[Reader-list] FIR and this list
Shuddhabrata Sengupta
shuddha at sarai.net
Sun Dec 5 05:40:48 IST 2010
Dear Pheeta,
I enjoy all your postings, and often find them provocative and
conducive to the difficult task of thinking a difficult thought.
I am responding to your posting, for the moment, not in the spirit of
the immediate discussion, in recognition of the nudge you have given
it towards a more fundamental direction.
While, I am not one of those who think that those who are partisans
for truth, or for freedom, or for the cause of a better, more
compassionate world, need not always be modicums of politeness, and
sometimes, frank speaking may be necessary, and one need not always
be NICE to evil, I do not at the same time, think it is necessary to
strain oneself to be intolerant, violent, or to enact terror.
I say this because I think intolerance, violence and terror distort
their agents, they introduce elements into the equation which derail
a struggle for justice, make it impossible for those who are not
powerful to participate in the fight for what it is right. I am not
saying that I rule out all acts of violence. I think violence in self
defence, may in the rare instance be ethically possible to
contemplate, but by and large, violence changes the equation such
that the perpetrator of violence changes himself or herself in ways
that we dont have a true estimation of. I am not at all certain we
should risk such radical changes in the way we are made as humans,
even in order to make things right again.
The little ambiguity that I do see possible to entertain in a
discussion of violence is drained away when it comes to intolerance
and terror. I do not believe that you need intolerance to defend
yourself against intolerance. And I do not believe that you need
terror to defend yourself against terror. By its very definition,
intolerance, the inability to tolerate something can never be a good
defence of tolerance. It will constantly need things to be
'intolerant' towards, and will even invent objects to be intolerant
towards, when there are none. The same operates in the case of
terror. Terror is terror only when it is not directed against a
specific objective, only when it is random, utterly aleatory, as when
a bomb placed in a dustbin in a market place goes off, killing,
anyone, anyone who happened to be there, at that time. Terror can
never combat terror, it can only beget more terror. Intolerance can
never beget intolerance, it can only beget intolerance. Violence,
very rarely, can stop violence. There is a difference between never
and very rarely. But not that much, and that is why, very rarely, is
indeed is something that I hope needs to be resorted to, very rarely.
I think part of the problem of our confusion about what to do in the
face of active evil (and I personally think we have seen active evil
on this list too) arisese out of a failure to distinguish between
different kinds of power. I propose a distinction between force,
which is power in its capacity to act on things, and potency, or in
latin, potentia, as the energy that acts through things, makes them
move and grow. Most of the time, when we see the operations of power
that are evil, we are staring force in the face. We think force can
only be repelled by force. That is not true. Force can be combatted
by potency. Which neutralizes force, which bends force, absorbs
force, which melts force, which makes force slide away on impact
I think the thing to do is to think of the actions that can confront
intolerance, violence and terror in such a way as to neutralize them,
absorb them, mbend them, melt them, make them slide away on impact.
I am sure that terror and intolerance can never bend, absorb or melt
or present a slippery surface to the 'force' of evil.
Doing that does not require us to be BAD, as you put it, nor does it
require us to be NICE. But I am certain that it requires us to be
very, very, strong.
Thanks for the opportunity to be doing this thinking,
warm regards
Shuddha
On 04-Dec-10, at 10:19 PM, Pheeta Ram wrote:
> I often wonder as to why it is that people who are really right
> (and not on
> the side of the Right), are on the side of Truth, are on the side
> of what is
> ethical (with capital T), i mean people who stand for the
> oppressed, their
> struggles or themselves have decided not to tolerate the tyrant and
> get rid
> of their chains, are always on the defensive, as if being
> offensive, being
> rude, being aggressive, being violent to the goons on the Right is
> corrupting and sinful. Does being defensive, being a party who is
> always at
> the receiving end of violence catapult one to a higher moral
> pedestal? And
> if that is so, should one then infer that the Evil shall always be
> on the
> ascendant, always be the party charging at the people, always be the
> aggressor, always be the ruler, always be the one to wield Power?
>
> When shall the good people decide to be really BAD to people who
> are really
> really Bad, are Evil, are doing everything that is UN-ETHICAL?
>
> Should people who are in the process of breaking their chains be
> apologetic
> about it, act in bad faith, as if being good, being on the side of
> what is
> ethically right means never to be in the commanding position, never
> to be in
> charge of the Power, never be the aggressor, never be violent,
> never be a
> TERROR-ist, never send shivers of TERROR through the spine of the
> Evil?
>
> I think its high time WE reclaim all these categories, these
> 'virtues' we
> ascribe to the Evil (intolerance, aggression, violence, terror! ) and
> re-engineer the mainframe of Power, wrest it from the Evil, re-
> organise the
> terms of engagement, reset the variables, redefine the constants of
> this
> non-linear mathematics of Power to our advantage, the advantage of
> Good, the
> Ethical.
>
> There is no other way!
>
> On Sat, Dec 4, 2010 at 5:47 PM, anuradha mukherjee
> <anu.mukh at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> Ana,
>> leaving the list shold not be the answer to lumpens pretending to be
>> intellects or even political activists. Most of them just aspire
>> to be
>> future A Rajas or Nira Radia and get a share in some scam pie,
>> some tasty,
>> rich pie. So it is a strategy with them to be obnoxios and scuttle
>> discussions. Someone like Samvit does it by being obnoxiously
>> misogynistic,
>> others by calling names.
>> I would not have a problem with anyone expressing their opinions,
>> but when
>> they cross the limit of respectful dissent, I think it is time for
>> them to
>> leave.Not you. Such kindergarten tactics like bullying may
>> continue for
>> many
>> of these people, into the political sphere for some of them.It is
>> just
>> disappointing that people who have only begun to participate in
>> political
>> discourse are so unabashed about their ignorance, booing and
>> thumbing their
>> noses at others all the time. So if they speak, they are patriots,
>> even
>> when
>> they talk violently. But if someone like A Roy speaks, she
>> deserves an FIR.
>> Anuradha
>>
>> On Sat, Dec 4, 2010 at 5:09 PM, Ana Valdés <agora158 at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Thank you, Tapas. Normally I am not a "quitter", dvs I stand for my
>>> opinions
>>> and try to elaborate my dissensions, the problem is when the tone
>>> of a
>>> conversation, virtual or in real life, goes sour, when people throw
>>> invectives and scourn instead for listening and exchanging.
>>> That's the things which make me lose my patience and my pleasure.
>>> Best
>>> Ana
>>>
>>> On Sat, Dec 4, 2010 at 12:33 PM, Tapas Ray [Gmail]
>>> <tapasrayx at gmail.com
>>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Ana,
>>>>
>>>> Please consider this: for every such person there are at least ten
>>>> others who have only contempt for their actions. If you leave, this
>>>> majority is reduced and the small minority gets a chance to
>>>> become the
>>>> majority one day.
>>>>
>>>> Best,
>>>>
>>>> Tapas
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 30 November 2010 16:24, Ana Valdés <agora158 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> Sorry but I want now to unsubscribe from these list. If
>>>>> memberrs of
>>> this
>>>>> list has done that they have shown a flagrant disrespect tor the
>> rights
>>>> of a
>>>>> writer to speak freely and to to express its opinions.
>>>>> A person using the Sate recourses, police and judges to do
>>>>> that, has
>> no
>>>>> right to belong to this list, but since I am not the moderator I
>> choose
>>>>> ,myself to go and to leave you all with such despicable
>> interlocutors.
>>>>> Ana
>>>>>
>>>>> On Tue, Nov 30, 2010 at 8:40 AM, Jeebesh <jeebesh at sarai.net>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> dear All,
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>> http://www.mid-day.com/news/2010/nov/301110-News-Delhi-FIR-
>> Kashmiri-separatist-leader-Syed-Ali-Geelani-Arundhati-Roy-
>> sedition.htm
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Members of this list are behind the private complaint that has
>> pushed
>>>> the
>>>>>> courts to get an FIR lodged.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> There are member of this list who are named in the FIR.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> So, dear list members, the online and offline flows entangles
>>>>>> each
>>>> other.
>>>>>> Lets think hard.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> warmly
>>>>>> jeebesh
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> _________________________________________
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>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> http://anavaldes.wordpress.com
>>>>> http://passagenwerk.wordpress.com
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>>>>>
>>>>> "When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth
>> with
>>>> your
>>>>> eyes turned skyward, for there you have been and there you will
>> always
>>>> long
>>>>> to return.
>>>>> — Leonardo da Vinci
>>>>> _________________________________________
>>>>> reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city.
>>>>> Critiques & Collaborations
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>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> http://anavaldes.wordpress.com
>>> http://passagenwerk.wordpress.com
>>> http://caravia.stumbleupon.com
>>> http://www.crusading.se
>>> Gondolgatan 2 l tr
>>> 12832 Skarpnäck
>>> Sweden
>>> tel +468-943288
>>> mobil 4670-3213370
>>>
>>>
>>> "When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the
>>> earth with
>>> your
>>> eyes turned skyward, for there you have been and there you will
>>> always
>> long
>>> to return.
>>> — Leonardo da Vinci
>>> _________________________________________
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>>> Critiques & Collaborations
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> Critiques & Collaborations
> To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with
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Shuddhabrata Sengupta
The Sarai Programme at CSDS
Raqs Media Collective
shuddha at sarai.net
www.sarai.net
www.raqsmediacollective.net
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