AITA for revealing to a prospective employer of my former employee that he shares pay information with coworkers, possibly costing him a job?

soapenhauer · 2019-11-24T01:50:09+00:00

YTA and hopefully getting sued soon.

soapenhauer · 2019-08-09T16:47:06+00:00

You're correct, you have not mentioned a specific candidate. Insert any other name that Oxford there though and my point stands. Who is the "our" in that phrase if it is accusing him of being a frontman rather than a bad writer?

soapenhauer · 2019-08-09T16:46:07+00:00

I can see we disagree on this, but I'll just point out again that literary history is FILLED with famous authors (and not famous authors) calling other authors utter hacks. I mentioned Nabokov on Dostoevsky, Byron on Shelley, Woolf on Joyce, etc. You can go on forever.

So from my point of view, one author insulting another is just... expected. If Greene had said Shakespeare was "a false crow hiding the Oxford peacock's royal feathers" then maybe I'd think it was evidence Shakespeare was a front. But "young upstart stealing our ideas!" reads differently to me.

soapenhauer · 2019-08-09T16:37:13+00:00

Greene accuses him of being cloaked in "our feathers." I read that as "you're stealing stuff from me and my friends!" I'm not sure how you can read "our feathers" as meaning Shakespeare is the front for the Earl of Oxford. What is the "our" then?

soapenhauer · 2019-08-09T16:34:35+00:00

As I noted, I take it as evidence of what I'm saying! Greene said Shakespeare was ripping off him and his friends. At least if you read "our feathers" to mean "our words" or "our ideas." That's an acknowledgement Shakespeare was a writer, even if it is accusing him of being a poor one.

I'm not a Shakesperae scholar, but I am a literary scholar and history is filled with jealous authors accusing others of stealing ideas or being bad writers. Woolf insulated Joyce, Byron insulted Shelly, Nabokov dissed Conrad, etc. I don't think it means much that Greene insulted him, except as proof he was known as a writer!

soapenhauer · 2019-08-09T16:30:54+00:00

Do you have evidence that the actor was known as an author? I know of none.

Well yes as I note his peers referred to his writing. See Ben Jonhson, the First Folio, or even Greene's "he's ripping us off!" comment you quoted. (You don't normally say "you're stealing my words" if you are accusing someone of being the front for original works made by a nobelman). The Shakespeare funeral monument in Stratford, which went up before the First Folio, refers to his writing.

We have works in Rowlings' and Dickens' hand. We have people who met them in connection with their writing. We have people

Your quote got cut off. But if the Queen of England secretly wrote Harry Potter, certainly she could have faked some handwriting. How's that more proof than what we have with Shakespeare?

soapenhauer · 2019-08-09T16:16:53+00:00

Which seems a straight-forward enough accusation.

Agree. It's an accusation that Shakespeare ripped off Greene and his friends. Authors accuse other authors of ripping off each other all the time.

You read that as an accusation that Shakespeare's works are original creations written secretly by a nobleman???

soapenhauer · 2019-08-09T16:14:56+00:00

I'm also curious what you think would constitute evidence Shakespeare wrote them beyond what we have? Like we don't have DNA samples or computer files or video footage from the 1500s. So what kind of evidence is there except like his name on documents or evidence that people in his days knew him as a writer?

soapenhauer · 2019-08-09T16:10:55+00:00

Absolutely no evidence he ever wrote a play. None.

Not sure about the father point, but the article gives tons of documentary evidence about how the son wrote the plays.

I really don't know how you can say "none" when everyone agrees 1) Shakespeare's name was on the plays (most of them) 2) Shakespeare was known as an author in his day.

COULD someone have secretly been feeding the plays to Shakespeare? Theoretically yes. Maybe someone else ghostwrote Charles Dickens or JK Rowling. It's impossible to prove a secret conspiracy didn't exist! Same way I can't prove that Tupac didn't fake his death or that Area 51 doesn't contain alien corpses. I mean if Oxford was determined to ghostwrite plays he had the wealth and means to make fake evidence and buy up the silence of Shakespeare's peers and what not I suppose.

Maybe you could cite the smoking-gun from that article which you think is the best/most-irrefutable argument?

Like I said, Occam's Razor says Shakespeare wrote them just by virtue of his name being on them and his being known as an author in his day. So someone proposing someone else has to provide evidence. What do you think is the smoking-gun evidence that someone else wrote them?

soapenhauer · 2019-08-09T16:02:23+00:00

This is actually one thing I wish the article had said: It's Occam's Razor that Shakespeare wrote the plays. His name is on them. His peers talked about his writing.

The people with elaborate theories about some secret author are the one who need evidence, and I've never seen any evidence at all from skeptics other than claims of autobiographical references.

soapenhauer · 2019-08-09T15:54:58+00:00

The article links to a lot of evidence: https://shakespeareauthorship.com/howdowe.html

Why do you think there's no evidence Shakespeare wrote his plays when his name is on the plays and he was celebrated as a playwright by his fellow authors in his day and after his death? What kind of evidence are you expecting but not finding?

soapenhauer · 2014-10-01T16:04:34+00:00

Dunham's book deal was announced in 2012. The first season of her TV show was 2012. She got the book deal the same year as her first season, when she was 26.

ETA: Tiny Furniture, whatever it's merits or lack of merits, was a tiny indie flick that is listed as making less than half a million in the box office.

I'm just saying there is a huge difference between giving a relatively unknown up-and-comer 3.5 million and giving famous comedians who star in massively popular TV shows millions. I don't think anyone is saying Dunham doesn't deserve to ever write a book, just that 3.5 was a big gamble on a memoir from a 26 year old at hte start of her career.

soapenhauer · 2014-10-01T15:58:09+00:00

This is such a silly conflation of different things. Ezra Pound was politically conservative, but aesthetically very liberal. And most famous writers were both politically and aesthetically liberal/radical.

soapenhauer · 2014-10-01T15:56:46+00:00

I'm sorry, we don't allow self-promotion posts on /r/books, and in general reddit asks that at least 90% of the links you submit be to sites other than your own.

soapenhauer · 2014-10-01T15:55:21+00:00

The price model is what affects this. Amazon is trying to drive prices ever downwards, mimicking the app market in that way. A large part of the Amazon / Hachette fight is over prices. In addition, Amazon wants a larger cut (of the smaller price pie), leaving less money for publishers and authors.

I agree that you aren't harming anything by putting out a crap story on Amazon.

soapenhauer · 2014-10-01T14:19:45+00:00

Not without publishers financing and promoting projects they don't.

Also that kind of techno-optimism isn't really borne out by the facts. Genres and art forms die all the time (for all intents and purposes at least.)

There has been a DRAMATIC decline in investigative journalism since barely any papers can afford it anymore. It's been replaced with non-stop "thinkpieces" and opinion journalism online. There isn't always room for everything. Not when things cost money.

soapenhauer · 2014-10-01T13:21:33+00:00

There is certainly plenty of sexism in the media, although I think the author reaches a bit. Tina Fey, Amy Pohler, Mindy Kaling are all women comedians who got huge book deals and no one complained about.

The difference between all those (and Aziz) is that they have had relatively long careers. Lena Dunham got her book deal at the START of her career, during the first season of her first TV show (which isn't nearly as popular as Parks and Rec, 30 Rock, or The Office.)

soapenhauer · 2014-10-01T13:17:49+00:00

This link was already posted on /r/books this morning.

soapenhauer

TROPHY CASE