Ethnographers on "On the Run" (Not)

I have written several highly critical articles and blog posts about Alice Goffman’s book On the Run, pointing out that she described committing a crime in the course of the six years she spent observing the “6^th Street Boys” in a struggling Philadelphia neighborhood.  In this post, I will turn to others in the field of ethnography who, at best, ignored or were unaware of the deep flaws and troubling conduct evident in Prof. Goffman’s work.  Moreover, the sociology/ethnography establishment still appears, with slight exception, to be defending Goffman, while making it thus far impossible to get closer to the truth of her claims.

Goffman has now given two sharply conflicting accounts of the events, in the summer of 2007, following the murder of her subject “Chuck,” whom she befriended in the course of her fieldwork.  In On the Run, she wrote that she had joined an armed hunt for a rival gang member who was believed to be the killer.  Chuck’s friends had “acquired more and more guns,” in preparation for what Goffman called “part three” of an ongoing “war” with the nearby 4^th Street Boys, in which three men had already been killed. [Note:  Readers familiar with the story can skip the next few paragraphs, and pick up again after the second block quote.]

“Many nights,” said Goffman, a gang member pseudonymously named “Mike” drove through the streets of Philadelphia “looking for the shooter, the guys who were part of his crew, or women connected to them who might be able to provide a good lead.”  She continued,

On a few of these nights, Mike had nobody to ride along with him, so I volunteered.  We started out around 3:00 a.m., with Mike in the passenger seat, his hand on his Glock as he directed me around the area.  We peered into dark houses and looked at license plates and car models as Mike spoke on the phone with others who had information about the 4^th Street Boys’ whereabouts.

She did this, wrote Goffman, not because she wanted to learn firsthand about violence, but because she “wanted Chuck’s killer to die.”  Then,

One night Mike thought he saw a 4^th Street guy walk into a Chinese restaurant.  He tucked his gun in his jeans, got out of the car, and hid in the adjacent alleyway.  I waited in the car with the engine running read to speed off as soon as Mike ran back and got inside.

I have quoted Goffman at length because I want to make it clear that her conduct, as she herself originally recounted it, amounts to conspiracy to commit murder.  She agreed to assist in the commission of a homicide, and she committed more than one “overt act” – driving the ambush car on multiple occasions – in furtherance of the scheme.

And yet, not a single academic sociologist or ethnographer pointed out the apparent criminality of Goffman’s self-described activity in the full year between the publication of On the Run and my reviews last month in The New Republic and The New Rambler.  Instead, luminaries such as Harvard’s Christopher Jencks called the book “an ethnographic classic,” and Tim Newburn, of the London School of Economics, hailed it as “sociology at its best.” I found only three negative reviews – by a law professor, an English professor, and a poet.  The many others were all glowing, by big names in top outlets.

I found that shocking.  In the summer of 2007, when the events in question occurred, 108 African-Americans were murdered in Philadelphia – averaging more than one each day – mostly young men, 94 of them by gunfire.  How could so many prominent reviewers endorse the work of a doctoral candidate who even considered contributing to the bloodshed? By what standard of scholarship is it permissible to be the driver in an armed manhunt, and to keep the engine running while a gunman stalks a possible victim?  How could the American Sociological Association give Goffman’s its annual “best dissertation” award – calling it “a landmark contribution to urban ethnography” – in light of Goffman’s claimed participation in plotting a potentially deadly ambush?

I raised these issues in The New Rambler and twice in The New Republic, expecting to see at least some public reaction from academic sociologists.  But the primary response came from Goffman herself, in the form of a four-page reply on her website, in which she completely revised her account of the incident.  Instead of an actual manhunt, says Goffman now, it was all “just talk.”  The Glock-in-hand drive-arounds were not really for the purpose of actual retribution, but only for show (notwithstanding her expressed desire for “Chuck’s killer to die” and Mike’s earlier nodding agreement that “somebody gon’ die regardless”).  The several pages of published narrative, she now says, were only a “summary,” and the true story involved “significant points” that she had never before revealed.

Remarkably, Goffman now claims that she was actually acting at the behest of “the neighborhood.”  In her response, she wrote,

After Chuck was shot and killed, people in the neighborhood were putting a lot of pressure on Mike and Chuck’s other friends to avenge his murder.  It seemed that Chuck’s friends were expected to fulfill the neighborhood’s collective desire for retribution.  Many of the residents in the neighborhood were emphatic that justice should be served, and the man who killed Chuck must pay.

Which “residents in the neighborhood” could she possibly be talking about?  Surely she could not mean the working people, parents of children, block club members, community activists, and young students of the 6^th Street community – all of whom would have been appalled at the thought of continuing the cycle of reciprocal violence that has brought so much grief to so many people. Has anyone ever known of a neighborhood where the “residents” wanted more gunfire?

Goffman told Philadelphia radio station WHYY that her work could be fact checked by comparing her claims to goings-on in other cities.  That is an appeal too truthiness; stuff just like this happens somewhere.  But can anyone identify a single non-gang member – anywhere – who has ever demanded more drive-by shootings, much less an entire neighborhood. 

When Michele Obama recently addressed the graduates of Chicago’s Martin Luther King College Prep High School, she reminded them of Hadiya Pendleton, who would also have graduated that day if she had not been the innocent victim of a drive-by gang shooting.  The First Lady sympathized with the grieving students and their families, saying:

If Hadiya's friends and family could survive their heartbreak and pain; if they could find organizations to honor her unfulfilled dreams; if they could inspire folks across this country to wear orange to protest gun violence, then I know you all can live your life with the same determination and joy that defined Hadiya's life.

Thus, Michele Obama led a grieving community in demanding an end to gunplay.  Goffman, however, wants us to believe that the residents of 6^th Street were collectively clamoring for gang members to perpetuate the violence, rather than insisting that they end it.  In her fantastic retelling, the gang members themselves had no intention to keep shooting, but were goaded into a  pretended show of force by their civilian neighbors.  Does anyone believe that really happened?  (And if something so extraordinary and meaningful did happen, why would she omit it from the book?)  To put it as mildly as possible, Goffman’s new story strains credulity.  Indeed, it calls her credibility even further into question concerning the many other unlikely events she depicted in On the Run.

And yet again, academic sociologists have said virtually nothing in public about her tortured explanation.  The University of Wisconsin, where Goffman is an assistant professor of sociology, issued a statement expressing “full support” for her work, and the chair of her department told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that there are no hard and fast rules in sociology surrounding the ethics of research.  Goffman’s publishers – the University of Chicago Press and Picador – both said that they “stand behind” the book.  Prof. Jack Katz of UCLA – who co-edits the University of Chicago Press series that published On the Run – told the New York Times that my review of Goffman’s book was “a misuse of professorial authority.”    In fact, it is Katz who has misused his authority – first by failing to catch the manifest flaws and ethical departures in On the Run before it was published, and now by defending it after they have been exposed.

So where does the truth lie?  Did Alice Goffman attempt to track down a man for a revenge killing, or was it all nothing but posturing?  Did community members really demand another shooting, or is that just Goffman’s after-the-fact excuse for her own reckless behavior?  Ordinarily, we might expect to find the answers in Goffman’s field notes, which either could or could not confirm some version of her conflicting accounts.  But that is impossible, because Goffman has shredded them (and disposed of her hard drive), apparently with at least the tacit assent of Princeton’s Institutional Review Board.  Even if such destruction is the norm in ethnography – and professional opinions appear to differ about that – the impossibility of verification remains a glaring problem.

Goffman’s dissertation advisor at Princeton, Prof. Mitchell Duneier, told the Chronicle of Higher Education that he met and interviewed some of Goffman’s subjects during the course of her graduate studies.  This proves that Goffman indeed did field work with people who actually existed – something that nobody has challenged – while leaving her many dubious claims unconfirmed.  To Duneier’s great credit, however, he also agreed that Goffman “crossed an ethical line” by driving the getaway car during the potential ambush.  Duneier’s admirable candor provides a welcome contrast to the apologetics of UCLA’s Katz, who has assumed the role of Goffman’s chief defender. He told the Chronicle that the only “ethical line she crossed, in a way, was honesty."  

Was Goffman honest about driving the getaway car in either On the Run or in her subsequent retelling?  As matters stand, we have only one surviving source of nearly contemporaneous information against which to test her claims.  Goffman’s dissertation was submitted at Princeton in 2010, only three years after Chuck’s murder and her own participation in the real or feigned vendetta.  What does it say about the events?  Does she describe her response to Chuck’s murder?  Does she mention “the neighborhood’s collective desire for retribution” or her own intentions during the Glock-drive?  Once again we are at an impasse, because Goffman has chosen to make her dissertation unavailable for inspection.

I have made multiple attempts to obtain a copy of Goffman’s dissertation, with no results thus far.  (I still have one promising iron in this fire, however, so there is some reason for hope.)  First, the Northwestern library tried to locate it in the Princeton library, only to learn that Goffman had been granted a permanent exemption from depositing her dissertation. Next, I discovered that Goffman’s thesis was never provided to ProQuest, in contrast to over 90% of all dissertations and theses from accredited institutions in North America.  Unbeknownst to me, an enterprising reference librarian at Northwestern also requested a copy directly from Prof. Goffman.  Although this happened before the publication of my first review, she never replied. 

Finally, I wrote to the executive director of the American Sociological Association, which had given Goffman its “dissertation of the year” award in 2011.  She did not write back.  This is the most baffling rebuff of all.  What is the point of honoring a dissertation that no one will ever be allowed to see?  It cannot serve as a model for current graduate students, it cannot be held up as an example of outstanding scholarship, and it cannot be a reference for future researchers.  Is there another discipline – in hard science, social science, the humanities, or the professions – in which prizes are bestowed under a permanent cone of silence? (A temporary delay would be different.  According to our library, the 2013 ASA winner, for example, has been embargoed until March 25, 2017 --  a four year time period that would have expired this year for Goffman's 2011 prize.)

At almost every stage of scholarship and publication, it appears that Goffman’s work has dodged rigorous scrutiny.  That was ultimately a disservice to her, as it led to the embarrassing publication of a book that – notwithstanding its significant subject matter and other merits – is plainly unreliable.  That is a shame.  Stripped of overstatements, On the Run would have been a far, far better book.  Alas, even prodigies need careful editors.

In law school, we teach our students the importance of accurate citation and fidelity to the record.  In law practice, our positions are subjected to counter-argument and cross examination.  We do not always get it right, but it can seldom be said that our contentions have gone untested.  The field of ethnography, alas, appears to have followed a far different path in Alice Goffman’s case. 

Comments

[anon]

If only she had chosen to study the Piranha Brothers instead

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZkWL-XvO0U

[nb]

I like the idea of asking Duneier for a copy. Surely he kept the dissertation of such a favored student?

[Scholar]

There are a lot of us who are hungry for more information about Goffman and her work, but I think we're bound to be disappointed. I don't think Goffman, Duneier, etc., are going to respond to calls for transparency from a loose assortment of skeptical internet commenters. It's going to take a serious institutional inquiry from UW-Madison (something more than the quickie whitewash announced last month) or serious digging from an investigative reporter from a respectable print media outlet (The Philadelphia Inquirer, for instance).

[DC]

"I have written several highly critical articles and blog posts about Alice Goffman’s book On the Run, pointing out that she described committing a crime in the course of the six years she spent observing the “6th Street Boys” in a struggling Philadelphia neighborhood"

Steve, the thing is, sociologists and anthropologists tend to approach this kind of issue from a philosophically different perspective than law faculty, who tend to be (unsurprisingly) very law-and-order focused. Many ethnographers would not have the same visceral reaction you've had to the idea that a researcher got involved in something that was potentially a crime, particularly one where nobody was actually hurt. TEthnographers frequently consider law not some overarching, primary mandate that supersedes everything else, but just one other aspect of normative cultural values, like customs, rituals, etc., to be examined.

You've obviously found something profoundly distasteful in this, but not everybody does. Particularly since we're talking about an area and population that have been profoundly ill-served by the law, and understandably feel less than loyal to it. If Goffman was in that milieu for that long, I can certainly see her understanding and adopting those values.

"Goffman, however, wants us to believe that the residents of 6th Street were collectively clamoring for gang members to perpetuate the violence, rather than insisting that they end it. In her fantastic retelling, the gang members themselves had no intention to keep shooting, but were goaded into a pretended show of force by their civilian neighbors."

I don't think it's so incredible. I think you also have to understand poor, violent inner-city neighborhoods are complicated societies (which is why an ethnography of one is important). "Civilian" isn't a good term to use; technically everyone there is a civilian unless they are in the military or police force. Young men involved in the violence are still part of that neighborhood, and rather than "civilians" and "gang members" there tends to be a continuum between self-identified gang members and their associates, friends, relatives, etc. Someone could be a "civilian" by your standards but still engage in violence, or support its use against someone who hurt them. More specifically, even an otherwise law-abiding resident might honestly want the cycle of violence to end overall, but support a specific act of retribution -- these aren't mutually exclusive things.

[Former Editor]

"Many ethnographers would not have the same visceral reaction you've had to the idea that a researcher got involved in something that was potentially a crime, particularly one where nobody was actually hurt. Ethnographers frequently consider law not some overarching, primary mandate that supersedes everything else, but just one other aspect of normative cultural values, like customs, rituals, etc., to be examined."

DC, thank you for acknowledging this. I've been following the conversation on Goffman's midnight drive for a while because, although I have no dog in the fight, the reaction of the ethnographic academy has struck me. The attitude you describe here troubles me. If the culture of the ethnographic academy is that its members are no more required to comply with laws as serious as those related to conspiracy to commit murder than they would be to comply with a norm related to dress or sexual activity then that may signal something profoundly amiss with the academy. Can you explain why a norm among ethnographers that would condone law-breaking of this type should acceptable to society at large?

[HL]

Hedge fund managers frequently consider law not some overarching, primary mandate that supersedes everything else, but just one other aspect of normative cultural values, like customs, rituals, etc., to be examined.

Oil industry executives frequently consider law not some overarching, primary mandate that supersedes everything else, but just one other aspect of normative cultural values, like customs, rituals, etc., to be examined.

K Street lobbyists frequently consider law not some overarching, primary mandate that supersedes everything else, but just one other aspect of normative cultural values, like customs, rituals, etc., to be examined.

The Koch brothers frequently consider law not some overarching, primary mandate that supersedes everything else, but just one other aspect of normative cultural values, like customs, rituals, etc., to be examined.

Cisgendered white men frequently consider law not some overarching, primary mandate that supersedes everything else, but just one other aspect of normative cultural values, like customs, rituals, etc., to be examined.

[DC]

Former Editor, I think you're approaching it from the same ontological perspective at Steve, which is exactly which I'm arguing against; I don't think lawyers (and law professors) realize how much they tend to internalize certain beliefs about American law.

"If the culture of the ethnographic academy is that its members are no more required to comply with laws as serious as those related to conspiracy to commit murder than they would be to comply with a norm related to dress or sexual activity then that may signal something profoundly amiss with the academy"

This is kind of my point; you are starting with the position that conspiracy to commit murder (with no actual murder taking place) is automatically "serious," and thus failing to criticize it is a failing on the part of the ethnographic academy. But I assume as a general rule, you'd agree that committing a "serious crime" is not always an ethical lapse, right? I mean, if an ethnographer helped a member of a persecuted religious minority attend a religious service, despite the fact that both would be subject to a crime of blasphemy in the country in which it occurs, you wouldn't find it morally repugnant?

So fine, some might argue, that is an unjust criminal law while this is a just one. But take a step back, here. What makes conspiracy to commit murder with no actual murder committed so serious other than we've been told again and again, particularly in law school, that it is? None of the overt acts she committed, namely driving around, are illegal or more importantly hurt anyone. Nobody is, in fact, murdered. The "crime" committed was having a certain state of mind while performing completely legal activities. The American legal system strongly proscribes inchoate offenses but many other legal systems don't. I can easily imagine a just and effective legal system that requires actual physical or financial harm before recognizing something as a crime.

Finally, let's assume for the sake of argument that helping someone drive around and find someone to kill is a universally immoral thing to do that everyone, including ethnographers, should disclaim; the fact is ethnographers witness and even get involved with aspects of the cultures they study that they find distasteful, illegal, or abhorrent all the time. The idea is that the ethnographic mission is important enough that you put up with the individual crimes to gain a better understanding of the cultures you investigate.

Also, as a side note, Goffman's explanation that it wasn't a serious attempt but rather a performative act in order to meet cultural expectations is absolutely believable. It's just something you see in just about every culture, including ours; public performance to meet a cultural norm, even where the performance does not represent the actual intent (and oftentimes the witnesses themselves understand that it doesn't represent actual intent but rather public affirmation of societal expectations).

[Bill]

People make mistakes and errors of judgment. What I find distasteful in all of this is that Steve Lubet didn't just pick up the phone and call Alice Goffman and say "hey, I have found a couple of aspects of your book incredibly troubling" and talking about it and ways to resolve it not in the public limelight rather than opening her up to criminal liability and academic death.

[Yet_another_lawyer]

DC's entire comment is stunning, but I think this is the corker: "What makes conspiracy to commit murder with no actual murder committed so serious other than we've been told again and again, particularly in law school, that it is? "

Gee, I don't know. What makes conspiracy to commit murder with no actual murder committed so serious?

I mean, shouldn't the academy welcome all viewpoints, including that academics should drive around, aiding and abetting a murder plot?

Quick question DC: Would it also be okay for an academic to drive around the conspirators in a murder plot if they were actually successful, or does that cross the line? Can the academic pull the trigger, if it's solely for research purposes?

[HL]

From an outsider's perspective the argument seems to be that morality is relative and sometimes it is worth the bending the rules to know more about the subject.

If the logic of that statement was extended far enough we could justify anything, but fair enough. I get the point. Let us accept that.

Is this particular work worth bending the rules? Is it reliable enough to do so?

[anon]

Let's pause and think about HL's contribution, generalizing about and against "Cisgendered white men" ...

Wow. This isn't just some casual, uneducated heterophobic racist here. The fact that this sort of language slips so easily into the conversation is notable.

[HL]

to anon: if you look at the official scholarship of sociologists and also unofficial but still valid scholarship of twitter sociologists (who are IN the field IN their communities and provide valuable first hand INsight) you'll see that it is a pervasive structural problem all around us that we simply cannot see or observe statistically. scholarship like goffman's is the only way we can learn more.

[DC]

I think HL hit upon a much clearer and more concise articulation of what I was trying to say.

I mean, you can certainly argue that American law _should_ override any other belief systems in its jurisdiction, or that in this specific case she stepped over a line and should be sanctioned for it, or that ethnographers should be compelled to obey the law no matter what their informants do; however, a lot of the discussion by legal academics does not make those arguments but rather just assumes that all these questions are settled and there can be no dispute.

I think Yet_another_lawyer's response is a perfect demonstration of what I'm trying to describe; this tendency to get caught up so firmly in one's worldview/weltanschauung/ontological framework/whatever you want to call it that you cannot recognize that other ones may exist, and incommensurate anger when part of that worldview is challenged. Note that Yet_another_lawyer doesn't actually answer my question. He/she repeats it in an unmodified form, with the implication it's so inherently obvious that there can be no legitimate dissent or difference of belief (there are certainly rationales behind the criminalization of inchoate offenses, but none are even offered) and implies that I am morally culpable in some what for asking it.

And as in many cases, anger also removes coherence. For example:

"Quick question DC: Would it also be okay for an academic to drive around the conspirators in a murder plot if they were actually successful, or does that cross the line? Can the academic pull the trigger, if it's solely for research purposes?"

I argue that perhaps X shouldn't be criminalized BECAUSE there's no actual harm.
He/she then asks me if X "cross[es] the line" into crime when there IS actual harm.

To quote a great line by Charles Babbage, "I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."

[HL]

These are good arguments against gun control and copyright protection as well. Tyft

[Yet_another_lawyer]

"I argue that perhaps X shouldn't be criminalized BECAUSE there's no actual harm.
He/she then asks me if X "cross[es] the line" into crime when there IS actual harm.

To quote a great line by Charles Babbage, "I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.""

Here's why (and why conspiracy is a crime by itself in the first place): The driver in a murder conspiracy had no way of knowing in advance whether her co-conspirator would actually murder someone. By participating in this activity, she made it more likely that somebody would die, and it is mere fortuity that her co-conspirator did not find the intended victim. Driving around someone who is hoping to find somebody to murder is generally considered a serious crime.

If your litmus test in that it's okay because "no harm" occurred, then can an academic drive around a rapist who is hoping to find somebody to abduct and rape? What about a pedophile hoping to find a kid to abduct? Assuming the rapist and pedophile are unsuccessful in finding a target, no harm has occurred.

If you consider this acceptable behavior, then our values are so different that there's no common ground to discuss. If you don't, then what exactly is the difference between murder and rape that makes it okay to be part of an unsuccessful conspiracy to commit murder, but not okay to be part of an unsuccessful conspiracy to commit rape?

[HL]

If there is no common ground, there is only conflict left. Remember folks: Leben ist Kampf. There comes a point in time where the fight goes beyond words and evolves into action.

[Alex Reinert]

DC,

I truly appreciate the insight you are providing here, and I generally am with you that our criminal justice system is overly punitive on many levels. But let me try to answer your normative question, and see what you think. Here are the reasons why conspiracy (or other inchoate crimes) are normatively bad and worth punishing:

1. Conspirators make it easier to commit the substantive crime of interest, either by actively encouraging the crime, providing the necessary tools to commit the crime, or suggesting that the crime is justified in someway. Thus, punishing conspiracy (whether harm occurs or not) may deter people from providing such assistance at the front end, before one knows whether the conspiracy will be successful. This, overall, may reduce harms even if it in the aprticular case no harm was likely to have occurred.

2. The difference between successful and unsuccessful conspiracies (or attempts) is often luck. If we agree that we can punish people who cause actual harm through a conspiracy, the distinction between punishing them and those who do not cause harm seems irrational.

3. If we only punish people who cause harm, law enforcement officials who do their jobs well by preventing crime before it happens will be left with no one to punish. Again, if you think that punishment plays (or can be justified by playing) a role in deterrence, then this seems to be a perverse outcome.

Now, this does not mean we should punish unsuccessful conspiracies (or attempts) the same as successful ones. After all, there may be justifications for treating them differently in terms of how much we punish them. But I think there are cogent arguments for treating conspiracies to murder as subject to society's condemnation and punishment.

As to your observation that ethnographers "witness and even get involved with aspects of the cultures they study that they find distasteful, illegal, or abhorrent all the time," I guess that is an empirical claim. I do not know the field well enough to know if it is an accurate claim, but let's say I trust you that it is. If that is the case, shouldn't ethnographers take that on straightforwardly and explain why they do so and what the value of doing so is? And shouldn't they also defend what lines they think are ok to cross? I would guess that had a young man been killed on the night in question (and had an ethnographer been "involved with" that killing), the fact that ethnographers "get involved" with illegal acts *all the time* would be of small solace. Your point may be, "that did not happen here," which is fair enough on one level, but still does not actually engage with the question of who gets to decide when the line is crossed and who bears the cost of that decision.

[anon]

At this stage of the discussion it is no longer just a question of whether she committed a crime or not but whether she actually carried out the fieldwork in the manner she describes. There have been serious doubts raised about her credibility not least of which are the contradictory stories she has told about the allegations Steve raises.

With respect to those I assume she got good legal advice - take the risk of losing your career to help minimize the risk you might be prosecuted for a felony. If her most recent statement makes it at least arguable that she did not get into the driver's seat with a potential gun toting murderer in order to help him find a potential target (something she said explicitly was the case in her book) it nonetheless suggests that she may have been less than truthful about other aspects of her work.

The detailed critique posted on paste-bin (http://pastebin.com/BzN4t0VU) raises a serious concern that she might not have even lived in the area she says she lived in or at least not with the level of immersion she claims. This may not seem terribly significant to many people but I think it gets to the heart of the matter.

The backbone of the defense her supporters raise is that she was engaged in something called "immersion" ethnography which carries with it the risk that she might have to get very close to her subjects, even dangerously close. Therefore we should cut her some slack with respect to that risk. As someone who has carried out fieldwork in risky situations (a war zone; in a country under martial law; etc.) I get it.

But that makes it all the more crucial that, in fact, you did "immerse" yourself as described.

Unfortunately, the University of Wisconsin has dismissed these claims with a brief statement suggesting, incorrectly, that they are a matter of academic debate. No, that is not the case. It can be a matter of academic debate if two researchers come to different conclusions regarding similar subject matter. But both researchers have to have actually carried out the research. And it is very different to carry out research from outside an area than inside it.

It is not even clear how UW was able to conclude that this vital question was not at issue. If they had the material available to the paste-bin anonymous critic, then it is fairly conclusive that she did not immerse herself or did not do so in quite the manner she states in the book. In that case they reached an incorrect conclusion. If they have other data about her location during the research then they have an obligation to share it publicly. Since they are a public university a public records request might make sense if they are not willing to release it on their own.

One would think that Goffman herself would be more than willing to bend over backward to provide substantiation for this central question, among others. Until and unless she responds with substance rather than with a patronizing quotations from a close colleague of her late father her career is likely to stall, and justly so.

[HL]

Crazy theory trigger warning.

The reason I'm interested in this is because it fits in with a theory of mine that a good portion of our political and life narrative is "flame" and propaganda. I've come to expect our media to lie to me, but at least they have an understandable motive of profit behind their behavior.

If this "reliability gap" is also in our academic institutions then how do we determine what is reliably accurate information or not. Is there any way to really investigate this without stepping on so many toes that it makes it impossible. Can a layman trust these institutions without verifying them?

[Yet_another_lawyer]

Anon, that pastebin has been deleted. Is there a mirror?