sw00460o-Internet.decorum

 [ last modified: 2007-06-10 ]

Opinion       Five Internet Decorum Thoughts
                  or
                     (opinion Internet Usage Notes) 



 1)  Mistakes abound.  Even if one produces an errorless manuscript,
     the chances are high that in the process of placing it online errors
     will be made:  letters or words will be left out, transposed, or put
     in the wrong places  /  punctuation marks will be incorrect.

 2)  Someone gives a name to a style of writing, or of whatever, and
     your style of writing, or of whatever, happens to abide therein.
     Until you can find a better name for your creative style, don't be
     angered by it.  Wear it as a badge of honor, or just ignore it.

 3)  The idea that in the creative arts only the newest is the truest,
     that older ways are spent ways, is a power stance which under-
     mines that idea.  There isn't a final way to use words, or colors,
     or sounds, or ______, or ______.  There are, however, examples
     which approach perfection.  Every use of a language (e.g., the one
     I am using here) is intimately bound to the state of that language 
     at the time of use.  English is presently an amorphous, volatile 
     language which is showing no signs of solidifying other than via
     certain computer programs and high-end usage books.  During the
     years Shakespeare wrote, the state of the English language was
     a zenith state.  Shakespeare interiorized and moulded it.   

 4)  Because I am highly eclectic, because my subconscious allows
     me to write in any style and even at times forces me to invent 
     a style, I have had firsthand experiences that proved to me why 
     one conception requires a marked conjunctiveness while another
     requires a marked disjunctiveness.  Further:  I am a natural risk-
     taker.  Too often (sadly) I have lacked an attendant wisdom.  In
     his 1974 Ketjak Silliman wrote these three consecutive
     "sentences":
               What if these words don't mean what I believe they 
               do.  Crash city.  It is or is not your cup of tea.
     Luckily (as well as unluckily) for me: I do not have a cup of tea.

 5)  The late Stanley Kunitz believed poems came as a blessing.  A
     position I/ tend to agree with.  Implicit in that position is that the
     receiver (the poet) must proceed by the rules each such blessing
     imposes.  To say the blessings I receive are better than those you
     receive is to deny you your right to be who you are.  When I read
     a poem I try to appreciate it on its own terms.  Just because a par-
     ticular creative act is difficult for me to appreciate does not mean
     it is not worthy of being appreciated.  This is not to say I am with-
     out standards.  Many poets in the last century and in this century
     have subconsciouses attuned to jazz.  My subconscious is not.
     Should I, therefore, denigrate them; or they, therefore, denigrate
     me.  Marvin Bell has said:  "Shame on better poets who belittle
     lesser poets."  Even if I here have misquoted a tad what he said,
     I know I have the gist of it right.  I thank him for it, and praise him.    



 Adorno from the SEP


Brian A. J. Salchert