Date: Sun, 5 Jan 1997 15:43:03 -0500
From: Cyril
To: Ahuva
Subject: Your AGM paper

Dear Ahuva:    I don't know if I can contribute anything to your paper, but
I'll try.    Due to some problems I was having with a new server, I wasn't
able to get into newsgroups for quite a long time, and by the time I was
back on line and into AGM I caught only the tail-end of the flame war you
are referring to.    (By the way, it seems that while I was "away" you were
married!  A very hearty mazal tov to you and your very lucky man.)

But even so I was able to feel the emotions of members at what had been
going on.     Some time last year a similar situation arose, and some of my
remarks will be based on  my observations during that period.

The outstanding feature of AGM is the willingness of members to bare their
souls to each other.  I know that there is a lot of discussion about the
ease with which one can disguise oneself on the Internet, even making
sex-changes ad lib.      But for me, taking messages at their face value is
my way to function, and in my own contacts with AGMers, either through the
group or by personal e-mail contact, I have always been completely frank in
my remarks and in self-description.    And I have felt the same attitude
coming in from the outside.

Because of this quality, a flame becomes a deadly weapon.    We are left
without a shield -- it's as if one's confidences in a trusted friend had
been betrayed.   I  hate the idea that some of the thugs and morons who
frequent the Internet can go into the group and read posts that are, in
many cases, very personal and often poignantly affecting to both the writer
and the reader.   To me it feels as if a bunch of  neo-Nazis/skinheads were
gate-crashing a private and intimate gathering of close friends.

But the way AGMers have dealt with the problem is in line with the whole
philosophy of the group: very little reflexive back-flaming, but a lot of
forgive and forget.   And I'm glad that the name wasn't changed.    That
would have been a surrender, a giving up of place that would have  handed
the victory to the violent, something which has occurred only too often in
world history, and in fact, in personal history.

As the oldest person in the group, I have tremendously enjoyed the young
people who are AGMers (I know there are some almost as old as I am, but
it's the younger ones I'm referring to.)    My faith in the younger
generation has largely been restored by learning that there are so many out
there who have their hearts in the right place, who can sympathize with
another's pain, who can speak so frankly about their own lives. For all we
know, (we who haven't been lucky enough to attend face-to-face gatherings),
the group may well be the only place where some of our cyberfriends can
talk about the pleasures and sufferings of their lives.     For that alone
AGM deserves a place in the literature of compassion and
brother/sisterhood.

This has been quite a rambling essay, Ahuva, but I hope you can get
something out of it.   If you have some specific questions you would like
to ask me, just send me an e-mail, and I'll try to answer.

Yours with love and respect,


Cyril 


Go back to 'The Philosophy of AGM'

Go back to "No Flaming" Rule on AGM'