For the record

The internet is a place where rumors can be presented as fact, anonymous accusations can be leveled and spread publicly without the slightest evidence to back them, and unethical actions can be made up out of whole cloth and freely (though falsely) imputed to named individuals.

I’ve been a victim of this sort of thing for many years.  Most notably, but not solely, at the hands of the dedicated defamer whom I’ve labeled my “Malevolent Stalker.”

I just came across a false accusation a few minutes ago — apparently it’s yet another of his — that’s apparently been percolating on the nasty little message board where he holds court since at least sometime in early- to mid-August.

The accusation says that I was apparently so angry about somebody’s criticisms of me that I contacted the college or university with which he’s affiliated — I don’t know which one it might be, though I think I recall that it’s in Illinois, and I don’t know whether he’s a student or a member of the faculty, though I think he’s in philosophy — and tried to create difficulties with him there.  (Perhaps I was attempting to have him fired.  Who knows?  I surely don’t.)

“A lie,” goes the famous maxim, “can travel halfway around the world before the truth can get its boots on.”

That’s all too true, I’m afraid — whoever may originally have said it.  (The saying has been attributed to Mark Twain, Jonathan Swift, and several others.)

Still, for what it’s worth, I want to publicly deny the accusation.

It’s entirely false.

It simply didn’t happen.  I didn’t do it in this case, and I’ve never done anything like it in any other case.

I would consider such an act entirely inappropriate, and perhaps — if this fictional case were as it’s been described — even unethical.

Such is the demonology, though, that’s grown up about me in certain circles.  It’s made them very, very gullible — indeed, overeager, insatiably craving more and more evidence of my unspeakable depravity.  No evidence is needed.  In fact, each new false accusation immediately becomes plausible because the previous fabrications have been swallowed hook, line, and sinker.  Thus, of course, there’s been much clucking in response to this latest fiction about how “despicable” my supposed action was, how it fits my general modus operandi, and so forth.

It’s not irrelevant, I think, that the Greek διάβολος (diábolos) — from which our words devil and diabolical derive — means “slanderer,” “calumniator,”  or “accuser.”