[Reader-list] what is to be done?

[radhikarajen at vsnl.net]

Aarti,

 perhaps inspired by Buddhadev Bhattacharya with his expression our "our people" paid back in the same coin "their people ?"

  It is not so easy in freedom of expression when it is a right, it becomes wrong only when the expression becomes a license to impinge on others rights of expression Let us remember one issue clearly, no right is absolute, no freedom is absolute in civil society as societal rights are always  supreme, common good rules over individual right in a just and equitable society.
  
  Now let me take you anothet thought that crops in my mind, the media is always respected in any democracy, so is the judiciary in democratic life. Why ?  The primary reason is these two "pillars" are the watch dogs in democratic nation to safeguard the rights of individuals and the society in the life of the nation.  But does it give license to the individual in media to behave the way he /she wants to behave in ridiculing the individuals, or be partisan in their "expert" views ? Or the judiciary and its respect will be retained by society when they see that judges are also more corrupt than a peon/clerk in a larger scale than these in society ? Anchors of visual media by being partisan, by being spokes persons of the red brigade or sycophants  and the looters of bofors and scams, do they qualify to be regarded as part of media ? Can we call them as journalists at all ? Some "expert pollsters when they come on visual media from CSDS or any reputed institution are seen as a
re being partisan, do we have left any credibilty for such persons and the institutions ?
  Let us have debate and discussions and let us be objective, fine but JNU which is fertile ground for breeding of "Idealogists" and idealogy which does not reflect the national ethos is atmost reserved for seminars and image boosting works, as poor remain as they are with bad or lack of governance, these idealogists will control politburos to hold the nation to ransom with combined votes of hardly 9.5 percent of votes, is it good for democracy ?.

----- Original Message -----
From: Aarti Sethi <aarti.sethi at gmail.com>
Date: Wednesday, January 23, 2008 10:23 pm
Subject: [Reader-list] what is to be done?
To: sarai list <reader-list at sarai.net>

> Dear all,
> 
> It is becoming more and more difficult to read the writing on the
> reader-list. From misogyny, the likes of which I do not recall 
> ever seeing
> before, to threats of physical violence against women's bodies, to
> right-wing Hindu vitriol, what is going on? It is actually now 
> painful to
> have to see 37 responses on a thread which deserves not even one, 
> becausepeople are valiantly trying to talk rationally, reason 
> with, respond to
> people who should just be told to shut up. I know its very hard to 
> keepquite and let things go, especially when we have exemplars 
> like chanchal and
> vedavati on this list. But we are all just getting fatigued now 
> with this
> relentless barrage of invective and hate that the list is constantly
> subjected to.
> 
> So now I am asking for solutions. What is to be done?, as Lenin 
> asked many
> years ago. What is to be done to save the reader-list? Can we have a
> discussion on this? Clearly responding to them in any rational 
> fashion is
> not a solution. And I frankly have no interest or hope that 
> anything any of
> us can say will make any difference. This is not about me refusing 
> to have a
> conversation, because the fact is, they do not want to have a 
> conversationat all. And i think that is quite clear from the 
> writing on the list in the
> past two weeks.
> 
> This is a request to to please stop engaging with them. Lets 
> ignore them,
> lets not respond to them, lets please just mark all their mails so 
> they go
> into our collective trash folders, lets talk about other things, 
> anything.They can then keep talking to each other about the 
> wonderful Hindu nation
> they will build ad nauseum. But we dont have to listen to this. 
> And of
> course they will claim this as a victory etc etc. How we cant 
> respond to
> them, how we have nothing to say to their brilliant argumentation. 
> I can
> already predict the responses to this mail. But I have no trouble 
> sayingthat they are right. I am limited by my own linguistic 
> incapacity to respond
> to writing which is so poisonous.
> 
> And a final qualification about my use of "us" and "them" and any 
> questionsregarding othering, insularity, assumption of moral 
> superiority etc etc. I
> can unabashedly say that I have absolutely no problems creating 
> this binary
> divide. I have no issues saying that these are people I want to 
> have nothing
> to do with, as far as I am concerned they are unethical and 
> violent and I
> dont see why they should have any purchase on my time at all. 
> There are far
> more interesting things being said and there are interesting 
> people saying
> them who I would much rather read, than the reams and reams of boring
> hateful drivel that constantly issue from the likes of chanchal..
> 
> If anyone else has any other ideas please lets hear them. And if 
> anyone has
> forgotten how to make filters so you can trash the trash, here is 
> a link to
> Vivek's very instructive mail on the matter:
> http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/2007-November/011005.html
> 
> best
> Aarti
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