Raj Feridun wrote:
<snip>
>> As a good person, I think it appropriate to be disliked by bad
>> people.
>
> So how are you coping with being universally hated as inappropriate as
> that is?

Sorry, but your "fact" is wrong, so I have no problem "coping" with your
delusion. I am not "universally hated". However, I assume you think yourself
to be part of the universe, so YOU are claiming to hate me.

Now I ask you why you hate me? I certainly don't know you from Adam. I have
certainly said nothing directed at you or criticized you in any way. I don't
feel any strong emotion when I see the name "Raj Feridun". The most apparent
motive is apparently some sort of anti-intellectualism, but that's mostly an
American tradition, and this is a newsgroup associated with Japan, and I
have no reason to think you might be American. So why are YOU so eager to
pile on? Maybe I should hate you because you have a funny sounding name?
Perhaps more to the point, have you provided any reason why I should care
about your opinion?

(By the way, yours is not the post I intended to respond to, but one of the
strategies of aggressive ad-hominemos is to confuse things so much as to
make it difficult to find posts and figure out where the "discussion" is
going. I seriously considered changing the Subject: of the thread to
"Character assassination a la fj.life.in-japan or something along those rude
lines.)

There is a big world outside of fj.life.in-japan--but y'all make me feel
like I am slumming when I visit your narrow-minded little piece of it.

How to respond is an interesting problem. I don't like ad hominem
argumentation. I think I've made it quite clear that I prefer to consider
substantive issues. I certainly could "resort" to pro hominem argumentation,
but I won't. Five obvious reasons come to mind:

1. I value my privacy quite a bit.
2. Ad-hominemos use real personal information as fodder.
3. I prefer to share my personal information with friendly people.
4. The ideas are right or wrong without regard to their advocates.
5. You will continue to believe what you want to believe. Damn the facts.

For point #5, an obvious example is that I think you believe I like to argue
with people. You are wrong. However, see point #3 and see if you can find
any examples of "friendly people" around here. I certainly haven't noticed
any, not now, nor over the years in a number of anonymous visits. This is
one of the most cliquish and close-minded newsgroups I've ever seen--and
I've seen a lot of them over the decades.

(That reminds me of something else I wrote that offended people here. I said
that it was unfortunate that there was not more Japanese participation in
this newsgroup. The Japanese are obvious the real experts on living in
Japan. I even dared to suggest that the dominant style of aggressiveness or
"playful banter" might make most Japanese people feel uncomfortable.)

On the other hand, I am not at all afraid of conflict. It's a part of life,
and even an important part of how science works. In scientific research the
good and bad ideas battle it out, and the good ones eventually win--in the
long term. In the short term, anything goes, and a few fanatics with a bad
idea can often slow things up. These days the real fanatics tend to cluster
in places like alt.fan.rush-limbaugh. (That's a second-hand report--I see no
reason to visit that venue.)

As regards this "discussion", I invite you to review it and see who
"started" what--though you will probably find it rather difficult to figure
it out at this point. My posts are very precisely tit-for-tat. Actually, I
normally try to deliver just slightly less tit than the tat and return the
subject to the actual issues. Sometimes I succeed, and sometimes I fail. I
often show a certain amount of persistence--and I always try to write
strongly and clearly. (Three teeny tiny pro-hominem details: In my work
that's actually what I'm well paid to help other people do.)

Too much diversion. Let's try again to go back to the original discussion.

Do you have anything substantive to say about Japanese public libraries,
especially in the context of books about Dubya?