The Lies of Brooks Simpson

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I cannot help but wonder how somebody with such
questionable ethics could land such a responsible
position at a major state university. ~Connie Chastain

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I hadn't really planned to start tracking the lies of the Lyin' SOBs this soon, but Brooks Simpson has made himself hard to ignore. In the comment thread of a blog entry dated Dec. 29 and titled "Stirring the Pot," his mendacity is on conspicuous display.

He quotes part of a post I made at the Southern Heritage Preservation Group thusly:

Crossroads has a very recent post titled “Who Supports “Flagging” the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts?” and in which Professor Simpson engages in one of his favorite pasttimes — tarring people with the racist brush, in this case, the VMFA flaggers. I cannot convey to you how much I despise phony racism smears, particularly of good people like CC Lesters, Susan Frise Hathaway and others….

The professor replies with this:

Now, how did I tar the SNN with the “racist brush”? By mentioning that the flaggers were endorsed by SNN? By quoting Ms. Chastain’s good friend Dr. Hill? By mentioning that Ms. Chastain’s own blog heads the link list at SNN? By pointing to a flagger podcast with SNN? How is any of that racist?

Ah, no, perfesser, that's not how you wielded the fake-racism tar brush, but dealing with your questions will have to wait. Right now, I want to call my readers' attention to your claim that Dr. Hill is my "good friend."

It's a baldfaced lie.

And it is by no means the perfesser's first lie about moi. It's just the first one I've decided to devote an entire blog post to.

Not that I would object to calling Dr. Hill a good friend, if it were true. In fact, I'd be glad to acknowledge him as such, if he were. It just so happens that he isn't. He's an acquaintance of mine.

I've met Dr. Hill in person quite a number of times at public events, and "swapped howdies," as my Daddy used to say. I've heard him make speeches perhaps half a dozen times at some of those events.

I used to be a member of the League of the South, of which Dr. Hill is president, and I received quite a few emails from him during that time. They were virtually all mass mailings. Only a handful were to me personally, and even those were about League business.

From 2000 to 2004, I published a personal e-zine, 180 Degrees True South, a pop culture look at the proSouthern movement that featured its successes and failures, its movers and shakers, its critics and defenders -- which sometimes included articles about the League of the South or League events. Occasionally, Dr. Hill himself was the subject. A few times, I received emails or comments in my guest book from him, always about the content of 180 DTS articles.

Since Dr. Hill joined Facebook and friended me several weeks ago, he has made a few comments to and/or about me, some of them quite complimentary, which I appreciated very much.

I dunno. Maybe in the perfesser's world, those things are what constitutes good friendship. Maybe it's drafty and cold and lonely way up there in the Ivory Tower, and nearly anything can look like "good friendship" from that distance. Pathetic, huh? But my concept of good friend is more than minimal contact, mostly via the Internet, with an acquaintance, however personable and admirable I think he or she may be....

I suspect Dr. Hill would also be very surprised to find out that he and I are good friends.... Perhaps he will let me know if/when he reads this.

Now, I'll admit this is not a huge lie. It's not a lie of much consequence, for me, anyway. It's no skin off my nose to be called Dr. Hill's good friend. Presumably, it's no skin of his nose, either.

It just simply isn't true. Which makes Brooks Simpson a liar.

Which leads to the question ... why? What makes somebody lie the way Brooks Simpson does? (And he does, frequently.) Yes, this particular lie isn't of any consequence for me, but any lie is of consequence to the liar, whether they may realize it or not.

So, what do you suppose it is? Could it be as I've already alluded to, that the professor is so inexperienced in human relations that he doesn't know the difference between good friendship and acquaintanceship? Or does he know and he's "confusing" them on purpose to make a point? And if so, what point? Does he imagine that because he holds (or feigns) a bad impression of Dr. Hill, that everyone does? And thus, Dr. Hill is somebody he can use to smear others, by association?

And why this obsession with tarring and smearing people, anyway -- to the point of telling baldfaced lies, even when they turn out to be of no consequence? The obsession to smear others -- particularly with society's witch-hunt issues, of which "racism" is a major one these days -- is sometimes an indicator of a person's feelings of uncertainty about their own morality. Could that explain it, at least partly?

Whatever may be his motivating factor, I cannot help but wonder how somebody with such questionable ethics could land such a responsible position at a major state university.

It's a little creepy, when you think about it. Are all faculty at our nation's institutes of higher learning held to such a low ethical standard? Or are liars like Professor Brooks Simpson the exception rather than the rule?

(Photos: Dreamstime and Public Domain Pictures)