Stanton comments again to Amos's post to the CD list

Date: Sun, 19 Oct 1997 15:39:49 -0400
Sender: Cybercenter for controlled drinking/drug use discussion <CD@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU>
From: SHEET <rmr7@TIGER.UOFS.EDU>
Subject: Stanton Peele's Comment to Amos (fwd)

Dear Rob:

Can you please post in response to Amos's epistle (I wouldn't say this is the worst message I've gotten -- or even the worst I've gotten this week).

Well, my evidence for Amos's anger is in this recent post -- Robin's a liar and I'm a voyeur. Isn't this an angry message? Does fancy philosophical discourse make this any less true? Do my few conciliatory statements deserve this degree of vituperation?

It seems that many in this group enjoy interacting with Robin, which has value but which can be terribly exasperating. I doubt that anyone else has been in an adverserial position vis-a-vis Robin as long as have I (Robin commented on my Keller Award paper to JSA in 1987; we were both part of the Smart foundation drug policy reform group organized by Ethan Nadelmann begining in 1989, which I felt Robin dominated to its detriment; and more, much more).

But the shrillness of the anti-Room statements remind me of nothing so much as ex-spouses at war, like if we can only scream enough invective we will break through Robin's defenses and all that these stand for in the alcoholism field. (And this comes from someone about whom respectable figures in the field and friends of mine have made similar charges vis-a-vis my interactions with Robin).

In order to be effective in the field, in my view, we need to recognize what little outpost we occupy in the grand scheme of things. This (CD) is a radical group, at the end of the psychological-social spectrum of the field, which is a minority view at the end of the research spectrum of the field (which is mainly biological), which is itself surprisingly uninfluential in drug and alcohol policy and treatment in the US. In other words, fights in this little cadre are like internal purges and bloodletting among Maoists in the US.

And, finally, I don't like picking on people. Robin is a minority in this group (perhaps in this case a minority in a reactionary direction). In that larger world I described, he would most often be considered a liberal minority. He is well-respected and established in the public health arena, where I have personally suffered from Robin's rudeness and obtuseness as a host who does not know how to treat challenging minority viewpoints, even at gatherings to which he has invited me.

But I will not participate in a lynching, particularly by a group which -- if it's views were widely known -- would most likely be the target of a lynching rather than perpetrating one.

Best wishes,
Stanton