After my last xiaxue post, I’d become quite sick and tired of carrying on internet dramas. MENJ’s spiel deserved a response, of course, but now that things have boiled down again to deciding how to ‘regulate’ other bloggers, I found myself thinking about things I thought I didn’t have to think about anymore.
In any case, Edrei has posted an interesting observation about the ’saga’ if this little drama can be called that. I just want to point out that we should be really, really clear about what we mean by “retribution” and “control” as it pertains to speech online (NOT offline), and to the whole notion of right and wrong.
We control animals since we assume that they are not rational, whether this is true or not. We discipline children to teach them because they are still *minors*. A person of sound mind and upon reaching his majority is subject tot he full extent of the law, if I’m not wrong. There is a reason for this, and excuse the slight pun, reason is the reason.
And reason, or at least, civility, is the compact by which we normally live and which, I think, is a suitable base from which we can proceed online. It appears to me that we are inured in a culture where we are quick to appeal to a higher authority to adjudicate disputes, when we should find our own collective ways of dealing with problems in our own ‘family’, especially online. Shaolintiger’s piece on internet whoring is a nice example of responding in kind.
Things become dangerous when we bandy words like ‘terrorist’, ‘fascist’ or ‘communist’ as charges to be levelled against an opinion - it has the effect of silencing that opinion, however offensive. And it is in contrast to such offensive opinions that more rational ones survive and hold their ground.
If MENJ persists in ad hominems or baseless allegations, call him out on it. If he uses flawed logic, it should be pointed it out to him. This is engaging with error, and rationality will always hold out when pitting argument against argument. We should be lucky that there are no real-life, unthinking mobs on the internet wielding machetes or steel pipes. We should therefore always guard against becoming a mob, I think. I suppose it’s difficult; I’m not immune from being a herd animal, either.
And there is another problem: if we allow someone else to decide for us what is right or what is wrong, then we will become beholden to the ones to whom we have allowed such power. (I know, I’m writing abit funny, but bear with me.) This sets a precedent for authorities to become involved in our online activities (we shouldn’t be naive; they are already involved). But further to that, it allows bloggers who don’t like you, for instance, to report you for whatever reasons they so choose - which is what might happen here.
Anger, outrage and now threats - even action. I think Hui Chieh put it best in a post some time back, when Singapore’s blogosphere was embroiled in controversy over a few seditious bloggers:
Responding to hatred with hatred is one thing. But what happened to the reasoned response? Is that hatred too? Or necessarily childish? Or is the very notion of a reasoned response to unreason such a rare flower in the jungle of the internet? –destined only to be trampled by hatred on one side, and criminal sanction on the other?
Something for everybody, including myself, to chew on, I think. Maybe it’s time to start responding rationally to MENJ’s invective? I done some small bit, a long time ago. Maybe it’s time other people put paid to his opinions?
Update: It appears there won’t be reports of any sort, and rumours to that effect have been exagerated, which is a great thing! Now I’ll want to see what MENJ’s hosting company intends to do. You can see more over here.
Comments (6)
Nice touch on this one. Though, in a sense, I have paid attention to Menj’s opinions which was the reason why alarms went through my head and a line had to be drawn. Take note. I drew a line and I did what I had to do based on what I know. My job doesn’t go as far as to bring this to the authorities but to just bring it to the public eye (especially when he banned the Malaysian IP addresses) and explain what this is about and why I think that way because that’s as far as I can and am willing to act on…and because mine is still a personal blog.
Yes I simplified the matter into very basic principles because I don’t want people to be bogged down by what control, freedom of speech and justice mean in all this. I just would like people to know that something like that has crossed a line and I would like to stand up for it.
So for the purpose of this situation I did choose to ignore the “what ifs” of the right and wrong because that will be a line drawn for another day. The simple matter will just be this…is religious genocide wrong? If not, why? If so, then choose your way of dealing with it and let the collective masses speak for themselves. You have your way and that’s good because you know a line to what he said had to be drawn and you know where you stand and you’re doing something about it. But instead you have people talking about things that don’t matter in otherwise juvenile comparisons. Why is that so hard for the rest of us to have an opnion on something so basic?
Hi Edrei, thanks for stopping by. I’m not specifically arguing against your post, if that’s what you’ve read from my post. I’m more in disagreement with what’s actually going on in Desi and minishort’s site where they have specifically called for real action against MENJ. One blogger has even reported MENJ to his hosting company - that’s just beyond the pale, too.
I suppose my point is this: if there needs to be control, who should do the controlling, and how? From your post I gathered that you do agree there must be some kind of response, but following up from Hafiz’s comment, I felt that arguing for some basis of control as you have in your post can have unintended consequences - the extremes of which are the current plans to launch an action against MENJ.
I don’t think your comparisons are juvenile, actually, because it brings to the fore the point: how far should we allow this sort of thing to go on, and how do we respond? I hope to have clarified :)
Ahhh, but I didn’t think your thoughts on my thoughts (this would get tedious if we keep saying that) are juvenile, I just think that some of the examples that you brought up about how we bloggers handle our own without running to an authority figure are…well…juvenile at best.
At this point, you and I don’t know the future of what should and should not be controled especially in matters such as this. Knowing how we Malaysians act…it could just be hot air blown. But yes there should be a response…but that’s it. There should be a response. A post like that is supposed to trigger a part of your brain that says “this is bad news, I should do something about it”, yet most of us choose to remain in apathy towards the situation for reasons that escape me which was my beef at the end of this.
I can see where you’re coming from here that you shouldn’t use a fire hose to put out an unwanted candle even though the candle can cause a fire. And in many aspects I would tend to agree, so would Minishorts which is why at the end of it, she too choose to try and wipe her hands clean of all this by just asking for an apology (if possible), which is pretty darn civil.
Just as long as people respond, I’m pretty much satisfied. Apathy towards something like this isn’t exactly a good thing. So maybe in many ways a lot of us are children when it comes to realizing what’s important and why. At the end of that…sometimes we need to be reminded of what is black and white…before we learn the greys, browns and all the inbetweens. :)
Yah, I do agree. It does feel sometimes that the Malaysian blog scene needs to be more active or participatory in that regard! :)
i think the terrible misunderstanding that is going on here is this rumour going around that I am about to run to the authorities reporting MENJ, that which I’m against. this was, and is still a call for bloggers to exercise their rights and demonstrate that Malaysian bloggers are perfectly capable of discussing issues face to face, in an intellectual manner. I hope you read my last post for context.
I suppose I missed that one, shocked as I was at Desi’s call for support to send letters to the PM. If there isn’t going to be a sudden nationwide protest in real life, I suppose that’s the best anyone can hope for :)