How debate is done in the hive

Rasna is a forum giving non-blogging Etruscan enthusiasts a voice. Here I found some chitchat about me discussed only yesterday: Interesting Links,Books,Articles,Topics, etc etc on the mysteriousetruscans.com website. Delicious! Here's the basic run-down of the conversation:

turanclancloth:
"http://paleoglot.blogspot.com/search/label/etruscan ... I found this blog spot about Etruscans what you think of it?"

Tanaquil Lupus:
"He might pay some attention to his English while he's at it. He spelled 'Bear with me' as 'Bare with me,' [...] I have no idea from a brief glance what his credentials are and how valid or not his assertions."

Marce Camitlnas:
"Reasonably literate I guess, but the point is that he makes a few basic blunders. [...] Adolfo Zavaroni came up with pava meaning young man independently. I don't know if he's right or not, but he sounds very convinced of himself (warning bell number 1). His grammatical argument is sound as far as it goes, but given than there are 'weak' and 'strong' genitives in Etruscan, he's way too sure of his conclusion. I think he's pushing the envelope too far given that we don't really know how the genitive worked in practice. The other section that had me (even as a non etruscologist) slightly bemused: "Massimo Pallottino hypothesized in 1979 that Tarχies refers to Tages, a child divinity with the wisdom of an old man that popped up in the fields one day. I'm usually skeptical of what many of these Etruscologists say but I think I can swallow that idea nicely." [...] Terms such as 'blasphemous'^[1] tell me that it's not exactly a serious site."

As of now, this is where the rather depressing discussion has ended. Sigh. Dare I say, yet another classic example of internet hivemind^[2]: a mob of sheepish people hiding behind impersonal names, blending anonymously into the crowd to avoid the responsibility of reciprocal criticism. And then there's this disturbingly unremorseful attitude towards confessing how unknowledgeable they remain in a field they profess to love while still talking about it as though they were knowledgeable or interested. That's the kind of self-defeatist attitude of a pathological nihilist with strong feelings of low self-worth that I'm trying to shake everyone out of because the subtext of their words then scream out: "I'm cool because I'm a zero. I prefer to remain a shallow, happy-go-lucky child rather than take up responsibility for my self-respect, my self-directed education and my individuality. Rather, I will attack people for their own self-respect, self-directed education and strong sense of individuality to make them feel like a nameless nobody as I feel."^[3] We all have seen the latest tendencies in modern society to attack visible people as "arrogant", "bombastic" or "full of oneself" when in fact it's often the attackers themselves that aren't psychologically strong enough to step up to the plate and contribute something healthier to society. Warning bells? Right. I'd think the real so-called "warning bells" that Marce talks about would be the use of anonymous nicknames and cowardly ad hominems directed towards others without even a hint of informative value embedded within the jabs. You know, something that actually addresses what was said in full, rather than in teensy-weensy meme-sized bits of irrelevancy?

Let's make something clear. Who I am should be completely irrelevant to everyone. What my 'credentials' are logically take second-stage to the factual validity of what is being said as a whole. How badly I may be said to spell is irrelevant. How ESL my grammar may appear to language purists is also irrelevant. I speak only to express and share ideas for the benefit of others and to attract other like-minded inviduals as well. I want to encourage others to express their own ideas too. And I mean positive and constructive ideas that shouldn't have anything to do with personal politics. I always hope that people have the mental clarity to see that. When I appear to "attack" an academic, it is based squarely on what they say, not who they are as human beings.

Debate is not about a bunch of catty, uninformative, "Fox-News"-like blabber about occasional spelling mistakes, errors in academic trivia and how their knowledge in NewSpeak do's-and-don'ts (e.g. don't use "hypothesize" for anyone other than the originator of an idea no matter how far buried in the recesses of time, apparently) empowers them with a metaphysical prescience to evaluate in some small way who is 'serious' in an academic field in absence of mindful studiousness and profound contemplation of the (un)read material. This is a posterchild for what's wrong with all anonymous networking sites that only encourage flamewars like on Wikipedia, YouTube and Yahoogroups.

Of course, I'll seek and destroy these spelling errors mentioned, and will look up other errors in trivia factoids that I've committed, but it would be swell if people could rise to the challenge of being honestly passionate about their interests and having the consciousness to attack issues head on instead of dismissing people because of how they say something based on subjective criteria. I welcome criticism but only logical criticism. The kind that's a shade more profound than just singing one's ABCs or roaring to hear your echo in the void of inhuman cyberspace.


NOTES
^[1] Marce Camitlnas extracted a single usage of the word 'blasphemous' out of context from Pava and the boy hoax to weave his rhetoric. I specifically said: "I know I sound blasphemous [about my questioning status quo as a non-Etruscologist] but keep reading." Context, people, context.
^[2] This fascinating article named Hyper-Real Wikipedia and the Evolution of Mu-lacra delves into the problems of hivemind. One interesting insight: "Present day archeology and anthropology commit themselves to the study of past-human groups which had no substantial cultural changes for many thousands of years. Future such Mu-ologies will be so deeply embedded in these interweaving cyber-realities that history itself will have to be forgotten in order that the present have any identity." and "No-one within the cyber systems destined to encompass this world will be able to see anything but Mu-lacra-like concepts buzzing around their digital heads." Indeed. Now reread the conversation of that forum. Similarities? Notice the lack of diligent critique about anything other than minor details that have been so far presented in the forum by people who admit to knowing little to nothing about the subject they participate in but who nonetheless voice strong opinions about it. The internet makes this mad paradox possible. Sadly, most of these forums rehash the same issues over and over and over years later, even by the same people! Has the mere appearance of knowledge and learning already become more important than knowledge and learning itself? Beware.
^[3] As author Jaron Lanier's thoughts in Digital Maoism: The Hazards of the New Online Collectivism are expressed by Jock Brockman: "Where is this leading? Lanier calls attention to the 'so-called' Artificial Intelligence and the race to erase personality and be most Meta. In each case, there's a presumption that something like a distinct kin to individual human intelligence is either about to appear any minute, or has already appeared. The problem with that presumption is that people are all too willing to lower standards in order to make the purported newcomer appear smart. Just as people are willing to bend over backwards and make themselves stupid in order to make an AI interface appear smart (as happens when someone can interact with the notorious Microsoft paper clip,) so are they willing to become uncritical and dim in order to make Meta-aggregator sites appear to be coherent."

UPDATES
(Feb 16 2008) I've clarified Marce Camitlnas's misreading of my sentence in Pava and the boy hoax. He's A) misunderstood what "hypothesize" means, B) took my usage of "blasphemous" out of context and C) misread "Massimo Pallottino hypothesized in 1979 that Tarχies refers to Tages [...]" to mean that I somehow credit Pallottino "for the origins of the legend of Tages". Indeed it's from Cicero, but nonetheless Pallottino hypothesized a link between Latin Tages and attested Etruscan name Tarchies in 1979. Please, people, calm your little selves down and read first. Thanks.