The Secret Protocols of Leiter‏

A student at Chi-Town stole this personally from the desk (i.e., e-mail inbox) of a distinguished Professor that you know all-too-well and emailed it to me. I thought it should be reproduced. Like the train wreck in that movie with Bruce Willis, I can't look away:

Stolen from the inbox of Prolosopher Leiter:

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From: bleiter@uchicago.edu [sounds like Brit. Slang "Blighter", "A person who is regarded with contempt, irritation, or pity: 'you little blighter!'"]

To: Felicity Charity-Piety (felicity-charity@utulsa.edu)

Subject: Four easy methods to deal with the "situation" :)

Date: March 20, 2013 08:43:02am CST

Hi Felly! B-Man here. Listen, I saw your earlier remarks about how a law professor is a more noble occupation than practicing corporate law, especially for companies that are involved in the financial or energy sectors of the economy—those are bad people who lack a sense of public service and academic freedom. I wholeheartedly agree and wish you would blog more regularly. I thought we could discuss our upcoming strategy to fight against the spoiled children, the "scambloggers". I know we are in bad shape, but it is impossible that we could be wrong because we do such valuable work. Sometimes people need to be helped to find the truth and not be manipulated by bloggers. Let's discuss ways we can do this:

1) Play the victim. Like you mentioned in your comment, professors are "easy targets". We must become the visible victims while maintaining our dominant position. This is not a problem: we can turn lemons into 40-proof lemonade by playing this up and playing the victim to the max. This will confuse the public, which is motivated more by feeling than logic, because they have not gone through 1L year yet. We will also take the victimhood claim away from the unemployed non-entities on the web who badmouth our good names. Remind everyone, like you said, that we are "powerless", and back that claim up by emphasizing that we are not all-powerful. For instance, we do not have the power to singlehandedly do whatever we want without consequence, therefore we are victims too.

2) Scapegoat. Especially politically incorrect groups. Like you wrote, "And I fail to see how law teaching is more morally compromising than a host of other jobs in the legal profession - doing mortgage foreclosures? Representing BP?" we should keep up the non-sequitur distractions by comparing ourselves to hated groups that are stereotypes in the media, such as evil greedy banks taking houses back from poor "real American" working "folks", or British-based petroleum exploration companies. Because petroleum is bad, and casebooks are good. You can turn your air conditioner off, but you can't turn off your legal reasoning! LOL!!!

3) Guilt-trip the whistleblower. You also said professors who "do believe they are scamming their students" should quit. We should keep up the non-sequitur and keep demanding that the few inside-the-academy reformers like Teriyaki and what's his name are hypocrites. This will distract the public with that 1% from the 99% that are part of the problem. Distraction, distraction, distraction! How else did you think I got this far in, as they say on the South Side, 'da lah buzniss?' :smile: :-)

4) Quibble. Like you mention, our writings have "no immediate market value". Things that don't have immediate (i.e., physical, real, useful) value are either 1) totally worthless, or are (rarely) 2) precious and benefit society subtly but heavily in the long run. Of course my latest work is in the second category, and would venture to say that even professors at your school down in Nebraska or Kansas—where is Tulsa again? Or is that a state itself—are mostly in the same boat. When we have nothing to offer society that is "visible", we need to present our case so that our true value can be appreciated. It's like having no money and calling yourself an "entrepreneur" instead of unemployed. Ah, I remember those days!

These are four methods which will enable us to make it until retirement. By then, let hypocrites like C***** and little p*$$ ant posters like D***** and all the other "scamblogging" horseflies buzz around my big fat tail all they want! They can "reform" my 45-foot yacht while I sail the world over. LOL! See you in Tahiti!

Love,

B-Lite

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Preston Bell (premeditatedmeditations.com) is the author of the (free) book-length satire/exposé, Smarter Than Socrates: The End of the Law School Era.