Part ONE
Rather than continue to entertain posts which appear entirely unresponsive to my irrefutable points, and which, in addition, seem designed to mislead or deceive--I will do better to summarize the reasons why your behaviour was intrusive, overbearing, and ill-considered with regard to the CH/Poet issue, and to explain why I felt it was necessary for someone in the SI community to challenge the false premises with which you had constructed your straw castle which you floated in air.
The issue has never been whether or not you had the right to consider yourself unreal, but whether or not it was rude and irrrational to attack others for being "unfair" and mean while pretending that they themselves had no claims to unfairness or being hurt because (unlike Christopher)--THEY weren't real people.
Firstly, the CH situation invited a collaborative community response of many people posting their thoughts, opinions, and feelings over a lengthy period of time as they combed through the evidence. Eventually a certain consensus was formed by a "jury of peers"--just as groups of people have done for countless centuries outside of fascist or totalitarian interference.
As is always the case, this community "judgement" was expressed against behaviour which apparently fell short of conclusive legal authority. The community decided to censure CH's behaviour, and to look for some signs of contrition and genuine remorse. Again, this is how people have always operated since they first made value judgements in the interest of the group--and ultimately of the species.
You then took it upon yourself--not merely to add your voice to the jury--but verily to dismiss all other voices (except the subject and perhaps one or two others), and to dictate an opinion that the subject was treated unfairly. Clearly you made a value judgement that CH was real and that he was knowable and that his behaviour could be evaluated, , and fairly judged. One may presume you would not have made such a value judgement based on whim and fancy. It would be a contradiction in terms.
It is natural that people resented you for presenting in such a dismissive manner and with such contradictory "logic". It is natural for the group to always put its own interests for justice and harmony ahead of the self serving interest of one individual--especially where that one individual insists that the fears, hurts, concerns, opinions, and feelings of all others involved were irrelevant. This, of course, indicates that THEY are irrelevant. Such pejorative sentiment needed to be challenged.
We are in an age of interpersonal connection by cell phone, email, ICQ, bulletin boards, etc. This way of life existed only in the imagination of visionaries, but now exists as a commonplace.
But there was another vision often expressed by those science fiction writers and futurists: the vision of a depersonalized and dehumanized society where people were dismissed as a name and a number, while their thoughts, feelings, and humanity were considered irrelevant or superficial.. Often they were depicted as being herded into a mindless and heartless group of automatons with the machine like quality of the society which had informed them.
I was surprised to see you spearheading this very type of dehumanization and to notice you waving the flag of "I don't care" as you were only dismissing "disembodied voices" and not real people. We have seen this sort of thing before (and NO, I am NOT calling you a Nazi, nor suggesting even the slightest relationship). I am trying to suggest a parallel and an extension which may be understood as to the path which dehumanizing and depersonalizing people may lead. I am trying to show the linkage between dehumanization and the frightening consequences of shedding civilized values. I trust you will be gracious and competent enough to not internalize a message which is NOT about you...but about a concept.
The word "JEW" became a reference to a physical body rather than to a thinking feeling human being. By not acknowledging their thoughts and feelings (and by eventually, forcibly denying their expression), these REAL people were reified into disembodied voices, and were recognized only as a name...a JEW. |
