Re: Doggeral

[Loup-Garou <aragorn@epix.net>]

In response to Brian Flynn's post regarding anonymity and fear of reprisal:

I understand and appreciate your argument, Brian. However, I disagree 
with it. 

If a person holds an opinion and a truth to be evident, then there should 
be no fear of reprisal. Reprisals may occur, but if that person believes 
fundamentally that they are correct in their opinion and presents their 
argument in a cogent and solidly reasoned way, those reprisals will be 
seen for the petty foolishness they would be. 

To disagree with a person's views is a fundamentally different thing from 
attacking their personal integrity. A lashing-out or reprisal 
generated by a person's well-argued, intellectually supported and 
persuasively presented opinion is in every case petty. A reprisal based 
upon a slanderous and highly personal attack upon a person's integrity, 
however, is completely justified by the circumstances, in my opinion.  

If the person who wrote the original "Doggeral" (sic) had confined 
themselves to an argument against the decision made rather than a 
broadside attack upon the person who made the decision, their opinion may 
perhaps have been better received. As it is, they have reason to fear 
reprisal because of the very personal slant of their attack. Had they 
argued against the decision and not the person, reprisal would be a much 
smaller demon. 

I have been on the receiving end of precisely the type of treatment given 
Cuan by the anonymous poster, but on a much larger scale. The resulting 
slanders and attacks eventually forced me to take a leave of absence from 
my college studies for no other reason than to prevent further damage 
being done to my friends' lives, my family's lives, and finally my life. I 
recognize fully that I am therefore biased. I do, however, hold a certain 
optimism that intellectual discourse will take the place of tripe and 
invective. 

Biasedly in Service,
Ashton


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