I’m at a loss for words.
I’ve spent a whole 15 minutes thinking of what I should write, and what I shouldn’t. That bothered me the most: thinking about what I shouldn’t write. The past 4 months have been crazy for many reasons: controversy, breaching the barrier between RL and life online, mob rule, and petty crusades.
Now add the spectre of pretension to that list.
Wah, I can imagine what Luthien would say now: “ei, bodoh, ape ni?!” (btw, enjoy your raya, hor…).
Fuckit, I’ll just come right out and say it. There is a conspiracy of opinion amongst us, of which we are in some way or another part of. It is the conspiracy of opinion of the many, it is the conspiracy of thought of the many, it is the same conspiracy that, I am ashamed to say, afflicts us with the need to go all out and ignore the substance of what a person says, choosing instead to impute what one finds negative about what is said to the character of the person.
If we write about MENJ, for example, we should only consider his arguments. We may think he’s an ass, but that’s our problem, not his. Because MENJ’s still a person, and a person shouldn’t be castigated for his opinion, however wrong or wrong-headed. If he chooses, for example, to ally himself completely with his opinion, then invariably what counter-arguments we might formulate against his arguments becomes a personal affront to him. Can we help that? Well, that question should be asked of him, then.
At the minimum, we should be able to extend some modicum of courtesy to all parties.
Reporting to sponsors attacks the person, reporting to the police attacks the person. What? Did you think only statements are ad hominem? And an important point: if I have in any way insulted you personally, and not for your opinions, I apologize unreservedly.
Similarly, attacking a person’s mode of expression is an attack to which baga-fym has no clear defense except to pour scorn on such belittling opinions. It’s like attacking the way a person eats for chrissakes.
What shocked me into writing this? Well, reading MENJ’s “defense” over here , and then reading an entry over at Ms Claire’s blog over here.
People tend to feed on the extremes on other people…more so the negativities. The thing with the net is that at best…there will only be a certain sense of civility in that no one is physically hurt, but realise…online…all gloves are off. People are exactly who they are online and when you realise all bloggers are narcissistic proud people. You begin to understand why things happen as they are for the past few months. It’s just people…without any sense of moderation doing what they find most natural to themselves…and it shows.
Comment by Edrei — Wednesday, 2 November 2005 @ 12:39 am
“Now add the spectre of pretension to that list.”
On top of the heap must be the ‘elite ones’ on the subject of blogs, bloggers and blogging that go way beyond helpful how-to hints/tricks to put the rest of us in our ‘proper’ places… senior/junior, well/unknown, high/puny traffic, Gen 1, 2, 3… not least the very latest and laughable “wheat-and-chaff.
As if these labels somehow determine and distinguish between substance, form and style.
Comment by percolator — Wednesday, 2 November 2005 @ 9:23 am
i think the catch is some bloggers have failed to draw the line between blogging about blogging, and blogging about something else altogether.
some people just happen to misunderstand things.
that’s something that most people have to reconsider. check back, track back. ultimately, no one can really blame another for misunderstanding, because, unfortunately for me, i am minishorts after all.
that makes it really hard to swallow, i suppose. but i’ll tell you this.
Comment by minishorts — Wednesday, 2 November 2005 @ 11:17 am
commented sthing about this here:
http://licencetospill.net/?p=352
Comment by luthien — Friday, 4 November 2005 @ 7:03 pm
…and so i’ve come to stumble upon another one of those blogs…
anyways, yes, i’ve come under some heavy fire of late for the way i write. a particular person has even said i seem pretentious and blog for fame. Whichever way the individual chooses to interpret my writings, I have this much to say. My blog is just a blog for me to voice out my personal opinions about issues that I feel strongly about. Can anyone here, anyone at all…twist that into blogging for fame for me?
Xpyre, insulting the opinions of the writer may be interpreted as flak aimed in the general direction of the writer’s face. After all, to whom the ideas belong if not the writer? As far as wordplay may take a person, it still takes humility to admit one’s mistakes, and beware as some people are out to make fresh meat out of any bombastic, fancy grafitti.
Moreover, that “belittling” post was not something i sat down and thought hard over. It was something that nagged at me, and kept coming back. Let’s just say i spewed it all out that fateful moment. Anyway, all my posts are impulsive; I do not spend time mulling over them or to slowly edit them for clarity, brevity, grammar, terseness or whatever other technical aspect of the language you can come up with. As I’ve said before, I do not blog for fame, so I can live with a blog sans all that.
Anyways, that’s how my blog goes. Hope you can stomach that though. Take my opinions neutrally, and at face value. Don’t imply or get worked up.
PS: Plus, I have to say, you write really well. Cheers!
Comment by baga — Saturday, 5 November 2005 @ 3:45 am
Wah, I really needed the holiday..
Edrei> I think there was some discussion about how the internet tends to bring out the worse in people. Would you believe there was actually a thesis paper done by a HongKong Uni MA student on the psychology of the mob on the internet? (blardy waste of time or what?! Luthien would know what I’m talking about since we dissed it to no end…) In any case, the tendency to hide behind anonymity is high, but I suppose it kinda makes things difficult when the person doing the dissing is out in the open.
percolator> whoa, don’t get me started on that. there’s just so much water under the bridge when it comes to people putting labels on ‘bourgeois’ culture and such, and mobs are the ones that achieve this most admirably. it’s pretty funny how socialist the internet can be
Comment by xpyre — Saturday, 5 November 2005 @ 11:59 am
mob on the internet - i believe both xpyre and i have had the opportunity of being on both sides of the fence before, right xpyre? hahaha. such fun the internet is!
Comment by luthien — Saturday, 5 November 2005 @ 11:20 pm