Re: Lu+o+ng na(ng bi`nh da^n - Alan Sokal

[AnHai Doan <anhai@cs.washington.edu>]

Hi, perhaps ba'c Vu~ misunderstood ba'c AiViet. 

I think what he means is as follows: You don't need to
create issues from non-issues. For something that is
(inherently) non-issue, if you try to make it an issue,
force the other side to consider it as an issue, and try to
address it in an "educated, scienfitic" manner, you will
either make a fool out of yourself, or irritate the hell out
of others.

Why ngan ke^u to, or dda' nu+'t is inherently a non-issue.
The father raising the question is hmm... a^'m dda^`u, the
guy trying to explain it in a "chu+~ lo?ng" manner is even
more ... a^'m dda^`u, to say gently. :-)

Come to think of it, in whatever area of life, the ability
of recognizing what is an issue, what matters, and what is
not seems to be extremely important. In research, we are
often told that finding the right problem is already half
the success. Likewise, in communication, FIRST we should try
to understand what is an issue, what matters to the other
side, ONLY THEN we decide what to say. If we only pick
problems we think important, but the other side doesn't,
what we say is likely to fall on deaf ears.

Tra^`n Ma.nh Ha?o is not at all a good literature critic,
his writings are full of nitpicking, chu.p mu~, trashing,
and character assasinations, and he has been getting even
worse in recent years. He is not a professional critic. But
why do his writings grasp attention, and why sometimes even
seemingly highly educated people tend to agree with him?
That's partly because he's pretty good at pointing out
*relevant* issues, those that are of concerns to the
readers. For example, his recent article on CHCC is
professionally pretty bad, and there is not much that can be
learned from there. But he managed to voice a legitimate
concern that has worried many people familiar with the
literature situation in Vietnam. So people reading his essay
will node to themselves and say: "Ok, I see he's a bad boy,
as usual, but I do agree with him on this one concern."

There, first, you need to understand what is the real issue.  
Then you raise the issue and make sure that the
audience/reader also agree it is an issue. Then you can
bring forth whatever professionalism/solution that you have
to bear on the issue.

Instead, what we have heard so far in this TMH thread? Some
people from VN said: "yes, his writing is bad, but he does
raise a legitimate concern, I share his concern too. This is
a concern of mine, and I would like to talk about it". Some
people outside VN jumped all over TMH and Nhan Dan and
started saying: "God, this is so unprofessional, this guy is
stupid, there is a danger of going back to Stalin-style
blabla, how could he trash people like that, i'm shocked,
this is an example of the state imposing its control again,
he is bo^`i bu't for someone, you guys don't understand, you
should be more professional, you should be careful otherwise
you will loose that little writing freedom you have, etc and
etc...".

This is ridiculous. What these people must have done is to
realize that all these things that are issues for them are
absolutely non-issues for the folks at home, at least in
that context. Unprofessional writing? Trashing others? Who
cares, we have seen so much unprofessional writing and
trashing from TMH and others to be surprised by that. We
know we cannot convince them to change their style anyway.
Going back to Stalin style? In this article? Give me a
break! Shocked by his language? You ain't see nothing of
VNese literature language, yet.

Instead, they should have realized that the real issue for
the folks at home (or at least some domestic VNese on this
forum) is the concern raised at the end of TMH article. We
have also loudly said so, by three seperate persons. But
they didn't even bother to listen. They would like to
convince us that that is not an issue, they would like to
decide for us what is important for us and what is not. :-)
That's ...hmm ... very funny and also very irritating.

In general, professionalism is not as important as the
ability to point out or recognize a relevant issue. Tran
Manh Hao's writing is not professional, but he does have his
points, and people pay attention to him because of those
points. I don't intend this as a defense for Tran Manh Hao,
only as an illustration that having a point and raising a
relevant issue is much more important than "professionally"
addressing nonrelevant issues.

I support and understand the need to do things
professionally, and have consistently voiced my concerns
about it. But I have also consistently said that to address
or criticize anything at home, one should make an effort to
find out first if that something is considered an issue or
is relevant at all to the folks at home. 

Sorry for the unprofessional writing, but I'm in a hurry.
Cheers.