In which I sing a song for JonMon

[harrock.livejournal.com]

My creative energy has been just about zero lately, thanks to a very busy schedule at work. But I'll say this for JonMon: His Lawsuit of Mass Destruction has inspired me. My wife, firstfrost, has received a threat letter, but she is not yet named in the LMD. I'm proud of everything she has said about JonMon. I didn't need JonMon's validation to be proud of her, but data is data.

I haven't been named or threatened in the LMD (yet), and I don't mean to make light of the anxiety that it has caused in our community. In particular, if you have taken something down or remained silent thanks to JonMon's toolbox of intimidation, I want you to know that I think no less of you for it. Every situation is unique, and we all have our limits of what we can deal with right this minute. My limit is high right now, so I'm standing up.

Likewise, I respect the opinions of those who have counseled caution or outright silence. I disagree with some of your key points, and I feel that some of your arguments apply better to people who are more concerned with anonymity than I am, or who cannot afford to risk an extended legal fight. The bottom line for me is this: One of the basic functions of any community is to sound a warning when a predator is around. If we're not sure the law can handle that, then it's time to get out and push.

This song is about JonMon's Lawsuit of Mass Destruction, and it is sung to the tune of "Charlie on the M.T.A." Permission is hereby granted to $verb this song, for all values of $verb, for every human being on planet Earth with the exception of Jonathan Graves Monsarrat. No permission of any kind is willingly granted to Mr. Monsarrat. In case he hadn't noticed, that's what happens when you are in the habit of excreting on your community.

---

Let me tell you the story
Of a man named JonMon
Who would really like to have his way...
He's the internet icon
Who you can't use your Psych on
He's the man who never will learn!

  Oh, his bridges are burned
  Please don't let him return...
  'cause his lesson's still unlearn'd!
  He may scam forever
  In the Square of Davis
  He's the man who never will learn!

He used to go by JonMon
But his rep has gone creepy
What's a smooth operator to do?
When you need to sound wholesome
Though your act is still loathesome
Then I guess that "Johnny" will do.

  Oh, his bridges are burned
  Please don't let him return...
  'cause his lesson's still unlearn'd!
  He may lurk forever
  On the blogs of Davis
  He's the man who never will learn!

Johnny says he's a victim
Because people keep on talking
Of some things no court has ruled
He says "come on and prove it
Or I'll make you remove it"
He's amazed when nobody's fooled

  Oh, his bridges are burned
  Please don't let him return...
  'cause his lesson's still unlearn'd!
  First he's looking your pants off
  Then he's suing your ass off
  He's the man who never will learn!

In Johnny's world the only law
Is what he gets away with
'less it's something he can use
To club his detractors
And intimidate their backers
And escape from paying his dues

  Oh, his bridges are burned
  Please don't let him return...
  'cause his lesson's still unlearn'd!
  He will leave you disgusted
  His ways won't be adjusted
  He's the man who never will learn!

Now the citizens of Davis Square
Are standing up to Johnny
And we all know what to do
When he says that you've been served...
And whines "I'm not a perv"
Just smile, and answer "fuck you!"

  Oh, his bridges are burned
  Please don't let him return...
  'cause his lesson's still unlearn'd!
  He'll play his games forever
  In the Square of Davis
  He's the man who never will learn!
  He's the man...who never will learn!

Comments

[moechus.livejournal.com]

Very clever and very nice but it also strikes me as needlessly and gratuously cruel (plus kicking him when he's down will doubtless make it even less likely that he ever learns). No doubt he deserves it (and a lot more) but still, I would hope that we could still treat him with some decency. As I lawyer, I have advocated a vigorous and uncompromising response to his shenanigans. But that's as a legal strategy designed to end this mess as quickly and forcefully as possible. As a human being, I urge compassion, maybe even forgiveness, regardless of his past misdeeds and whether or not he deserves it.

Lord Polonius
My lord, I will use them according to their desert.

Hamlet
God's bodykins, man, much better: use every man after his desert, and who should 'scape whipping? Use them after your own honour and dignity: the less they deserve, the more merit is in your bounty. Take them in.

[harrock.livejournal.com]

As a human being, I am also in favor of compassion, decency, and forgiveness. Unfortunately, these are virtues that JonMon is adept at exploiting, and he has overspent his account. I commend you for serving as a community backstop in those virtues, and we're a better community for it.

I'm afraid I can't agree with your characterization of needless and gratuitous cruelty, however. Satire has to sting, or else it's useless. An unpleasant dose of satire is an obvious possible consequence of trying to silence a community with a bogus lawsuit, but JonMon's track record suggests that he doesn't actually learn anything unless the consequences pass from hypothetical to real. I'm doing my part to make them real.

[moechus.livejournal.com]

Perhaps but satirizing institutions and those in power is one thing; this strikes me as something else. Kicking someone when they're down.

Let me suggest an alternative interpretation to the narrative of this sorry affair. I begin with the observation that no human being, no matter how creepy or evil they may be, sees themselves as creepy or evil. Not Adolf Hitler. Not Jeffrey Dahmer. No one. Everyone constructs a self-image that, however, illusory, rationalizes and justifies themselves (or they create a universe in which creepiness and evil are virtues). Everyone is virtuous in their own mind. Furthermore, everyone will go to the utmost extremes to maintain their self-justification and rationalization. The more illusory it is, the greater the effort to maintain it. It is a survival mechanism for the failure to maintain the illusion is often fatal.

Apply this paradigm to JonMon. First, he finds himself isolated, ostracized and despised. Surely, no one can doubt that he is in genuine pain (who wouldn't be?). But if he can't accept the fact that he himself is the source of his own pain (and who can?), he must be baffled and construct a narrative where he is the victim and everyone is conspiring against him. From a legal, rational or practical point of view, his recent actions are self-destructive and self-defeating (he has probably sabotaged his legal case beyond repair) but they make a sense as a desperate attempt to maintain his illusion.

I suggested on several occasions (before he sabotaged his case) that the best litigation strategy is to make it quite clear quite early that continuing the suit will be very painful for him (more painful than for any of the defendants) and that his best course of action is therefore to drop it now. I suggested an aggressive discovery strategy targeting all of his past misdeeds (and I have several times noted that his past is a target-rich environment). This presupposes that ending the suit will end the pain. But clearly it will not. What then is his incentive to drop it? If it is thrown out, he will come up with some new and obnoxious way to convince himself that everyone is against him. Perhaps it will be sufficiently obnoxious (or the effort will render him sufficiently dysfunctional) that society will intervene and see to it that he gets the help he needs. Or perhaps his illusions will finally be shattered and he will see himself as everyone else does, i.e., as a creepy stalker. At that point, he will have two options: getting help or killing himself. Since the former requires both courage from within and support from without (both of which, I suspect, will be lacking), I see the latter as more likely.

[firstfrost.livejournal.com]

Like harrock, I admire those of you who are over on the more forgiving side. I do think that society must have both forgivers and non-forgivers to function; if you have a society of people who always cooperate in Prisoner's Dilemma, then a defector will eat them alive, but a society of all defectors is miserable for everyone. Tit for tat works pretty well, but a Prisoner's Dilemma society is also better off when everyone is a little more forgiving than straight tit for tat. Of course, we aren't all running the same algorithms, and everyone must draw their own lines on what is forgivable and what isn't (and everyone has had their own different sets of interactions.)

Anyway, speaking only for myself, I am pretty sure that if he drops the suit, he will be a lot less the topic of my conversation than he is right now. This isn't kicking someone when he's down - it's kicking someone who is suing Ron and threatening to sue the rest of our community for five million dollars and hasn't stopped trying to do so yet.

[pywaket.livejournal.com]

This may seem unspeakably cruel to you, but given the way he's behaved his whole adult life (so far as I can tell), I would not shed one single tear were he to choose the latter option.

I've heard too many horror stories about how he treats people -mostly women, but not exclusively. The current harassment he's engaging in just proves he's a rotten human being.

ETA: the fact that he's down to be kicked is entirely his own fault. He could have been a decent human being, but chose of his own free will to act otherwise. I (and I'll bet a significant percentage of the women he's interacted with in his life) have absolutely no sympathy for him.

[litia2005.livejournal.com]

In what sense is he down? My picture of kicking somebody when this person is down is kicking an unconscious person on the sidewalk. This guy is not unconscious and laying down on the sidewalk, that's for sure...

[dcltdw]

I believe the fatal flaw in your argument is this statement: But if he can't accept the fact that he himself is the source of his own pain (and who can?)

When you find your lot in life to be unpleasant, it is your responsibility as an adult to look both within and without. This is one of many things that separates children from adults: children will typically only look without, and indeed, we praise highly those children that are making strides to adulthood by looking within.

You are then unnecessarily reductionist here: At that point, he will have two options: getting help or killing himself. Since the former requires both courage from within and support from without (both of which, I suspect, will be lacking), I see the latter as more likely.

The world is not binary, even though it is much simpler to think of the world this way. "Do nothing" is usually the easiest course of action for anyone, and I would suspect would be the (3rd) option that would be taken. A 4th option would be "do nothing, and engage in fantasies of revenge". A 5th option would be "move to a new city, engage in old behavior"; a 6th would be "move to a new city, engage in new behavior".

Redemption is easily found. It's all the hard work that follows that usually trips people up.

[agharta75.livejournal.com]

I had never heard of this guy until three weeks ago; and for the last week and a half I feel like I've been living in the Twilight Zone.

No sympathy at all here.

[benndragon.livejournal.com]

Compassion is good, but not when it could cause harm to others: http://pervocracy.blogspot.com/2012/06/missing-stair.html

[moechus.livejournal.com]

"Man must not disclaim his brotherhood, even with the guiltiest, since, though his hand be clean, his heart has surely been polluted by the flitting phantoms of iniquity. He must feel, that, when he shall knock at the gate of heaven, no semblance of an unspotted life can entitle him to entrance there. Penitence must kneel, and Mercy come from the footstool of the throne, or that golden gate will never open!" -- Nathaniel Hawthorne

Schopenhauer asserted that compassion is the basis of all morality. Christian/Buddhist ethics stripped of their religious origins and supported by rational argument (or rationalization--see my post above). Theologically, I am an agnostic pagan; ethically, I try to be a Christian (or is Buddhist?--at their core, they're so similar). We're all stuck in the same boat of existence, each one of us struggling against the rest. Compassion is the only way out. Judge not lest ye be judged.

[anyee.livejournal.com]

I don't hold to bullshit Christian morality, so I can judge all over the damn place without being a raging hypocrite. My morality lets me judge, as long as I am willing to be judged. I can offer compassion, but turning the other cheek is a part of bullshit Christian morality, which I gave up for Lent years ago.

So take the sanctimonious stuff and turn it into a hat or something.

People who are angry are allowed to sing songs. Sing. Songs. They're not rioting. They're not demanding his business be shut down. They are protesting in a form as old as existence. However, you don't like it (from what I've read and seen) when people violate your brand of bullshit Christian morality, though your own sins seem to be mysteriously above reproach.

And this is why I hate Christians. Their religion must always win, even when they say it doesn't. Your God is wrong. Mine is right.

[benndragon.livejournal.com]

I can't speak to Christianity, having never been one or studied the religion much, but I have studied Buddhism. Which is pretty solidly on the side of calling people out on their bad behavior as a form of compassion - people need to know they're fucking up their karma. You see, bad karma is not punishment as a result of behavior, it's a negative behavior pattern we're stuck in that keeps bringing us grief. Sometimes you need a really hard shove to get out of that pattern, which is why Zen masters sometimes engage in physical aggression toward their students to get them closer to enlightenment. And this is just a song!

In other words, letting someone continue to act in a horrible fashion isn't just failing to show compassion to their victims (and I am appalled by how little consideration you have for them, given how much you talk about compassion), it's failing to be compassionate toward them. You should ponder on that for a while.

[koshmom.livejournal.com]

I'm with you on this, Moechus, especially on the gratuitously cruel part. I admit writing ditties like this does satisfy a very primal urge, but encouraging compassion seems like a good idea. I'm not sure I'm at the "forgiveness" point yet, mostly because he hasn't done anything to deserve it. My opinion is that until another interaction with him appears, the "kicking him when he's down" just seems kinda excessive.

[moechus.livejournal.com]

I think it's necessary to make it clear that unacceptable behavior will not be tolerated but that redemption is possible if he wants it. Of course, this requires that he realize that he needs it and, as I said above, I suspect that he may not be capable of making that realization and surviving it. In any case, only he can choose to walk that path but we should not be blocking it.

[kelkyag]

Redemption requires rather more than wanting. Among other things, it requires sincere and diligent work, and rather a lot of it.

[bluesauce.livejournal.com]

Well won't someone please think of the children?

This is a man who goes around picking on people. He's a bully. He waits and bides his time to slap people with frivolous lawsuits to cause them grief...I'm not particularly concerned about his precious fee-fees.

[moechus.livejournal.com]

Who doesn't think of them? But the song at issue here isn't about them. I just said pretty much everything I was going to say in response to this post in response to Brynndragon (above) so you can read it there.

[anyee.livejournal.com]

Bullshit Christian morality strikes again. No, I am under no obligation to show kindness and compassion to someone who so obviously flaunts his immunity from doing the same to others. I have, according to the tenets of my faith, walked a mile in his very similar shoes and experienced acts of online "bullying". My behavior was very different and didn't involve the words "lawsuit" at all, even though what was said was far more damaging to me.

I am also required to give people the benefit of the doubt. That requirement cannot be fulfilled here because there is no doubt as the negative reasoning for JonMon's actions.

Don't throw Hamlet at me, especially anything involving fucking Polonius. Don't impose your bullshit Christian morality on me or this community. It's so...Christian.

[moechus.livejournal.com]

Please read more carefully. I have already answered you on the distinction (which you missed) between theology (I am a agnostic pagan) and ethics (I try to follow what Socrates, Jesus, Buddha, Gandhi, Schopenhauer and many others have preached--perhaps I should not have referred to it as Christian though the Sermon on the Mount is perhaps its best known exposition).

I don't know why you refer to Polonius as "fucking Polonius" when you advocate exactly what he did, i.e., treating people as you think they deserve to be treated.

[cfox.livejournal.com]

Having one's infamous misdeeds set to music seems a bit like having Westboro Baptist picket one's funeral. On the whole, I'd rather live a long time and be commemorated quietly, but if I were to meet a young and violent end, it would be disappointing for Westboro Baptist not to show up.

[ds-crier.livejournal.com]

I have been receiving e-mails from people who have known Jonmon well, from outside of this LiveJournal community, the details of which I will probably end up taking to the grave. What I can distill from these communications and share is this: if you are compassionate to Jonmon, if you forgive him, if you give him another chance... be prepared to pull a knife from your back.

In your case, pulling the knife from your back might result in a self-righteous orgasm, but those who do not share your philosophy and are tired of dealing with this individual after many years of constant issues are no longer willing to be accepting of his behavior. I think they are justified in venting and in warning others of their experience. Jonmon's MO is to try to (usually unsuccessfully) dominate everyone into doing exactly what he wants, and nothing less, by all means available. Mean words on the Internet are nothing in comparison.

[moechus.livejournal.com]

Far more people (alas) orgasm from inflicting pain on others than from pulling knives from their backs. I've heard lots of JonMon stories and don't doubt in the least that he is as loathsome as people say he is (on the few occasions I met him many years ago, he struck me as disagreeable). I don't in the least advocate accepting his behavior. Nor should treating him with some decency be equated with doing exactly what he wants. On the contrary, it should be made abundantly plain to him that he has a lot to answer for. And if he has hurt you, by all means steer clear of him. Just don't go out of your way to hurt him (or anyone else, no matter how deserving). You only add his pain to your pain and so increase the pain in the world. As Gandhi put it, "an eye for an eye will make the whole world blind."

[cos]

I see what you're saying (and I read much of the subthreads here) and I think you're entirely wrong in this case.

Many people probably agree with you in general about compassion, second chances, and avoiding cruelty, but don't think that applies here because they or their friends have had experience with this particular individual stretching back to more than a decade ago, have seen him repeat these behaviors over and over, and feel it's become useless to bother considering things like second chances anymore. But that's been discussed already in this subthread, so leave that aside for now.

What you're really missing is the positive value of a post like this, and the importance of welcoming it.

First, if you haven't already read it, please read my post on saying things in public. It's an important part of what I'm going to try to say in this comment, so I'm going to assume now that you've read it, and continue.

Now the key part: People were doing their part to say that kind of thing in public, and JonMon attempted to use the legal hammer to silence them. What's more, he's already previously apparently succeeded at doing exactly that. Various things about him on the Internet have been removed, and we know that in at least one case, they were the writings of someone he sued and won a default judgement against. Now again with this new lawsuit, we began to see some content being removed.

What people are reacting to, I think, is this attempt to silence them, their friends, or the community that seeks to warn them of something worth warning them about. If this succeeds, people will be more afraid to talk about it with respect to other people, not just JonMon. It's a real risk, and a harm to the community. It also feels infuriating when someone tries to silence you or your friends about something you think it's important for them to be able to talk about.

So what you call "needless cruelty" is actually people reacting by being louder when someone tries to silence them. That's not needless. It's an important signal: "if you try to use power to silence us, we'll be louder". It's also a very understandable emotional reaction.

Being entertaining serves a purpose. Parody and satire serve a purpose. They communicate in ways that aren't easily available otherwise. Furthermore, they encourage others to look. Rather than having a debate in a subthread few people will notice, a clever and entertaining satire like this song will get people to share it.

What you're trying to do is tell people that they should not express themselves in an effective way. That they should be more careful and guarded and limited in what they say and how they say it. In this context, your words are therefore in support of the harm that my post was talking about. You're promoting a message that will increase harm, rather than reduce it.

[also-huey.livejournal.com]

Exactly.

I'm here because a friend and several friends-of-friends were threatened. And as much as I understand that no one is the villain of their own story, here's another quote for you:

Someone said, "What do you say concerning the principle that injury should be recompensed with kindness?"
The Master said, "With what then will you recompense kindness?"
"Recompense injury with justice, and recompense kindness with kindness."

Your tax dollars paid for both the training that allows me to live without fear, and also (indirectly) my lawyer on retainer. So, if one of my friends is afraid to speak up, I can speak up. If you threaten someone, fear of you may silence them. ...but I ain't afraida you, and I will be louder.

[moechus.livejournal.com]

I'm not missing the positive value of a post like this; I'm just not buying it. In addition to my ethical reasons for advocating compassion (I think Schopenhauer was right to call the basis of morality), I have already given my pragmatic reasons for thinking it counter-productive and won't repeat them here. Let me add this. As I said in my original post, no one, no matter villainous they are in act, sees themselves a villain. They rationalize it. By the same token, no one sees themselves as needlessly cruel or even as acting out vengeful motives. They convince themselves that they are acting out of noble motives to serve a higher purpose. I've seen far too much in my life to accept such justifications (or any justification) at face value. Parody and satire do indeed serve a purpose (though often not the stated one). It is good to use them to attack corrupt institutions or the foibles of the human race. Using them to attack individuals and inflict pain is another matter (even when they deserve it).

Nor am I advocating silence or condoning his acts in any way. I value nothing in human existence more than human solidarity and the solidarity of victims is especially valuable. But you don't need ridicule and you should be able to come together without throwing away basic decency.

I have been accused only seeing one side here. That is not true; if it appears that way, it is only because the song at issue here was directed at one side. Indeed, I suspect that I am in a fairly unique position to see both sides, having experienced both social ostracism and sexual assault. I would not wish either one on any human being; both are horrible to contemplate and leave permanent scars.