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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Neocon who wrote (67477)	11/22/2002 4:09:28 PM
From: The Philosopher	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 82486

Inherently, to reduce us to a bunch of blips is demeaning, as well as ludicrous, But what, indeed, ARE you here on SI other than that? Certainly if I knew you in 3D I would not do that. But on SI, the only way I know anything about you is by what you say about yourself in a series of blips. Are you telling the truth? Are you who you say you are? We have been over this before. I have no way of knowing. You have suggested that there are internal consistencies that should inform me, such as being able to discuss things at St. Johns that someone not familiar with the college wouldn't know, but that is a trick that competent illusionists and psychics have mastered over the years. When I was back living in NYC I went to a tiny off-off-off (and maybe a few more offs) Broadway improv theater production which included some of the audience who, without forewarning, were (unless they resisted too strenuously, and the kind of people who went to those productions didn't) brought onstage at various times to be in the production. In theory, the actors had no idea what the scenario would be until one envelope out of a big basket of perhaps 50 envelopes was opened and read at the start of the production. We were told that no scenarios were ever recycled, and from the actors' reactions it appeared as though indeed this was a totally new scenario to them. And of course the audience participants had no iadvance dea at all that they would even be selected. Now, each one of those people brought who they were into the theater with them. And they created a character on top of that which was not based on some author's or director's interpretation of the chacter, but was entirely a character they had to create. The point? I see SI very much as a non-physical improv theater. We are all to some degree or another acting. We all select what we will and won't share. I'm sure we all have secrets we would rather go to the grave with than spread out here for all to read. I certainly do. So what we are viewing in each other is solely what that person chooses to put in the electronic blips that they put up on the screen. That is all we are to each other. Not that we can't care about those personas -- when I watch a production of Lear I cry for Lear even though he purely a figment of imagination. Let's be clear -- there is a physical, real actor there, with his own life, his own mother and father, his own home, his own car, his own hopes and fears. But when I cry, I don't cry for him, but for the character he has created. I can distinguish the two. I'm not so sure that everyone here on SI can.

To: Neocon who wrote (67477)	11/23/2002 3:57:16 AM
From: Solon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

"Only a person with no class would pretend that how people are treated matters only "if they let it", or if their material interests are harmed. It is the worst kind of phillistinism, suggesting that decorum is a mere frippery, instead of essential to culture" Well put. I had thought to leave this thread as a rat-hole for those who have no class. But it was this sort of disrespect and mockery of existence which convinced me that such mistreatment of others should not be allowed to stand. I forget the exact quote: something like--the only thing necessary for evil to flourish is for good men to do nothing...