naif's Blurty

naughty. naughty.
I'm subscribed to an artscommunity egroup, which is supposed to be a networking egroup for arts practitioners in Singapore. By the way, these past few weeks have seen an increase in postings about the war, and then suddenly one day this guy with the nick/name kappakun wrote in that he was tired of anti-war 'propaganda'. So I wrote the below back to him (but first I'll post his response to the group):

From: kappakun
Date: Mon Mar 24, 2003 1:11 am
Subject: Re: [capacity-building] against misinformation... Or, the vanishing of moderate ground

Let me reiterate that my response to Alvin's post is about the "the
proliferation of anti-war literature", as Terence so eloquently put. I can
comfortably say that Alvin understands where I am coming from, for I was
reminding him the adverse (numbing) effect from the overdose of anti-war
information. I was not accusing him of any crime or misdemeanor, nor did I
ask him and others to "shut up". Alvin and I are not in disagreement.

I chose not to respond to Lucy's three options because I refuse to go down
the undesirable path of unnecessary rhetoric. As for the so-called "strongly
worded" email Lucy received from me on the 17th of February, the email is
pretty clear in saying what it means and meaning what it says. It was meant
to be a personal response, as I was expecting a reply from Lucy although it
didn't happen. I feel terrible if Lucy treated it as something like a hate
mail.

I am both glad and uneasy reading Terence response because he hits the nail
on the head, it was like he reads my mind. However, I am concerned with the
unnecessary escalation of tension in our forum.

Last but not least, I have to say that I didn't see any constructive
discussion/debate about the war in this forum. All I see are the mass
circulation of anti-war slogans, FAQs, essays and petitions that are
brimming with emotions but little else. More of the same thing everyday,
what does this say about our forum? Did the moderate ground simply vanish
into thin air, or has it been hijacked? Being the person that has now been
labeled as a "pro-war xxxx who wants others to shut up", it is hard for me
not ponder the likelihood of the latter.

Warmly,
Kappakun

MY reply:

Dear kappakun (is that, by the way, onomatopoeia for the sound of a smart bomb exploding?),

I must say that I object to you coming in and dismissing Alvin's post. Might I point out that it wasn't a reflexive, keyboard-happy forward, but was actually preceded by Alvin's own opinion on the matter. In return, he got the following curt, agitated one-liner from you:

"Stop spamming please, there are already too much of these floating around in the cyberspace and our inboxes."

First of all, what is 'spam' to you might not be considered spam to others. And quite honestly, nobody is sending something where you're being offered tonics for a longer penis or hair loss prevention, or asking you to watch an underaged teenager undressing to her webcam, or contribute some money so you could help an orphan Nigerian reclaim his locked inheritance. Someone is contributing something which I think is relevant to many people on this egroup (I am assuming that the tally of subscribers here who would like to be more enlightened on the current war so they could make informed opinions outnumber those who would like to lengthen their penises).

Secondly, by using the prohibitive word 'stop' and at the same time not identifying the party you are addressing, it seems as if you are targeting Alvin himself. You are making an accusation that he is responsible for much of the spamming that has caused you so much grief. I have read through most of his postings, and I can safely say
that he has contributed certain personal reflections on the war, which you might have overlooked since any posting with the word 'war' in it might constitute 'spam' to you. I can vouch that Alvin wasn't
merely a forwarding agent in this 'overdose of anti-war information' that you talk about, and that he indeed did try to provoke a "constructive discussion/debate about the war in this forum".

Thirdly, you make sweeping assessments that there is 'too much' of such literature "in the cyberspace and our inboxes". I can understand that you would be able to tell if there's an abundance of a certain thing in your inbox, but I am very intrigued as to how you've been able to quantify the proportion of such literature in 'cyberspace'. Are you holding on to some Internet master registry? Again, the question of saying that there's 'too much' of something is a question of relativity. Personally, I think there's too little information being circulated that truly reveals what is being obscured by the American media industry.

I don't care whether you are anti-war or pro-war or a fence-sitter who just wants 'the war to be over as quickly as possible so we can all get on with our lives' but are you bigoted, or what? How can you insist that someone cease postings on a certain issue simply based on your own yardsticks and limits, by the very fact that you've had enough???

While Lucy abstains from being prescriptive, I won't. There is a function in yahoogroups that allows you to check yahoogroups postings on the yahoogroups.com page itself. This means that you won't be receiving any more emails from the artscommunity group, thus relieving your precious inbox from the dire weight of anti-war 'spam'. Instead, you can check for the postings when you visit the page. The titles are displayed for you to pick and choose which posts you desire to read. This is what I am currently doing, by the way, and it does free up my inbox from a daily stream of postings.

Next, I want to take you up on this statement "All I see are the mass circulation of anti-war slogans, FAQs, essays and petitions that are brimming with emotions but little else."

1) I have not seen anyone posting a 'slogan'. Unlike your rich one-liner, I think people respect this artscommunity space enough to actually post articles of considerable length, especially if they are about something as important as the current war.

2) I have seen only two instances where an FAQ was posted. Alvin posted it, perhaps not realising that Lucy had made a similar posting earlier.

3) 'Brimming with emotions but little else'. I would like to caution you now about assuming falsely that the anti-war movement is one run by idealists, sentimentalists, or even worse, irrationalists. I have seen various anti-war articles which talk about the war from a variety of perspectives--there are political readings, historical analyses, views from military strategists. Sure, the ethics of the war itself crops up often, but there are many anti-war articles which offer much more than the kind of emotional angst you describe.

Also, in Singapore we are conditioned to believe that 'idealism' is an affective stance, whereas 'pragmatism' is one based on the nuts and bolts of realpolitik, something objective and rational. But I will argue that idealism is also a function of the intellect. It is this false dichotomy between heart/mind, idealism/pragmatism that allows idealism to be so readily dismissed by the empiricist technocrats who run this country.

Lastly, I would really be intrigued to hear your explanation of what you mean by a 'moderate ground'. I wonder if your definition of being moderate matches the government's own definition of what 'moderate' means (as in the case of a 'moderate' Muslim, who is expected to be amenable to assimilation by self-suppressing signs of difference). By a 'moderate ground' do you mean a ground that is disengaged, apathetic, or suppresses its views? If you reply, at all, to this post, it is this one question which I hope you will address.

Idealistically yours,
Alfian. : )