Is it critique or hatin’?

2008 July 13

By Matt

In the aftermath of the last post I made, regarding Alwyn Cosgrove’s plagiarism of Lyle McDonald’s Ultimate Diet 2.0, there’s been two prevailing opinions.

One side feels that it’s despicable. The other side feels that it’s just undeserved hatin’, and people trolling for the sake of trolling.

Alwyn has since made a semi-public apology for not crediting Lyle, but in the process this has placed a nail in the coffin: he was given no permission to use Lyle’s work, and in light of other events the excuse of ‘conveniently forgetting’ the credit paragraph with the rest of the work is extremely flimsy.

But to those of you that feel it’s undeserved hatin’, I’m curious for the rationale.

The only excuse I’ve seen trotted out so far has revolved around character attacks on Lyle. It seems a lot of people resent Lyle; of course, most of these people aren’t bright and at some point have had their asses handed to them by him, so that’s no real surprise.

The troubling matter is that these folks somehow believe that Alywn’s admitted theft is somehow OK simply on the basis of not liking Lyle.

To those of you that feel that way: Are you stupid? Seriously, that’s a real question. I want you to look at yourself and honestly ask if you’re just dumb.

You can not like somebody all day long, that’s up to you. If you get all butt-hurt because you lose a debate, hey, that’s your character. It says volumes about you, but that’s another discussion.

The point is, you don’t justify theft based on the fact that you don’t like the victim. Simple as that.

To be bluntly honest, if you knew some of the behind the scenes background on this, and assuming you’re not one of these that can’t even understand how Alywn was in the wrong, you’d see things differently. I’ve hinted at some of this douchebaggery in previous posts here.

Point being, this is the tip of a substantially larger iceberg. As my drunken buddy Will Heffernan put it, Lyle didn’t invent fat loss, but the way he’s gone through the research and made it easily-digestible for the average person is pretty well unique, and almost everybody steals from him. The Body Recomposition forums have been a Guru hunting ground for years now, even if the plagiarism isn’t necessarily this blatant.

All of you out there that got high and mighty when you got Alwyn’s explanation, talking about judging before having all the facts, might do damn well to remember that it works both ways.

Going back to our knuckle-dragging friends, we see that any criticism of Alwyn must be unjustified, and Lyle’s just being an asshole. Nevermind that the guy’s had his material pilfered for years, without saying a word. The one time he actually does speak up about a very grievous case, and with someone that’s repeatedly taken material for profit, without so much as credit, he gets jumped on. Nevermind that Alwyn cut off ties with Lyle, for calling BS on his shaky interpretation of research (i.e., saying stupid things).

Explain to me exactly why we’re blaming the victim, again?

Just some food for thought for all of you out there that only see “hating”. You can bury your heads all you want, but it’s not “just hating” if it’s in the right. Yes, there are idiots that troll for the sake of trolling, but it’s a very blatant strawman argument to assume that any criticism of a guru or self-appointed expert is uncalled for.

Many of you single-minded types out there would do very well to remember this. Your heroes aren’t all they seem.