source file: mills2.txt Date: Fri, 22 Sep 1995 16:17:56 -0700 Subject: New Series of Posts from Brian, #1 From: "John H. Chalmers" 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