[Reader-list] On Sarai postings

[Tapas Ray]

Nazneen,

My personal reasons for joining this list and staying on as long as I 
have are the same as yours. Just as you find some of the posts very rich 
and illuminating, so do I.

But I have been completely ... disgusted is the word ... at times with 
some of the exchanges. I do not know if you were a subscriber when a 
group of members, who are very active in the current debate/shouting 
match as well, had tried to drown out opinions opposed to theirs. This 
went on for a long time, too long in my opinion. List administrators 
stepped in eventually, and things were better for some time. But only 
for some time.

Since you have urged everyone to take up this issue, I have forwarded to 
you and Radhakrishnan, a little while ago, two messages on this subject, 
which I posted recently along with Aarti's response to the first. That 
wasn't the first time I had appealed for some semblance of civility. I 
have been asking for some system of moderating the posts, but this has 
not been accepted so far.

However, this is not simply a matter of civility. It would have been bad 
enough had it been so. It is also about fostering rational critical 
debate. What we have here probably is nominally rational and critical, 
but lacks an essential *condition* for such a debate - I mean the 
absence of coercion (or attempts at that), bullying, etc.

It is of course not possible in reality to have a discourse of purely 
communicative reason. A conversation is *never* purely an intellectual 
exercise and people *always* have motives other than finding the truth 
in ideas. It is not even the case that consensus over what is good or 
necessary can be reached on every issue. But the point is that in these 
exchanges, the purposive, strategic element - specifically, the urge to 
establish hegemony over opponents - seems to be pushing the real thing 
to the edges, or at least warping the debate far too much.

That should be the real concern, I think.

Tapas


Nazneen Anand Shamsi wrote:
> Dear Tapas, dear all,
> 
> I don't want to either agree or disagree with you, Tapas. The reason for 
> this is, because, by either agreeing or disagreeing one is forced to 
> take sides. I don't subscribe to reader list to either form my belief 
> system or change it. I subscribe to reader list because, I want to, in 
> all my earnestness, engage with all that is happening around me.
> 
> I value Aditya's, Pawan's or Radhikarajen mails as much as I do 
> Shuddha's, Shivam's or Inder's. What I don't like is sometimes unhealthy 
> nature of conversation. Now, for the longest time, I was silent. I 
> thought it was okay. I thought maybe this is the nature of a public 
> conversation and so on. Then there were these excellent writeup by many 
> people on how to or how not to comment/respond. I was okay with that 
> too. But then in the middle of all this, something changed and now I 
> want to say, something. And I would urge everyone, who's been 
> subscribing to participate.
> 
> Only we can correct ourselves. We have to find some way of engaging with 
> each other.
> 
> I really don't care now whether a Pawan is right or an Aarti  is 
> correct. What I WANT is a strict protocol of engagement from the Sarai 
> team.
> 
> This is the only way we can have a decent conversation. If Pawan wants 
> to expose someone. Then I am all for it. All hypocrites, 
> pseudo-secularists, fake nationilsts must be exposed. If someone wants 
> to have a total anarchy and is disgusted with the Indian Nation state, I 
> say good that you have this position. Good that you can articulate it 
> really well and I would love to read what you have to say.
> 
> 
> But this DING-DONG must stop.
> 
> Sarai people are silent because these poor fellows are committed for a 
> non-moderated list.
> 
> We are not. and I want to plead to the all my fellow members of the 
> reader list and ofcoruse to tongue tied memebers of Sarai community to 
> please have a system in place for people to nicely engage with each other.
> 
> PLEASE!
> 
> Nazo
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Thu, Sep 25, 2008 at 7:05 PM, Tapas Ray <tapasrayx at gmail.com 
> <mailto:tapasrayx at gmail.com>> wrote:
> 
>     It's like a shouting match here between union types trying to decide
>     the fate of the nation in a stuffy and hot college canteen with
>     greasy walls and little oxygen. No wonder some folks are getting a
>     little confused.
>