same order, with the same structure, sub-headings, phraseology,

arguments, and illustrations. It simply boggles the mind.

I will admit, however, that those clever quotes sprinkled throughout the

book are entirely yours, and you deserve full credit for the hours you

spent thumbing through some quotation dictionary. Cute touch, and so

typical – like taping a pretty little bow on a package of stolen

merchandise, before delivering it to the unsuspecting publisher. . .

If you want to avoid this messy situation, you can buy my rights to

the material outright for a lump-sum payment of $10,000 (U.S. dollars),

which I must receive no later than Tuesay, May 26, 1998. That’s not

much for stealing seven years of someone’s professional labor, so you

are getting off cheap. Enclose a release with the check, and I will sign

it and return it to you immediately.. That let’s you off the hook

legally as far as I am concerned, and I will not take legal action

against Prometheus or you.

You have two days to e-mail me your reply, which I must receive no later

than 9 a.m.(PDT), Tuesday, May 19, 1998. I will take a non-response as

a refusal, and immediately set the gears in motion. I will begin by

Faxing a copy of this letter to Prometheus, along with an expanded

version of the parallel quotations, and with copies of the original

documents. And that’s just the beginning.

If you agree to the settlement, I must receive a certified check for

$10,000 no later than (to repeat) Tuesday, May 26, 1998, or all bets are

off.

If you have any doubts about this, then show the brief list of

quotations to your Hubby, or some other friend, and watch their faces

drop in horror. Talk about the bloom falling from the rose. Welcome to

the real world with real consequences, where people can turn even

against a cute little Shirley Temple, and see her other face.

It’s entirely up to you. You have until this Tuesday morning, 9 a.m., to

get back to me by e-mail.. If not, Prometheus will have copies of

everything within the next hour, and I suspect you will receive an

“urgent” phone call shortly thereafter.

I am dead-serious about this. Don’t imagine for an instant that I am

simply blowing off steam. I put up with your other antics for years

without fighting back, but that was personal. This is professional, and

you know very well how I strongly I feel about this kind of thing.

Consult your self-interest, and do what you think is best. I prefer the

settlement, even though I stand to lose a great deal of money in the

long run. I don’t relish a long and ugly legal battle, but I am fully

prepared to take it on. And, believe me, you will lose, and lose big

time. Just the little bit of material I am sending is more than enough

to prove the legal case of plagiarism, but I’m talking about dozens of

additional pages. And it seems to me that the least you can do is to let

Prometheus off the legal hook on which you have so unceremoniously

impaled them.

You can start writing letters to all your friends, telling about some

horrible thing I’m doing to you, etc., etc., etc. It won’t make any

difference. The documents are there to back up everything I say in cold,

hard print.. This is not a my-word against your-word dispute. This is

about hundreds of pages of documents written by me, and plagiarized by

you wholesale. Period.

You have less than two days to think it over. After that, there will be

no turning back, for either of us.

George

The interlinear parallel quotations will be sent in second transmission,

within the next 20 minutes.

[George H. Smith]

For those who might be interested, Wendy has updated her page at http://www.wendymcelroy.com/reason/libel.htm to include her 1998 correspondence with George. I am taking the liberty of posting here, in full, his original email to her, in which his threat of legal action against Wendy and/or Prometheus is quite clear.

Brad is correct. I wrote my first letter to Wendy in a white heat of anger, and I was seriously considering legal action at that time. But I quickly reversed myself, in a matter of day or so, and I made a public pledge to Wendy not to initiate any legal action. I posted that pledge previously on this thread.

I also wrote to Prometheus, assuring them that I would not pursue legal action against them.

My initial threats of legal action were a mistake, but one that I quickly corrected.

Now that Brad has once again come out of the shadows, may I suggest that he post all of Wendy's 1998 public emails to me. He won't don't this, of course. He won't do this because he knows very well that Wendy made up one inconistent excuse after another, as she progressively realized how much evidence I had.

People who have read Wendy's 1998 emails don't need to know anything else about this controversy. Her lies are obvious throughout.

So how about it, Brad? Are you willing to post Wendy's emails? Or are you only interested in revealing one document that you think will further your case?

In the final analysis, my initial threats of legal action are irrelevant to the issue of Wendy's plagiarism. So what is your point?

Ghs