First Person: Ruminations on Scholarly Animosity

What accounts for the intensity of the personal animosity among scholars in our field? The more deeply I become involved with these wonderful people, the more of it I find. One friend explained it this way: They fight so viciously because so little is at stake. Another put it like this: They will kill for a footnote. I find the subject difficult to discuss publicly for at least two reasons: First, I am a fairly aggressive guy myself, so why should I be surprised by other people’s aggression? Second, I don’t want to talk about situations that will only […]