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• Thursday, December 27, 2007 01:06 PM

  Timely message for me.

  I recognize I'm late to the dance (I'm 68), but recently I naively decided to enter a discussion board on IMDB's Tom Cruise board, what I thought was a respectable organization, in order to discuss whether judgements about Tom's professional career (or, generally, any actor's) could be separated out from judgments about Tom himself, particularly as he is depicted in his role as a celebrity. I'd been interested in this topic for some time, discussing it with friends and others of my acquaintance. Even though I'd seen examples of what I thought were juvenile behavior on the board, I ventured ahead anyway. Well, there were a number of respondents who went after me for what they perceived as defending Tom, merely because I thought we should be able to reject what he was promoting, particularly what presumably was derived from his relationship with Scientology. My own view that we should "live and let live", derived in part from the idea of "judging not that ye be judged", was not well-received.

  Well, I learned my lesson, I suppose, and after one false start I tried again, staying away from issues that were inflammatory. One of the thoughts that lingered had to do with the justifications used for the kind of outrage and ridicule these folks used. One that stayed with me had to do with how Tom should be held accountable for his behavior. It was these folks' task to bring him down, using the most vile language they could summon.

  The unfortunate lesson I'm learning from this is that this new medium is serving to divide us. The whole notion of tolerance itself is suffering.

  James

  —owleye Read owleye's other letters
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