Reader responses as a Rorschach test

I’ve been writing for an unseen public for a great many years, yet I still get bewildered by the astonishing range of responses my words can elicit. Some of the feedback I receive is warm and gratifying, reassuring me that I’ve connected with a reader—but sometimes it’s so angry, even vituperative, that it makes me wonder how I could have misfired so badly. Just in the past week, for example, I received the following (excerpted) emails, the first from someone explaining why he was ordering both my books, the second from someone who has been reading Renting Dirt:

We read a few of your articles & blog posts and appreciated what you had to say. We are new owners of a resort & campground in Minnesota and are finding [the] balance between charging enough to keep the lights on and adding amenities, yet keeping the experience approachable for local families from the entire socioeconomic spectrum.

That was a greatly appreciated pat on the back—but then there was this:

I’ve never in my life tried to read a book about real estate, general investing or any other information topic that was so clearly dripping with one-sided political propaganda than yours. If you want to be a liberal pussy, that’s your business—but my family purchased an RV park and I bought your book trying to become better educated on RV PARKS. Take your own advice in the book and understand that nobody wants to hear about your political beliefs. If you’re taking people’s money, maybe try to educate them without pissing them off with your snide left-wing sissy nonsense.

Wow. That’s the sort of diatribe that can take the wind out of your sails—and even more so were it not for the counterbalance provided by other readers. But still: you have to wonder why anyone would think he has a right to impose his vision of a book on someone else’s writing.

On reflecting about this at some length, there are two observations I can report. The first, and less original, is that there’s a chunk of the population for whom certain words or phrases trigger a visceral response that shuts down critical thinking. It’s Pavlovian and possibly beyond conscious control, and in its unthinking fury ends all discussion or nuance. Worse yet, it dehumanizes those who unwittingly pulled the trigger, making them unworthy of respect, consideration or compassion.

And the list of triggers keeps growing: pandemic masking, abortion rights, LGBTQ+, critical race theory. In the case of my angry correspondent they included “Trump” and “extreme weather,” the first used in a description of objectionable flags and banners displayed by many RVers, to the dismay and sometimes fear of other campers; the second as part of a lengthier discussion about the campground industry being oblivious to growing climate threats. Mind you, this was all in the context of a book clearly described as a “first-hand narrative” of our ownership of a campground, with all the many problems and challenges we faced.

But instead of responding with an argument about why these aren’t problems, or why they’re overblown, or why the reality is more complicated than I allowed, my correspondent simply resorted to firing back with what I presume he thought were other triggers, i.e. “liberal pussy” and “snide left-wing sissy nonsense.”

That’s taking the intellectual high ground, eh? En garde!

Fortunately, I’m too old to have my feathers ruffled if someone calls me a sissy, and I probably am at least a liberal pussy—if not a radical one—so that swing is a whiff. But this sort of ad hominem riposte does make me wonder what the writer hoped to accomplish with his rant, and if he realized how much more he revealed about himself than he may have intended. Such a small-minded, rigid personality must feel under assault every day.

But the other observation I’ll make is that my raving correspondent is not all that unusual in this industry—and that my Minnesota fans may find themselves, with their commendable effort at “finding balance,” very much in the minority among their peers. Not that the majority are quite as wild-eyed, but as a tribe, mom-and-pop campground owners overall are fiercely individualistic, resentful of taxes and government regulation and certain that they know better than anyone else how to run their business. And if you don’t agree, shut up.

Quite aside from whether they’re right or wrong, there’s a case to be made that hardened attitudes are essential for success at running an enormously demanding enterprise. Doubt yourself, be wishy-washy about your rules, allow your campers to run your business—that way lies ruin. But over-the-top certitude may not be the best fit for dealing with people, either, and mom-and-pop campgrounds are all about the people. There’s more than one kind of balance that has to be struck in this business.

Given a choice of staying at a campground operated by the first of my correspondents vs. one run by the second, I wouldn’t hesitate for a moment to pick the first. I’m guessing that would be true for most other campers as well, not for political reasons but because of a wish to avoid unpleasant personal encounters, but unfortunately that’s a lesson the second writer may be incapable of learning.

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