Now that we have been favored with this and a second post from Harold on
the same subject, I think I must respond.

I agree that it would do no harm if this Forum were  more free-swinging and
generally more active.  And yet, there's also something to be said for
"stodginess," or at least for restraint.

I have a lot to say.  Please bear with me:

--Like Harold, I'm a member of Waldenlist, a Yahoo! group about 1/4 the
size of Twain Forum, that typically generates at least 25 times as many
postings.

--Whether or not he remembers it, Harold originally found the Mark Twain
Forum because I foolishly mentioned it in a couple of Thoreau postings.  I
ignored his request for information on how to find this group, but of
course it was easy to track down.

--One of Harold's postings about Twain Forum on Waldenlist was indeed much
as he describes above.  But another earlier one was exaggerated to the
point of being pure crap.  Summarizing from memory, Harold announced that
nearly all of us signed our postings with our academic credentials.  And
that we seemed to post mostly to impress each other with our knowledge.  He
did not make Mark Twain Forum sound "stodgy."  He made us sound like a
bunch of pompous, humorless horses' asses.

--I can easily imagine Harold explaining that he was "just funning" when he
wrote that--a pet phrase of his to use after he has hurt feelings or
belittled someone.  Debate can run hot on Waldenlist, and I too have been
guilty of hurting people.  But at least the rest of us--everyone but
Harold--are open in admitting our intentions  when we write to stab, and
usually we're willing to apologize.

--Harold and some of his friends have created a raucous  atmosphere on
Waldenlist that, in the opinion of many old timers (I'm sort of a "middle
timer"), has driven several fine Thoreau scholars out of the group  in
disgust.   When this point was raised on the list, the response of Harold
and his crowd was (in effect), 'Screw them.  If they can't tolerate our
openness, let them go away.  Who needs 'em?'

--While the departure of scholars and its causes must remain matters of
conjecture, I can testify that a few remaining distinguished Thoreauvians
are far likelier now to lurk than to participate.  The contrast, for
example, between the silence of the folks editing the Princeton Edition of
Thoreau (a team at Northern Illinois U.) and the active participation on
this forum of the Twain group at Berkeley is painful and sad.

--I can also testify that the noisiest member of Waldenlist (not Harold)
uses "professor" as though it were a mild obscenity; that "scholar" has
become  such a negative term that Waldenlist postings often include verbal
burps  like, "Now of course I'm not a scholar, but...";  and that one of
Harold's chums is wont to spit "elitist!" as though it meant, roughly,
"someone who rapes little children, and prefers them crippled."  Speaking
personally, I've learned so much from one Waldenlist member who rarely
joins discussion.  She brims over with good ideas; but she has told me that
she fears to speak her mind because she was once so thoroughly trashed as
an "elitist."

(It does not take a Mark Twain to appreciate the absurdity of a group that
are so insistently "not scholars" and "not, Not, NOT elitists,"
enthusiastically  debating  such down-home topics as the links between an
obscure paragraph by Bronson Alcott and something Thoreau deleted from the
fourth draft of "The Pond in Winter" . . .  you know, just like other plain
folks get all stirred about NASCAR or the Steelers' defense?)

--What bothers and annoys me (and other Waldenlist members) most by far is
that Harold and his chums have clad themselves in a Reagan-like coat of
Teflon that permits the rest of us only two choices:  We must  either find
them vibrant, hilarious Wild Spirits, or we must reveal ourselves to be the
most prudish of prudes.  There is no middle ground.  No space for saying,
"You aren't nearly as hilarious as you think you are."  At its worst, the
atmosphere on Waldenlist has become the e-mail  group equivalent of "Love
it or leave it."

To expand on something said by an outside observer, it never, never seems
to strike Harold (et al.) that just possibly he is much less the winsome
Wild Spirit than the child who pisses in the communal  swimming pool.  Or
the child who 'makes poopy' on the carpet during an adult party, and looks
around with a big grin that says, "Ain't I funneeeee?!  What a grumpy old
grump you must be if you don't think I'm  funneeee!!!!"

--My best friend on Waldenlist is a woman who has been a member for
years--in my view, an outstanding amateur authority on the whole Concord
group and their milieu.  She still sticks it out on the list, despite often
feeling plagued by Harold and others. (She has this very annoying way of
checking her facts, and this noxious preference for fact over
theory.)  Anything but a prim person, she has been shoved over and over and
over into the Prude Box by them.   The Wild Ones have created a caricatured
version of her on Waldenlist that just ain't so . . . but what can she do
about it?

--Further, as a very private person she hates it that Harold has shared
personal information about her on the list.  Not long ago, he announced on
Waldenlist  (in passing, naming her place of employment) that he might have
to phone her at work, 'just to see if she was okay.' He then did so,
obliging her to hang up on him.

--Harold has asked if Mark Twain would be at ease in this forum.  It's a
reasonable question.   And fairness also obliges me to say that Harold
(and, again, his chums, too) has very often contributed well to
Waldenlist.  He and his friends have raised good points tossed out good
questions.  Much of the Waldenlist debate is lively, useful and
friendly.  At their best, Harold and other Wild Ones have been valuable
members.

But surely there is a difference between a more open approach and infantile
behavior?   A few weeks ago, Harold felt  Waldenlist needed to be informed
(I'm paraphrasing:) that 'Let's face it, Emerson was a piece of shit.  Hey,
but that's ok.  I'm a piece of shit, too!  We're ALL pieces of shit!!'

If the choice on Twain Forum should ever be between that level of discourse
and stodgy, I'll vote for stodgy every time.  And I suspect Clemens would
too.

I have always been able to count on Mark Twain Forum for thoughtful
exchanges.  By contrast, my most useful discussions of Thoreau these days
take place 'off-list,' with people I've met in the group who are as
appalled by the worst on-list shenanigans as I am.

Much too often Childe Harold and a few others have made some of us yearn
for another list--one perhaps like the Mark Twain Forum--where grownups
might discuss Thoreau and his world.

Thank you for hearing me out.
Mark Coburn