mollymeek (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} mollymeek) wrote,@ 2008-02-12 16:18:00 |
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Playing Undercover
Maybe Molly is on PAP payroll. Maybe Molly is blogging (or not blogging) as and when the PAP wants her to.
Impossible. After all, everyone knows that Molly isn't too supportive of the PAP.
But why not? Maybe Molly's irresponsible blogging is meant to discredit bloggers, to reinforce the image that the mainstream media have established for bloggers. She's the perfect stereotype of the terribly unprofessional blogger isn't she? She's stupid, she doesn't blog regularly, she doesn't blog objectively. Hey, she's not even constructive because her criticisms and ironic non-insights outweigh her "feedback" and "solutions" 10000:1.
Does it matter anyway?
Recently, rumors have it that certain bloggers of The Online Citizen are on the PAP's payroll. Which makes one wonder: how does a member of the PAP's Internet Infiltration Force operate? Does he go online and say nice things about the PAP a la The Straits Times? Does he attempt to strike a "balance" between being "anti-PAP" and "pro-PAP" so that readers will not always get to read bimbotic Mollyish stuff? Or does he post nonsense comments in blogs so as to be disruptive? Any of the above? A combination of the above?
We don't know.
If I start a group blog, do I have to screen every member of my group to ensure that they are not "PAP spies"? Yet, even if I were to try to do that, there's no way for me to tell, so do I have to resort to recruiting only anti-PAP members?
Or, as some are asking, can't the truth speak for itself? If I'm paid by the PAP and I write something well-reasoned and in support of a certain government policy, the fact that I'm paid by the PAP will not compromise the quality of what I write. (That is assuming, of course, that certain PAP policies can be supported without fallacious "reasoning". And this is where opinions differ.)
Actually, there is nothing new about what the PAP is doing on the Internet. It's simply called propaganda--something meant to influence the attitudes of people. It is nothing new to the world, not least to the PAP. Which is not to say that what some have called their Net Offensive is anything respectable.
What is really disturbing, though, is not the fact that the PAP is embarking on a propaganda mission. (As far as I can see, this is only a minor extension of more disturbing trends, including what the education ministry do to students through schools.) Neither is it the (remote?) possibility that certain TOC bloggers are paid by the PAP to blog.
The worst part of this whole affair is how closely the negative reactions to alleged PAP moles mirror PAP rhetoric at its most powerful. In other words, perhaps we are all co-opted PAP moles (without even receiving a pay). It seems to me that the issue that people are concerned with is that of credibility. A very crude notion of credibility, to be precise. Too many netizens want bloggers to be "credible" by being anti-PAP, just as PAP rhetoric says that the mainstream media are "credible" because they are supposedly non-partisan (i.e. they don't support opposition parties). This is a problem that Molly has talked about more than once. People are looking for truth dispensers. Because people simply don't even think of becoming truth creators. They want to be told what the truth is without having to filter information with their critical faculties. Either that or they are afraid that others simply do not have the critical faculties to evaluate information with which they are being fed (which is also pretty scary).
Their truth is truth sans negotiation--dead truth, not truth that constantly shifts through a movement through different political lenses. (Of course, Molly is, as always, distorting the truth here. But maybe she is always playing only so that others would learn to play?)
If we really must be anti-PAP, can we at least stop resembling it so much? Wanting credibility, just like them. Wanting to change the system from within, just like them. Being them, just like them. So there isn't even a dichotomy to speak of. Them vs. them.
Nevertheless, conspiracy theories are fun. We can even come up with conspiracy theories of conspiracy theories. For what if people are paid to come up with conspiracy theories in order to cripple the functioning of a certain group of people? (What if Molly was paid to come up with such ideas so that people would just end up totally confused and would simply give up reading, give up thinking, give up.)
Perhaps that's what Singapore stands for. Giving up in frustration to minimize frustration, giving up in the real/fake face of futility.
Yet . . . if we resist what Singapore currently stands for . . .
Someone recently asked me what I thought of the government's attempts to manage or regulate the new media and how the government could better do so. My answer was notoriously like the non-replies that the gahmen is ever so adept at (so I'm probably a PAP clone too). Why is the whole idea always about managing the new media (regulating it more tightly or less tightly)? Why is no one asking me how I would want my right to free expression protected instead? But, of course, even that is some kind of regulation, isn't it?
Happy Chinese New Year. Molly shall not ask for ang paos because she does not want to develop a crutch mentality. But Happy Valentine's Day. Will someone shower please shower Molly with expensive presents? (OK, I'm greedy. Just like them.)
Maybe Molly is on PAP payroll. Maybe Molly is blogging (or not blogging) as and when the PAP wants her to.
Impossible. After all, everyone knows that Molly isn't too supportive of the PAP.
But why not? Maybe Molly's irresponsible blogging is meant to discredit bloggers, to reinforce the image that the mainstream media have established for bloggers. She's the perfect stereotype of the terribly unprofessional blogger isn't she? She's stupid, she doesn't blog regularly, she doesn't blog objectively. Hey, she's not even constructive because her criticisms and ironic non-insights outweigh her "feedback" and "solutions" 10000:1.
Does it matter anyway?
Recently, rumors have it that certain bloggers of The Online Citizen are on the PAP's payroll. Which makes one wonder: how does a member of the PAP's Internet Infiltration Force operate? Does he go online and say nice things about the PAP a la The Straits Times? Does he attempt to strike a "balance" between being "anti-PAP" and "pro-PAP" so that readers will not always get to read bimbotic Mollyish stuff? Or does he post nonsense comments in blogs so as to be disruptive? Any of the above? A combination of the above?
We don't know.
If I start a group blog, do I have to screen every member of my group to ensure that they are not "PAP spies"? Yet, even if I were to try to do that, there's no way for me to tell, so do I have to resort to recruiting only anti-PAP members?
Or, as some are asking, can't the truth speak for itself? If I'm paid by the PAP and I write something well-reasoned and in support of a certain government policy, the fact that I'm paid by the PAP will not compromise the quality of what I write. (That is assuming, of course, that certain PAP policies can be supported without fallacious "reasoning". And this is where opinions differ.)
Actually, there is nothing new about what the PAP is doing on the Internet. It's simply called propaganda--something meant to influence the attitudes of people. It is nothing new to the world, not least to the PAP. Which is not to say that what some have called their Net Offensive is anything respectable.
What is really disturbing, though, is not the fact that the PAP is embarking on a propaganda mission. (As far as I can see, this is only a minor extension of more disturbing trends, including what the education ministry do to students through schools.) Neither is it the (remote?) possibility that certain TOC bloggers are paid by the PAP to blog.
The worst part of this whole affair is how closely the negative reactions to alleged PAP moles mirror PAP rhetoric at its most powerful. In other words, perhaps we are all co-opted PAP moles (without even receiving a pay). It seems to me that the issue that people are concerned with is that of credibility. A very crude notion of credibility, to be precise. Too many netizens want bloggers to be "credible" by being anti-PAP, just as PAP rhetoric says that the mainstream media are "credible" because they are supposedly non-partisan (i.e. they don't support opposition parties). This is a problem that Molly has talked about more than once. People are looking for truth dispensers. Because people simply don't even think of becoming truth creators. They want to be told what the truth is without having to filter information with their critical faculties. Either that or they are afraid that others simply do not have the critical faculties to evaluate information with which they are being fed (which is also pretty scary).
Their truth is truth sans negotiation--dead truth, not truth that constantly shifts through a movement through different political lenses. (Of course, Molly is, as always, distorting the truth here. But maybe she is always playing only so that others would learn to play?)
If we really must be anti-PAP, can we at least stop resembling it so much? Wanting credibility, just like them. Wanting to change the system from within, just like them. Being them, just like them. So there isn't even a dichotomy to speak of. Them vs. them.
Nevertheless, conspiracy theories are fun. We can even come up with conspiracy theories of conspiracy theories. For what if people are paid to come up with conspiracy theories in order to cripple the functioning of a certain group of people? (What if Molly was paid to come up with such ideas so that people would just end up totally confused and would simply give up reading, give up thinking, give up.)
Perhaps that's what Singapore stands for. Giving up in frustration to minimize frustration, giving up in the real/fake face of futility.
Yet . . . if we resist what Singapore currently stands for . . .
Someone recently asked me what I thought of the government's attempts to manage or regulate the new media and how the government could better do so. My answer was notoriously like the non-replies that the gahmen is ever so adept at (so I'm probably a PAP clone too). Why is the whole idea always about managing the new media (regulating it more tightly or less tightly)? Why is no one asking me how I would want my right to free expression protected instead? But, of course, even that is some kind of regulation, isn't it?
Happy Chinese New Year. Molly shall not ask for ang paos because she does not want to develop a crutch mentality. But Happy Valentine's Day. Will someone shower please shower Molly with expensive presents? (OK, I'm greedy. Just like them.)
