Thursday 26 August 2010

A puzzling silence

I was hoping to recruit more co-bloggers but unfortunately most of our club members seem reluctant to join this forum. I wonder why there is only one follower, one co-blogger and one comment. Is this a Dead Loss? Am I wasting my time here? I am pondering at the reasons behind this silence. Several possibilities:

1.Perhaps a blog is too much of lowbrow information for some of our erudite “café-philosophers” who feed on the indoctrination of Aristotle, Descartes, Kant, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Maimonides, Alah, Jesus, Moses, Muhammad, Bodhisattvas, Tony Blair, George Bush, Osama bin Laden, David Beckham, Tiger Woods (more on request: I can go on name-dropping endlessly...)

2. Perhaps our friends at Café-philo South Ken harbour fears of the worldwide Internet Big Brother based on allegations of Google’s indirect links within the state machinery.

3. Technophobia: our philosopher friends have a special distaste of computers or any other technological gimmicks.

4. Perhaps there is one simple explanation: that I, as a non-native English speaker, a “non-philosopher” by “trade”, cannot be taken seriously by other more articulate members of the Club. In a sophisticated, male-dominated, exclusively European branch of knowledge, namely the Western philosophy, perhaps there is no entrance visible for others not from these shores.

In this instance, how do I set your mind at rest and try to persuade you to join the blog?

This blog needs some help from contributors or else it ceases to be of any particular relevance. If we decide that our weekly meetings and exchanges merit no further deliberations then we confirm we have achieved very little.  It is sad to know that in our society where trivia like the insane questions on the “Who wants to be millionaire?” rules our knowledge base, even a group of serious-minded “philosophers” are there just for a chat about anything insignificant and forget why we need to improve our minds. Is that our destiny to be rivals in some trivial pursuit ego match?

First of all, there is no need to feel threatened by the Big Brother on Internet at all as we are here to debate about Philosophy, not Politics. Even if politics touches the border of philosophy, this blog is not a platform for hot-headed revolutionaries, right-wing or left-wing extremist, religious nuts, or perverted politicians to make subversive propaganda. On the contrary, a blog is a fruition of a true democracy where everyone is entitled to make use of this Forum to make his opinion heard and to discuss with others.

In joining the blog as a co-blogger, there is no danger of compromising your privacy. Even if the blog server will require you to open a Google account with your existing email, it does not mean you have to reveal your secret password nor your real identity. All these can be made up specifically for this blog only.

As for the technological problems, a blog is really quite user-friendly (sorry for this clichéd jargon). Once the account has been opened, the blog server will prompt you what to do next and give you technical support in the “Help”. If in doubt, do not hesitate to email me and let me know the problem. Though not a computer “geek”, I have at least the basic knowledge of how to operate a few simple tasks on this relatively unsophisticated information tool.

As for what other people think of me, or whether there are any stereotyped preconceived ideas about me, I will not make any comment.
Sincerely,
xiaowei

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