From: farrell@turtle.cis.ohio-state.edu (christopher k farrell)
Subject: Re: Judgemental people (was Re: Enya nude??)
Organization: The Ohio State University, Department of Computer and Information Science
Date: Tue, 25 Aug 1992 19:59:12 GMT

In article <1992Aug25.175426.28080@cs.ucla.edu> salomone@ficus.cs.ucla.edu (John ($al) Salomone) writes:
>-> Either way, I don't see why the fact or lack of fact that Enya has 
>-> done _whatever_ in her past should cause some people to lose a 
>-> screw or two and post their resulting rantings and ravings.
>
>BRAVO.  I also believe that if people want to discuss something on the net
>they should be able to discuss it.  And if others on the net are apalled by
>that something they should not follow the discussion (they should not try to
>stop the discussion just because they don't like it).

	Yes .... and no.  The previous postings were blatant lies (yes, I paid
enough attention to realize with certainty they were having us on) masquerading
as truth; malicious lies.  Guys, this is ILLEGAL.  It's called libel.  They can
sue you for that, and with quite good reason.  You can't just go around
telling malicious lies about people and trying to pass it off as truth just to
defame them.  Sure, I would guess that most of us who read those posts where
shocked for about the 30 seconds it required to figure out what was going on,
but that does not alter the intent of the postings, nor the effect on people 
who perhaps did not realize what was going on, or still have doubts.  Most
humans are, thankfully, inherently trusting.

	When you consider that you (and I) are actually PAYING for them to
circulate this garbage, I see know reason whatsover why we shouldn't be 
irritated as hell and throw them off the net.

	Also, the issues of a popular figure's past history and whether you
like the music or not are not completely unlinked.  No one (with any sense) 
would argue that one's personality and history have no effect on the music.
I do not for a moment believe in a value-neutral society; relativistic morality
is also a  non-logical approach to popular music.  Whatever you want to do is 
okay as long as you don't bother anyone else; however, especially in popular 
music, it's impossible to do anything without affecting anyone else.  
Especially in the teenage set, who are huge consumers of popular music, the 
choice of music that they listen to is not always a rational or informed one -
let alone a choice based on artistic merits!  Would you rather have your kids
listening to "How Can I Keep From Singing" or "Material Girl"?  Because which
music they get subjected to IS going to have some impact on their lives, 
whether you admit it or not.  Now, the last thing I want is censorship; I don't
believe that performers should restrain themselves - now that I'm older, I'll 
just listen to my Schubert instead, but I do worry about the impact of this 
stuff on our younger childen.

>No one _owns_ this group.  If we want to discuss something, we will.

	Yes, I found that odd too.  "Leave MY group alone?"... really, now.

						Chris


-- 
"Oh, what a wondrous piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite
in faculties,  In form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like
an angel, in aprehension how like a god ..." - Hamlet
"If all you told was turned to gold - if all you dreamed were new ..." - Enya
Newsgroups: alt.music.enya