back to list

New Series of Posts from Brian, #1

🔗"John H. Chalmers" <non12@...>

9/22/1995 4:17:56 PM
From: mclaren
Subject: The few, the rich, the tenured...
---
Now that fall has arrived, it's time once again
for Your Humble E-Mail Correspondent to resume
the role of resident picador. Yes, once again
the season's ripe for my mild little scribbles to stir
the hearts of various forum subscribers--not to mention
an undercurrent of lynch mob frenzy.
And best of all...now that the few, the rich, the tenured
have slithered back from their sabbaticals on the French
Riviera, there is once again a sizable audience on
hand. Yes, what with the dirt-poor grad students
fresh from their summer McJobs to another semester
of academic toil, and looking forward embarking on
post-doctoral careers as rent-a-cops, 7-11
cashiers, or (in the case of Fulbright Scholars and
phi beta kappa valdedictorians) Neiman Marcus
clerks...time once again to crank up the heat.
Over the past year or twain, certain behaviours
have shown up on this forum which (as the
Japanese so memorably said of their war efforts
after the detonation of the 2nd atomic bomb over
Nagasaki) "have not necessarily led to a successful
conclusion." These dysfunctional behaviours are peculiar
to the internet...and may explain the high incidence of
"lurkers" among so many knowledgable and
distinguished subscribers. Perhaps if the maladroit
behaviours were curtailed, some of the more
interesting (yet silent) subscribers would venture
a post or twain.
Among the most common on-line malefactors
is the one I call the "nayjerk." This is the testy
tyke who responds to any post with instant and
vituperative denial. If you post "Water is wet," the
nayjerk will instantly shoot back: "Where did you get
that insane idea? Of course water isn't wet, everyone
knows it isn't wet--that's the most bizarre thing I've
ever heard." The signature of the nayjerk is a devout
refusal to post supporting references. Press him (it's almost
always a him; women almost never act this badly) for
data or a reasoned argument and there's nary a response.
Of course the nayjerk is merely out to garner attention
for himself, never to add anything productive to the discussion.
There's been all too much of this sort of thing on this forum--
particularly from the small-whole-number contingent.
Perhaps a word to the wise will reduce this on-line
birdlime.
Another unsavory form of Internettiquetlessness is the flame. To
date this forum has proven mercifully all but free of the
scourge; alas, some months ago a flame war broke out between
David Doty and Charles Lucy.
It was unproductive.
As a rule of thumb, whenever ad hominem attacks appear on a
forum like this one it's a sign that the subscriber would really
be more comfortable elsewhere--for example,
alt.rec.shotguns.bimbos.muscle-cars.
Of course "ad hominem" here refers to obloquy for the sake of
vituperation. "X is a charlatan," "Y is an idiot," etc. This ought
not to be mistaken for unvarnished critical judgments backed up by
evidence and clear reasoning: viz., "John Cage has no compositional
talent, as can easily be deduced from the fact that he consistently
ignores the implications of Miller's 1956 paper on the limits of
the channel capacity of human perceptual systems. If any evidence is
needed, merely listen to 5 minutes of `Music of Changes'--if you can
stand it."
You may despise such a judgment but it is backed up by
reasoning and gives concrete data. Thus it is a legitimate
post.
By contrast, "Y is an idiot" fails the test because [1] it is not
a critique on someone's ideas or abilities, but rather
verbal bludgeoning; [2] there is no supporting evidence; [3] there
isn't even a ghost of a reasoned argument.
Third and worst of all is the forum subscriber who responds to
a 1500-word post full of detailed references and elegant hypotheses
with "You misspelled "teh" in line 5. In line 19, the comma should be
a semicolon. In line 27 "metonymies as generative metaphor" should
have an `s' at the end of the sentence."
This sort of obsessive detail-mania is just about as futile
as any form of human endeavour short of hitting oneself on the
head with a ball peen hammer. Exemplified on this forum by
the posts of Greg Taylor, this kind of nit-picking is
a thorough waste of everyone's time. If you don't have anything
substantive to say, why obsess over minutiae? Who cares if there
was a period on line 29?
On a different topic:
Dave Madole has voiced concern about the length of my posts.
"Some people have to pay to get e-mail," he rightly points out.
However, enough people have told me that my posts are the
most interesting (sometimes "the only interesting") material
on the forum that I'm reluctant to abridge 'em. For those
of you who object, try the following: receive the tuning forum
as a series of individual posts and write a clever bozo filter
which detects the title of the post and zaps it if [1] the
post is by John Chalmers but [2] it has no title. John's own
posts all have titles but mine don't. A clever kill file should
let you avoid receiving my posts at all if you don't want to,
while letting all of John's pass.
One final word:
Over the past year or twain, various folks have sent e-mail to
John Chalmers in my name. Some of you were then puzzled (or
disappointed) at my lack of response.
You may want to think a few seconds about the implications
of the fact that I have no e-mail. My appearance on this forum
is an exotic fluke, possible only because of John Chalmers' courtesy.
When you send me e-mail I have no way of responding because
(let's repeat it YET AGAIN) *I have no e-mail.*
Unless you send me your snail mail address, *I have no way of
contacting you.* Thus folks like Miko, who are interested in
getting copies of my "Microtonal Music On CD" compilation
tapes, need to *send their snail mail addresses.*
It's worth mentioning, by the way, that some of the most
interesting and stimulating members of the microtonal
community *do not have e-mail.*
Kraig Grady, a superb JI composer and formidable theorist
in his own right, has no access to e-mail whatever. Jonathan
Glasier, a seminal figure in both ji and equal tempered
live performance, has no access whatever to e-mail.
Erv Wilson, perhaps the foremost tuning theorist in the
U.S., has no access whatever to e-mail. Tui St. George Tucker,
probably the best quartertone composer around, has no access
to e-mail whatever. Ben Johnston is not on-line and
likely never will be.
In fact, one could almost posit that the less access the
person has to the internet, the more interesting sh/e will prove.
(The reverse postulate--that the *more* access someone
has to the internet, the *less* interesting hi/r posts--does
not bear thinking about, and is certainly unwarranted. Well...
almost certainly.)
Thus my situation is far from unusual. It is fact only by
the slimmest of margins (and most circuitous of routes) that
my posts appear on this forum at all. Folks like Marc Perlman
may want to bear this in mind & include a snail mail address
the next time they send me e-mail.
--mclaren

Received: from eartha.mills.edu [144.91.3.20] by vbv40.ezh.nl
with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Sat, 23 Sep 1995 10:21 +0100
Received: from by eartha.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI)
for id BAA26673; Sat, 23 Sep 1995 01:21:50 -0700
Date: Sat, 23 Sep 1995 01:21:50 -0700
Message-Id: <950923081930_71670.2576_HHB23-8@CompuServe.COM>
Errors-To: madole@ella.mills.edu
Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu
Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu
Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu