kicking people when they’re down
“Higher criticism”?
MENJ’s appeal to the historical-critical method is a red herring. He wasn’t applying ‘higher criticism’, he was applying his own version of some form of ‘meta-something’ criticism which has lost its footing. “Higher criticism” has closer relations to hermeneutics than polemics, dear sir, and I can’t see how in any way it falls under the ambit of discussion. At all.
And I see you’ve now deleted your offending post, since I can’t find it anywhere on your blog.
Sir, if you’re reading this, it’s one thing to attack the policies of a man, and quite another to attack his family, his honour and to kick him in his balls while he’s grieving. It isn’t even about public mourning, it’s just plain mean-spirited.
You can cloak your distasteful attitude with the trappings of terms you assume people don’t understand, but shooting yourself in the foot by reference to a Wikipedia entry that shows more than anything how absolutely clueless you are is just the icing on the cake, really.
I don’t understand what is it with people who don’t respect the dead. Have you been to funerals and overheard the words of spiteful people saying spiteful things about the dead person? I have had the displeasure of experiencing this so very un-Malaysian predisposition; the predisposition to be a complete ass when common decency isn’t part of their lexicon.
Yah, man. I agree with MENJ: he has first class amenities at his disposal, but a sun-baked mentality attached.
Update 22/10/05: Ok, it’s pretty spooky. As at 11.40 am today, MENJ’s blog can’t be accessed. Did some yahoo waste all his available bandwidth for this month? Did someone hack his account? Did the government blow his bits and bytes to oblivion? And my personal favourite, did the Gods of Internet Justice kick ass?!


I feel you. But he doesn’t deserve your attention. He’s not worth it.
Comment by __earth — Saturday, 22 October 2005 @ 1:51 am
It’s sad, he could be doing much good educating people about Islam, but his views just get the better of him sometimes.
Comment by xpyre — Saturday, 22 October 2005 @ 11:44 am
On further reflection, I think I may have over-reacted after thinking a bit more about the whole public mourning issue. I can only say that I was personally outraged by his post, but is that sufficient justification?
Also, I’m now in a possition to question myself in the context of what I said here. With pieces like West’s, how will I ever know if my motivations for decrying the death of some public figure, or some ‘chastising’ of insensitivity, will remain a response that arises from my own thoughts about the subject matter rather than being a case of me engaging in a global excess of emotionalism?
Comment by xpyre — Sunday, 23 October 2005 @ 12:27 pm
Hey…since when do fundementalist have a rational state of mind anyway?
Comment by Edrei — Sunday, 23 October 2005 @ 4:36 pm