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Re: Moderator Incompetence (was Re: Animal killing and Soul merging

susarla.krishna@studentserver1.swmed.edu (Hari Krishna Susarla) wrote:

> In article <4gd7da$qiu@babbage.ece.uc.edu>,
>    Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian <rbalasub@ecn.purdue.edu> wrote:
> 
> >>I am eagerly awaiting your commentary on the aformentioned poetic
> >>composition. And yes, this is a serious request.
> 
> Actually, this was a request for the moderator, Mr. Ajay Shah. It was not 
> intended for you. I am still waiting for Ajay's version. But meanwhile, I will 
>  answer yours.

Then don't post it to srh. Send it as personal e-mail. If you want to post
something on a public-forum be prepared for replies from anyone.

> >"It has EXACTLY the same relevance to Hindu Dharma as your gratuitous comment 
> >   'Sigh! I thought human beings had evolved out of this chest-beating stage
> >   thousands of years ago'
> >"
> >
> >You could have poked fun at specific things in Advaita and I would have 
> joined
> >your laughter. Instead you chose to indulge in personal attacks, albeit in a
> >humorous way. So I saw it fit to respond in the same manner. 
> 
> And if you will recall, my comment about your "chest beating" was in response 
> to a certain set of personal attacks on your part. Unfortunately, due to the 
> utter incompetence with which the SRH archives are being maintained (the 
> January folder has not even been set up yet), I cannot pull out the exact 
> quotes of yours from the relevant message. However, I very clearly remember 
> you stating that the beliefs held by the Gaudiya acharyas regarding Sankara's 
> identity were 'absurd,' 'utter tripe,' etc etc. At least if you had given some 
> kind of argument in that posting, it might have been taken as a well thought 
> out reponse. Rather, all you did was vent out your frustrations. It was a 
> clear example of a personal attack. 

I certainly did give reasons in quite a few postings. BTW, I attacked the
opinions of Vaishnavite aachaaryaas. So you say I indulged in personal attacks.
Thus I am forced to conclude that you are an opinion of the Gaudiya aachaaryas.
Sorry, Mr. Opinion, for the personal attack. I did not know that the opinion of
Gaudiya aachaaryas had a separate existence called HKS.

Readers of the srh will certainly remember that I posted my reasons for
attacking the opinions of the aachaaryaas. In one instance I mis-identified the
GVS with ISKCON (Vijay, atleast you'll remember this) and when pointed out, I
accepted my mistake and also apologized.

> All I wanted to
> >say was that the Satha Rudra Samhita has no verses talking about the
> >incarnation of Shankara. I framed it in the same way you framed your "chest
> 			   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> >beating" comment. The only difference is that my poem was longer than your
>  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> >comment. 
> ^^^^^^^^^
> 
> A good moderator would admit that he made a mistake, apologize publicly, and 
> then remove the offensive post from the archives. A bad moderator, by 
> contrast, allows several rounds of personal attacks to be aired, and then 
> arbitrarily decides at a certain point that no more will be allowed under the 
> premise that he only just *then* saw a personal attack. 

He certainly did admit his mistake. He allowed both our posts and then realized
things were getting out of hand and asked us both to modify our posts. I did
and you did not. After all Mr. Shah is human (Hopefully he's also not an
opinion :-)), and all of us make mistakes once in a while. What do you want him
to do? Post a GIF file of himself on his knees?

> articles in this thread, starting with Ramakrishnan's eloquent statements to 
> the effect that the Gaudiya beliefs were 'absurd' and 'utter tripe,' (with no 
> support whatsoever) should have been rejected as personal attacks. The only 
> reason arguments get heated in the first place is because the moderator does 
> not diligently pay attention to the posts he approves on SRH. 

I certainly gave reasons. You probably did not read them. Feel free to disagree
and criticize my reasoning, but don't tell things like "you never gave any
reason". Ask Vijay whether I gave reasons or not. If I remember right, you came
in at the tail end of the argument when I had already given reasons in my
previous posts.

> Interestingly enough, the article of Ramakrishnan's which Ajay told me 
> he rejected for personal attacks (he told me this to try to prove to me that 
> he really was a good moderator after all) was a response to my posting "What 
> is Maayaavaadam?" Guess what? The response which was alleged to have been 
> rejected made it to SRH. And sure enough, it was full of arrogant remarks and 
> clear-cut personal attacks. 

Well, I cut out the two things that Ajay objected to. And the attack was purely
on Prabhupada's style of writing and his inconsistencies. I am sure he was a
very pious person and helped in spreading the importance of Bhakthi (though by
giving incorrect arguments). I have respect for that. The problem with you is
that you think if I oppose your point of view, that I am indulging in personal
attacks and being arrogant. In that case don't post your views on a public
forum. People are bound to have contrasting views.

> Personally, I really don't care if someone chooses to offend me personally. I 
> can take that sort of thing. What I cannot stand is when a great acharya is 

We all know that.

> blasphemed by some arrogant upstart who can't even put together a coherent 
> argument. A Vaishnava is supposed to be meek and humble, and yet he has to be 

I gave a full criticism of Prabhupada's incoherent style, in the one article
you posted.

> highly intolerant towards any blasphemy directed against the Lord or His pure 
> devotees. Ramakrishnan might argue that I have been similarly offensive to 
> Sankaracharya, but if you take a look at the archives of my previous postings 

Ask me if I care. You can blaspheme Shankara for all you are worth. I won't even
bother to reply. If you talk about his works instead, I might reply. And I
certainly did not criticize Prabhpada and say that he was * or & or ^. I merely
said that his article was illogical. If you cannot stand such criticism of
aachaaryas stop reading srh. 

> (assuming Ajay ever gets his act together and finishes it) you will see that 

He has his act very much together. You are viewing this whole thing in a skewed
manner.

> On the other hand, I have and will always continue to challenge all those 
> so-called advaitins who preach oneness philosophy while simultaneously 
> engaging in, and sanctioning materialistic behavior. It is a fact that Hindu 

When did I "sanction" materialistic behavior? And who am I to sanction anything
for anyone?

> It was a sarcastic posting, designed to point out that Ken was feigning 
> acceptance of the teachings of the acharyas (like Madhva, Caitanya, Ramanuja) 
> while flagrantly contradicting them with his own pet theories. If you had read
> the context, you would have seen that. And if you really were as good-humoured
> as you claimed, then you probably would have laughed as well.

Well, there was nothing humorous in it. Ofcourse it's a matter of opinion.
Ofcourse Ken thought it was a personal attack also.

> I will take this as encouragement to repost my response, only this time on 
> another newsgroup... maybe soc.religion.eastern or soc.culture.indian.

Please do. The only problem is that I won't reply, because I don't read these
newsgroups. The other ng's I read are misc.news.southasia and rec.humor.funny.
If you can manage to get your articles posted in these two, I'd be happy to
reply. Another option is to keep it to personal e-mail.

Ramakrishnan.
-- 
Sitting quietly doing nothing, spring comes and the grass grows by itself.

http://yake.ecn.purdue.edu/~rbalasub/
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