Hmmm

Soren Andersen soren.andersen at mindspring.com
Mon Jan 17 16:29:14 CST 2000


On 17 Jan 00, an entity purporting to be D Roland Walker
[D Roland Walker <walker at pobox.com>] wrote [regarding Re: Hmmm]

> [JoshNarins writes]
> > I'm sure there is no legal reason stopping me from speaking the truth,
> 
> Yes, the truth is the best defense in a lawsuit.
> 
> But there are very good reasons, both legal and practical, to avoid 
> any type of derogatory imputation on the list.

There are -- no argument there. At the same time, there are also very good 
reasons, fundamental and crucial, for strenuously working to preserve 
Josh's right to post such a message here. You can be sure of one thing, I 
personally will not stand by silently and see this list censored in such an 
across-the-board way as what I read into the statements made here. That 
in itself is illegal, and more importantly unethical; it violates very basic 
premises of our legal system and our civil society.

I have a right and an earnest need to know when there are business people 
or business organizations (especially the latter) who are criminal in fact, in 
policy and in execution, and whose principle representatives are in fact 
mentally unbalanced or exploit those they come into contact with in an 
outrageous and unethical way.

I have as a working person and a potential client or employee a strong need 
to be allowed to read material that offers me the chance to hear about 
experiences of other people in my position, people who far too often are 
rolled over, chewed up and spit out a mangled mess by business 
organizations (precisely because they are single individuals), who, 
collectively in the times we are living in, are often displaying a more and 
more glaringly brazen  apparent belief that the collective human activity 
they engage in as employees of a corporation places them above the spirit 
(not just the *letter*) of laws that society has mandated and principles of 
humanistic fairness and ethics that individual human beings are required to 
show each other.

> Most importantly, it is off-topic.  I hope the soon-to-be moderator
> will discuss it with me in private mail.

The notion that "the most important thing" is that this message was "off-
topic" may be a statement that the author will one day want to rethink. I 
would say that more close to accurate truth would have been for this 
individual to write "For ME as an individual with some vested interest in 
this list, the basic underlying life-attitude i bring to this is that i must try as 
much as possible to make this uncomfortable matter someone elses' 
problem, not mine; and to try to ensure that I can likewise dispose of such 
even more easily in the future."

The most important thing is how we live as a human being, and that does 
not entirely exclude the requirement that we function as thinking human 
beings who confront ethical dilemmas head-on and strive to come to our 
own conclusions about rightness and wrongness and what basic principles 
must be emphasized in a particular case, most often, yes, at the expense of 
other principles. Surely any Net-based mode of communication has the 
potential to be exploited by crackpots who abuse the power technological 
development has placed within their grasp (I have been a personal target of 
such and I know full well whereof I speak). That still does not mean that 
certain areas are "off-limits" when it comes to ethics and judgment about 
rightness and wrongness of human conduct, merely because the major topic 
is employment or professional activities and announcements. 

Specifically, "Business" is just an arbitrary label we give to certain 
categories of human endeavor and actions that nonetheless are not basically 
exempt from ethical evaluation. Being involved primarily in "business" for a 
living does not mean one is somehow exempt from basic responsibility as a 
human being -- a responsibility to NOT entirely hand over discriminating 
(between right and wrong) thought into the hands of so-called "experts". 
Far worse than a lawsuit collectively awaits a society the majority of whose 
citizens take this route of washing their collective hands, 'opting-out' or 
copping out entirely on facing right-and-wrong head on in their day-to-day 
experience.

When someone says "that cannot be discussed here because someone might 
be sued," they are exhibiting a brainwashing  or an effect of coercion easily 
more effective than anything ever accomplished by the defunct Soviet 
system (although not different in fundamental spirit). They are saying 
cowardice -- cringing, petty, narrow-minded self-interest -- is "normal" 
and "to be encouraged as the norm" and that anybody who stands up with 
something to say about right-and-wrong outside of the abused and 
perverted arena of the Courtroom as it presently exists is a dangerous 
deviant. I am getting damn concerned about it. I'd like to register my 
opinion that not all the technological development nor all the material 
prosperity in the world will render the lives of those (or their children, or 
their children's children) who allow such a society to come into being, 
ultimately to remain "safe" and "comfortable" lives.

At the same time, it wears down the energy of *anyone* when there is a 
constantly flood of unsubstantiated negative characterization on a medium 
like this. Josh, I have to say to you that talking about someone you have 
had business dealings with behind his back is not the first-rate way to 
handle yourself. "First-rate" can get you a black eye or lose you your job or 
get you killed. Yeah, sometimes --seldom but it happens. Point is that just 
being a noisemaker isn't something to get too personally secure or puffed-
up about. Confronting a creep face to face and THEN explaining to them the 
error of their ways --making some noise -- that is "first-rate." It gains 
oneself and everyone else, in the big picture, a lot more than merely 
sounding off on an email List.

    soren andersen

--
"Some lawyers have been telling people that
you have to get permission before you link
to something. That's a terrible affront to
free speech."
        - Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of
                    the World Wide Web



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