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WHY THE SAMURAI BLOGGER MATTERS

This will possibly be one in a series of many.

Don Diego de la Vega: Lesson number one: never attack in anger

---From "The Mask of Zorro"

In "The Mask of Zorro" Alejandro Murieta is a common bandit who has to assume the mantle of the great swordsman that fought for the people of Spanish California. The fact that that is the first lesson he learns amply displays how important that when you deal with an issue of contention, anger is the most destructive of emotions.

In the Singapore blogosphere there are too many voices that seek to be heard in an environment of stifling, limited discourse. Many of these voices are scattered across the blogging wilderness, though they are many, the recent case of the Singapore blogosphere is that many of these voices have left, too tired to continue. Many other voices group with themselves, powered by rage and invective, and not reason, exulting in their own frothing at the mouth sense of self-righteousness too. There is much anger, yet forget not that anger is the wearer-out of bodies, the reducer of men, the small death.

It is in such an environment that we need to look to practitioners of an ancient order of war, we need to look to the wisdom as expressed by warriors of bow and sword, if we too are to be effective warriors of word. It is for this purpose that I have adopted for this blog the title, Blogging Samurai. The samurai have lived centuries under different masters, some good, some bad, most of them hard men in hard times. They have honed a wisdom that was carried down from such ancient texts as the Art of War and brought through centuries of strife and war, and that shares much in common with the rest of that of martial men the world over.

It is sad to say that in the Singapore political blogosphere, anger is one of the most definining traits. Blog after blog is filled with anger, one of the latest is Insane Polygons, which effectively lives up to its name in more than one way. Elite Girl probably epitomizes very often what is wrong with the state of satire in the blogosphere. The strip's latest downward turn is a perfect example of what is wrong with it. In this latest strip, he ironically rips off a movie based upon some of history's greatest warriors, the Spartans, and then hamhandedly stuffs it into the context of Singapore politics.

One feels the anger coming from the strip all right, but what does it accomplish? When one witnesses the actions of Insanepoly, he is like a raving madman who just happens to say something that sounds true because it appears to conform to reality. Even if a raving madman speaks apparent truth, his word will not be taken as such, because of the fact that simply because the messenger kills the message.

His strokes fail to be precise, his anger is all over the place, not directed at all. He has a motif that he fails to follow through, given that he starts off with a dig at the film "300" that also attempts to make a statement about the perceived undercompensation of NSMen disabled in the course of training, and turns it by the end into a tasteless idea of politics in Singapore as a Manichean struggle between good and evil. The thing is: the dualistic and Manichean approach works well when one is writing genre fiction in the manner of "300", but there is a reason why it is genre fiction. It is genre fiction because the aesthetic approach that one finds in "300" does not necessarily dictate a workable one to solving the problems that lie in reality. Reality has its own problems, politics is often made a struggle even if it is not necessarily one, but the struggle is not about good and evil and no flowery rhetoric about "freemen against a tyrant" will ever change that. As such, in adopting an aesthetic mode that has no correspondence in reality, he instead undercuts the purpose of satire, which is to mask the reality in order to reveal it.

There has been no better piece of satire on class struggle ever written than that of "Animal Farm" by the immortal George Orwell. There is a reason why that book is top-rate satire, and this isn't. "Animal Farm" is not just a sophisticated allegory of Soviet history, unlike what some bastardized, CIA-funded cartoon films might have you think, but in fact an insightful view into human nature as well. In it, the pigs that lead the revolution against Farmer Jones soon come to exploit and mistreat the other animals in the same way that the farmers did. Yet at no time ever, does the book appear to reduce the humanity of the farmers at all, in fact, what the book shows is why those in power do what they do to keep it: the fear of loss, and the attraction of gain. And it does so in the most beautifully subtle manner.

And the reason why he can do it is because he is not angry. As such, he can make and present a clear-eyed analysis of the situation.

The tone of Orwell is never angry, his language brief and concise. He shows what happens rather than makes judgements about it. This is because he sees the nature of the problem, and not the appearance of the problem itself. The autocratic system that the pigs perpetuate and in a sense inherit from Farmer Jones, perpetuates the same traits in Farmer Jones that it does in them because they now get the same boons and perks that Jones did. Beds, apples and milk, human clothes and magazines and literacy etc.. Without checks, balances or an informed citizenry (the animals of the farm sadly deserve what they get, since they are mostly shown as a group of the jaded, the vain, the uneducated, the unthinking.) Animal Farm collapses into the same old order that once was again. Even Jones was never portrayed as a perpetually bad master, just that his personal problems (alcoholism) destroyed his ability to run the farm properly. Imagine, what an insight that is! In Jones' autocratic, person-driven system of running the farm, the problem of alcoholism causes the entire order to collapse! One man's problem becomes that of a whole group of people. If that isn't the most beautiful, clear-eyed analysis of what happens in personality-driven political systems, I have yet to read anything to better it. The motif is clear-eyed and well-followed, the farm is an analogy for a person-driven political system, its operational methods an analogy for entrepreneurial capitalism, the perpetrators and the perpetuators of such a system start out its victims, end its victors, and then become again, its victims.

This is the beauty that one can achieve when one does not, or refuses, to attack in anger. For a more recent example of the beauty of satire that come from not attacking in anger, we have to look at Stephen Colbert, whose appearance at the White House Correspondents' Dinner must count as one of the greatest examples of well-delivered deadpan satire ever. That will be a lesson that will take another post. Colbert, too reveals himself to be akin to a master swordsman in how he operates, and that will take a whole other post.

But overall I make my point, and thus I will come to

THE FIRST RULE OF BLOG BUSHIDO:

NEVER ATTACK IN ANGER.

Anger is above all things, the killer of wit, the killer of charm, the killer of what keeps people reading your blogs. If you have a salient point to be made, there is no need to be angry about it. Dress up the point instead with the gifts of warmth, humour and clear-eyed vision. That is something that I will touch on in a future post.

I shall end this post with a quote from a famous samurai:

"Mental bearing (calmness), not skill, is the sign of a matured samurai. "-Tsukahara Bokuden.

Blogger Samurai is a big fan of filmes noires, those "dark films" that sprung out of Hollywood's Golden Age, where you got to smoke like a chimney, drink like a fish, engage in excessively antisocial behavior and that starred actors no one remembers now like Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews, Richard Widmark and Veronica Lake. Based on the writings of authors like Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Mickey Spillane and Jim Thompson. They were the forerunners of comic books like SIN CITY.

That stuff started out fun, but soon he realized that there was no genre more able to withstand the test of time, for by showing the darkness does one acknowledge the presence of light.

In such a manner, the excess of light disguises the darkness, extinguishes the shadow.

Small wonder that in a real world where few are willing to engage the darkness, does it become more prevalent.

The latest US attorney firings are a case in point. I do not think enough news coverage has been done just to show the depths of the secrecy, lies and mendacity uncovered here. It's got everything: a femme fatale, a famously duplicitous guy who claims that he doesn't remember anything , and bedside strongarming of a sick man.

One can almost imagine it being played at cinemas in the 50s, a true Noir as it were.


NOW PLAYING AT A THEATER NEAR YOU...

AN ALL NEW MASTERPIECE OF SUSPENSE!

SCORCHING THE SCREEN WITH UNPARALLELED FURY!

Raymond Dashlane's

WHEN JUSTICE DEPARTS !



WHEN A PROMISING US ATTORNEY IS FIRED, WAS IT JUST INCOMPETENCE?



"You swear to tell the truth before this committee, Ms Goodling?"

OR WAS THERE MORE TO IT?


"I swear, your Honour."

WHEN TWO MEN SHOW UP AT THE HOSPITAL TO SEE AN AILING FRIEND, IS IT JUST SYMPATHY?


"You know where Mr Ashcroft is? We just wanna go wish him well."
OR IS THERE MORE TO IT?


"Damn you, Alberto...I'm not the attorney general now...HE IS!"


"That's right, you ain't gonna be tappin' wires as long as I have a say!

IN A RACE AGAINST TIME...

"Listen to me, Pal, you have GOTTA testify before the committee, we need to hear what you have to say!"

WILL A MAN YIELD TO TEMPTATION?

You know me. At heart, I am a fairly quiet girl, who tried to do the right thing and tries to treat people kindly along the way. That's all I am.”

...OR UNCOVER THE TRUTH?

TOUGH!

TAUT!

THRILLING!

Raymond Dashlane's

WHEN JUSTICE DEPARTS!

NOW PLAYING NEAR YOU!

THE STRAITS TIMES AND THE ART OF FIGHTING WITHOUT FIGHTING

One of the things that Blogger Samurai appreciates the most is the understanding that often in life, people truly get things they deserve, even if they may not want it.

One of these things is unwarranted conflict and painful contention.

In the film "Enter the Dragon", there is a scene where Bruce Lee's character meets Parsons, a ne'er do well fighter while travelling on a junk to an island for a martial arts tournament.

Being the warrior that he is, Bruce Lee's character tells him that he has mastered the art of fighting without fighting. Parsons inquires what it is, and then Bruce Lee gets him into one of the lifeboats on the vessel that they are on, then he sets Parsons adrift.

Thus the art of fighting without fighting.

In the same way too, the readership of the Straits Times have collectively come to master in a way, what is the art of fighting without fighting.

The Straits Times as a state-owned paper has often charged for access to its articles, where more famous papers the world over simply allow free access to a large number of their articles. Now, the fact that most news should be a free good for the information of the public has simply not been taken into account here, but for the sake of a paper's profit margin. So when faced with such a proposal, such an offer, totally lacking in reason, also demands the best reply possible.

Refusal.


ST:

FROM Tuesday, visitors to The Straits Times' (ST) website will not have to pay to read the latest breaking news from Singapore and the world.

They can also post their views - in real time - on the reports they read.

One other major change: The site will drop its 12-year-old name, The Straits Times Interactive, or STI, and go with the cleaner 'straitstimes.com'.

Since becoming a subscription site in 2005, it has been offering only a small buffet of material for free:

1. ST's online forum letters;
2. Multimedia features, such as video news reports and podcasts;
3. A restricted selection of 20 reports from the print edition.

All other content, including breaking news and material picked up from the print edition of the newspaper itself, has been available only to subscribers in the past two years.

Explaining the move to open up more free-access content, ST editor Han Fook Kwang said: 'There's a great deal more we can do in the website to leverage on the award-winning talent in The Straits Times newsroom of writers, photographers, artists and designers. I think we've a good product and we want to make it available to more people in cyberspace, and to use the technology available on the web to make it an even better product.


Denial cannot hide the most likely truth of all, which is this:


So here is the Samurai Lesson of the day: Take A Walk! Whenever an argument seems lost or on the verge of losing, take a walk! Whenever a proposal is unreasonable, take a walk!

There is a lot of wisdom in taking a walk.

Because if you walk off early, others will realize that they have to catch up to you sooner or later.

Such is how to fight without fighting.

The Commander Report is dead. From its ashes a new blog will soon be reborn, old posts will be archived on this site, but BLOGGER SAMURAI will be a new blog where I expound some of my interests in Far Eastern philosophy, culture, along with politics, current affairs and everything under the sun.

What Blogger Samurai hopes to do is to return sharp satire, commentary and incisive analysis to a divided, rather emotional blogging space in Singapore, that can at the same time offer commentaries on world events in the same spirit. There will be humour, but it will be about boiling something down to its essence, to show the truth that lies within. Not to simplify, but in fact, to get across. Boiled down to its essence, everything loses its dilution, and attains its sweetness. Just like the syrup of a maple tree.

And like the syrup of a maple tree, the truth is often sweet too.

To start with, I would like to share this famous Zen quotation that I hope expresses the spirit of the new blog:

“Embrace nothing:
If you meet the Buddha, kill the Buddha.
If you meet your father, kill your father.
Only live your life as it is,
Not bound to anything.”