I believe, therefore it is!

[John Dolva]

The role of the 'bully' and the 'bullied' in the research communities.

Probably there are better words to use than bully etc. But there seems to me to be a tendency for people to temper their input by a consideration for 'politics' and not on dispassionate evaluation.

Most would like to be seen as 'credible', 'reliable', or otherwise 'respected'.

When those who behave disrespectfully to others drive the agenda (largely I think as a result of silence from those who recognise this) then the whole effort becomes warped. I wonder how many good half formed thoughts have gone by the way side with a few well placed sneers or unsupported statements of disbelief by those who have built a persona in the community based largely on nothing more than 'being there' or on having a few letter strings attached to their name?

This sort of thing is what I call 'intellectual snobbery', and does nothing to engender support or confidence in newcomers or those who happen to come across the issues.

There are certainly elements of mental unbalance in the community. I think this is incorrectly thought to be the case for only a few. I suspect it is almost universal.

Before anyone takes offence at this please realise I consider the whole of humanityto suffer from some mental illness or other. The most pervasive one of signoificance here is 'attachment to self' and the tendency to identify with 'phenomena' exterior to self, such as ideas or view points. Thus a percieved 'attack' on an idea that one is enamoured with becomes an attack on self and thus something that needs to be 'defended'.

This leaves one vulnerable to outside control and less passionate 'outsiders' can drive the agenda. This is one reason I consider Angleton one of the more significant individuals, because he was a student and also a purveyor of this, and an insight or understanding of him becomes an understanding of the smokescreen that covers this assassination.