Let's not judge it to harshly. Rather let's encourage him to keep on walking down that path of self improvement that we all should be on.
Every time I see a well written apology letter, I cringe at all the self-actualization rhetoric people respond to it with.
As if they must do more and become some kind of Buddhist monk before true retribution is to be awarded to them.
An apology in that context is a starting point, a request to open a door that has been shut by the abuser themselves. An apology doesn't actually fix anything regarding the toxic behavior, and not getting the benefit of doubt that ths behavior, again, with a track record of decades, is suddenly over is not just completely justified, it would be naive to do otherwise.
And to think that this kind of hesitance at trusting someone who has so systemically violated it for. decades. has anything to do with "awarding retribution" or "becoming like a Buddhist monk" is incredibly tone deaf.
At what point should spectators be allowed to treat this individual like a human again?
Public apologies are their own form of unhealthy societal bullying.
I mean what's the alternative, silence? For all we know, there may have been additional private communication and if there was I'm pretty sure it's none of our business.
Ideally, all of this should probably be private, but public discourse about internal things seems increasingly the norm. I’m not a fan.
Edit: after reading Matthew’s updates to his original post [0], I fully understand why the apology is public. Matthias responded to the original post privately via email, and Matthew chose to publicly publish key excerpts and a general characterization of what Matthias wrote privately.
He then “gave permission” to Matthias to publish any corrections.
I’m not a fan of Matthew’s general approach here (even while acknowledging that of course bullying/abuse is unacceptable).
- [0] https://beautifulracket.com/appendix/why-i-no-longer-contrib...
No. As he says in his post - "It’s apparent that Felleisen has avoided accountability for a long time. I’m far from his only target. I’ve seen him verbally abuse and heckle others. I’ve heard other accounts privately. But I’m only part of the cover-up if I choose to be. So from now on—I’m not."
And further on he directly responds to your objection:
"In general, I have a strong aversion to sharing any kind of personal or confessional anecdotes on the internet. I’ve made an exception in this case because the concealment is worse."
My preference is that things like this should be addressed privately. I realize that this is not always possible, and at times, a public "shaming" is the only way to make progress.
My objection is to Matthew's insistence on taking a private email and making it public without permission, and then acting like he holds some authority to "permit" Matthias to respond / publish any corrections.
Matthew has every right to be upset about Matthias' behavior. He has every right to ask for an apology. But I can't help but feel he's giving away the high ground by using tactics that are pretty distasteful regardless of context. Like I said, it doesn't excuse or change how problematic Matthias' behavior was, but bad behavior shouldn't automatically justify more bad behavior.
2) The private email is relevant because its message is so starkly at odds with the public statement. It goes directly to the whole thesis of the piece: that bullies gain power through secrecy. He does not owe the bully any secrecy, because the bully has misused secrecy in the past. His attempt to find a principled middle ground is reasonable.
2) I'm reacting here because Matthew's message regarding the private communication is also starkly self-contradictory.
He starts by saying:
> I believe in the norm that private communications should remain so, unless everyone agrees. So I’m going to paraphrase his message. If Felleisen feels mischaracterized, I give him permission to publish it.
He seems to believe that by not publishing the exact words, he's somehow free of his own belief that "unless everyone agrees, private communication should remain so". What he's actually doing is proceeding to publish the private communication anyway by using a technical workaround, despite not having the agreement he called out moments before.
Again, I want to be extremely clear: I'm not defending Matthias here, at all. But Matthew is not being true to his own statements, and while this shouldn't invalidate his message, it certainly doesn't look great as a tactic, either.