Conference turris::womannotes-v1

647.0. "On hate mail" by MEWVAX::AUGUSTINE () Sat Jan 09 1988 16:43

    This excerpt is from an article about hate mail. I think it has strong
    parallels to recent activity in this file. So I welcome you to read it,
    consider it, and respond (respectfully or quizzically) if you so wish.
    All hate mail can be directed to me personally over the enet or to a
    different string in this notes file. 
    
    Liz
    

    		*		*		*
        
    "Hate mail -- the postal equivalent of spitting -- is one of the
    many methods of attack devised by the human species.  It is also
    one of America's quiet cottage industries.  I'm not talking about
    letters querulous or quizzical, but those confined to direct abuse.
    Worse than being booed or shouted down, closer to being actually
    threatened and maimed, they are the kind commonly received by
    politicians, clergy, talk-show hosts, columnists, writers, or just
    about anyone who goes up in front, on the air, or into print...
    
    "All these years writing fiction and nonfiction have forced me to
    recognize one unavoidable fact. There is a small subculture out
    there ready at the drop of a hat to split a hair, deny a fact, squash
    an opinion, catch a misprint, contest an idea, quibble with a thought,
    but more than anything else, intentionally misunderstand. There
    is a certain kind of mind, the crank's, that becomes tenacious only
    when it's offended. 
    
    "The letter-writing crank is typically emotional on a single subject
    -- fluoride, communism, zoning, etc. Narrowness alone shapes his
    faith. It is a tragic fact of human nature that so few feel the
    asperity of another's pain. Races and nationalities stick together,
    yet nothing seems to yoke one group's misery to another's... A lack
    of ecumenism is virtually at the root of all hate mail.
    
    "Nothing enrages us more than seeing in others the very vice we
    ourselves constantly commit. It's the madman alone who calls you
    foolish, the bigot in his parochial harangues who accuses you of
    what he most despises in himself... There's something in hate mail
    that confirms the fact that truth is hard to swallow. It also proves
    almost by algebra the worth of what you, the author, have created;
    in a wonderful parody you are virtually vindicated by the very
    accusations made against you...
    
    "The most curious characteristic of hate mail is that it makes the
    very accusations and charges (often repeating the same words) that
    angry lovers down the years have commonly used against each other
    -- concern for the surface of things, the use of misunderstanding
    and misrepresentation as weapons of debate, the fondness for
    directionless discussion, the preemption of the major share of feeling,
    the exaggerated estimate of his or her own plausibility, and the
    certainty that a view is the more credible and useful for the fact
    that someone, in particular, holds it. Lonely people write hate
    letters. Lonely people also write love letters... There's something
    weirdly shared in both approaches, a cry for attention. Notice me!"
    
    			- Alexander Theroux
		  	  "Do Not Print This Letter: Hating My Hate Mail"
    			  _Harper's_Magazine_, January 1988, pp. 70-73
    

    Clarification entered at the request of a =wn= noter: 
    
    When I entered this note, I was thinking about the tenor of the
    _notes_ we've been passing back and forth, NOT personal messages
    that get sent via VAX mail. Private mail is still private in my
    book.
    
    Liz Augustine

    A friend of mine once wrote a polite letter to the New York Review
    of books pointing out that Gore Vidal had erred in a number  (I
    think it was the number of people killed in a significant revolution
    in the Phillipines some time ago, and he was off by at least an
    order of magnitude).  His letter was printed, along with a hate-reply
    by Gore Vidal in which he called the error-finder a name or two.
    
    In a recent Fantasy & Science Fiction, Harlan Ellison's column is
    about mail, both hate and those pointing out errors, and how little
    he likes it.
    
    While I appreciate Theroux's analysis, I think it might apply
    differently here than in his realm.  He's a famous person and therefore
    he does get crank mail from lonely people.  We're all peers.  It's
    something we each need to remember more often.  Gatherings help
    remind us.  However, we're all public peers, and so we don't even
    have to hope our letter will get selected for publication, it will
    get posted.  Hence, we also have to be our own editors.  Meaning,
    we should think twice: once as a human being and once as an editor.
    
    [And no, the person in the first paragraph isn't a lonely crank,
    he's a well-socialized writer who went to the library to look up
    newspapers to check Vidal's figures, something any researcher can
    do.]