If you start a website or blog site, which I recommend, expect to get letters from hostile strangers. I recommend that you ignore these letters. Your time is valuable. Theirs isn't.
I get a lot of highly critical letters from strangers. I am not sure why they feel compelled to write to me. They do not know me.
I write a lot of articles. From time to time, I receive a letter from a stranger that begins with, "I am not an economist" or "I am not a historian," and then lectures me on my flagrant mistakes in economics or history.
These people are perfect strangers. I have not heard of them. Almost never do I receive a letter from any specialist in a field who calls my attention to a specific error. Instead, the letters are from people who have no background, which they freely admit.
What motivates them? I do not understand this. Surely, they do not expect to change my mind. Changing someone's mind is always a rare event. It takes tact, considerable background in the field, and evidence. Yet the letters I receive never offer a link to a page with a counter-argument. They never refer to books in the field. I have never received one that cited a scholarly journal. As for primary source documents, they are out of the question.
Yet the writer knows I am wrong -- so wrong that he decided to sit down to give me his view.
I am not speaking of letters that point to an error, such as a wrong date or misspelling. Specific, documented errors are wrong and should be corrected. Rather, I am talking about letters that imply that I have not done my homework, or that my interpretation is nothing short of ludicrous.
Why would anyone take precious time to send such letters? Time is short. Why waste it?
If these critics had their own websites ($5/month) or blog sites (free), they could post their responses on-line. Others could see their criticisms. Others might be inoculated against my supposed error. But these critics never have a website or blog site.
They should. If they were really serious about getting their ideas across to others, they would publish on-line. Then they could send me a link to the page where they have posted their refutations.
A refutation that is written only for the writer of the original piece is a waste of the critic's time. It indicates that the critic has a very low opinion of the value of his time (correct) and a very high opinion of his own intelligence (incorrect).
I recommend that everyone with strong opinions or something important to say start his own website or blog site.
I also recommend that a blog site not offer a forums/feedback section. Unless it's a subscription site, a forum attracts the loonies, whose goal is to spout off. Because it's a free forum, it's a target.
If you start a blog, and you then receive hostile letters, you can always send the obvious nut cases a link to my response:
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