MideastWeb Middle East Web Log isn't a regular stop for me, but this sounded so…familiar I need to share enough to let you decide if you want to read the rest. It's kinda long.
Facing "enlightened" racism
02/09/2004
One of the dilemmas of writing a blog that invites reader comments is that you may sometimes receive comments that do not address your views one way or the other, but go off in other directions, and run at cross-purposes to the enterprise of the weblog itself. How much time does anyone want to spend policing a website, anyway?
The occasional stray comment that's unrelated to the contents of a blog entry is inevitable and probably not worth anyone's concern. Worse is a de facto re-purposing of the comments section -- through either lengthy or multiple posts -- as a soapbox for other people's miscellaneous rants, a sort of free-rider blogging. (Get your own, folks!)
And worse yet is a "re-purposing" that turns MidEastWeb into a forum for racist diatribes. What follows is a description of two recent encounters with comment board abuse. It's meant to suggest how this blogger, at least, will respond to future outbursts. Your comments are, of course, welcome...
…To be sure, not everyone involved with MidEastWeb lives in the Middle East -- I don't -- but the main point remains the same: dialog, tolerance, rapprochement, not conflict and hate propaganda. Coexistence, in short. (The formal name of the group is "MidEast Web for Coexistence.") An essential ingredient of the project is to humanize people to each other:
The "enemy" takes on demonic proportions in any conflict. Each side may imagine the other with horns and a tail. The enemy may be imagined as engaging in terrorism and sadism most of their waking lives. In reality, the enemy are people quite like their enemies. They (We) eat, they get married, they have children and hopes for the future. They have insights and talents and foibles. They mourn the losses of loved ones. They read books and enjoy a good joke now and then. These simple truths must be brought home to all parties in any conflict through personal contacts, exchange of small talk and jokes and the trivia of life, through accounts of personal tragedies and loss, and of joys and disappointments, through working together, and eating together and relaxing together, as well as through exposure to culture and wisdom of others.(Curious readers will find reflections of this perspective in some of my earlier comments here, here, and here.)
An important tool in the pursuit of this agenda is dialog, which we hope to advance online through the MidEastWeb dialog email discussion list, as well as the comment boards at this blog. So it is disappointing to see certain readers trying to turn the blog into their personal platform for the disparagement of "the enemy." Two recent examples also testify to the growth of a more sophisticated racism -- forms of systematic hatred that attempt to camouflage their malignancy behind a patina of enlightenment.
Posted by P6 at February 9, 2004 05:19 PM
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Comments
And sure enough the first comment posted on this entry is about how Islam really is evil. Probably the next comment will be about how Jews really are evil too. This is why I stopped posting about Israel/Palestine. I still get the "Islam is evil" comments directed at me personally.
Posted by Al-Muhajabah at February 9, 2004 06:10 PMYou are aware of the "Plexiglass Slab Floating Over the Tarpit of Hell" theory of site commenting, right?
It is basically the following: when you add a public discussion forum to your site you are placing your site on a big slab of plexiglass which floats around on the Tar Pit From Hell. As long as no one actually uses the discussion forum, you are safe. But the more people pile on to use the discussion forum, the deeper your site sinks into the Tar Pit From Hell. There are various measures you can take to slow your descent into the Tar Pit From Hell, but none of them deal with the fundamental problem, which is the fact that your site is sinking into a damned tar pit.Posted by P6 at February 9, 2004 07:40 PM
I hadn't heard of that specific theory but it sounds about right to me!
Posted by Al-Muhajabah at February 9, 2004 09:34 PMThe "enemy" takes on demonic proportions in any conflict. Each side may imagine the other with horns and a tail. The enemy may be imagined as engaging in terrorism and sadism most of their waking lives. In reality, the enemy are people quite like their enemies.
Yes, but I have furnished this self-portrait for full disclosure. (Note--I sketched in a mustache I've never had; to conceal a blemish in the likeness.)
Posted by James R MacLean at February 10, 2004 01:33 AM
You were really impressed with that Martian economist thing you wrote up a while back, weren't you?
David Brooks still gets indigestion over that thing.
Posted by P6 at February 10, 2004 07:30 AMLOL
Posted by Al-Muhajabah at February 10, 2004 07:09 PM