Theos-Talk Archives (June 1997 Message tl00651)

I found, IMO, some positives and negatives to the unified theory.  The
positive, of course, is that "under one [cyber] roof" people who wanted to
access theosophical writings/ideas would have a much easier time.  The
negative, which may not be so obvious, and is only a possibility, is that
unity often, but not always, leads to "politics" or "heirarchies", which
often, but not always, lead to censorship.

I have to agree that if the TS were to ban duplication of Theosophical
material on the internet, it would have a fairly negative effect on the
populous.  A ban is a censor, and in many ways, so is a copywrite.
Censorship is obviously not welcomed by American society, (and notice that
once again, I can only speak on behalf of American society because I am an
ignorant American), and law, with respect to the unconstitutionality of
the Communications Decency Act.  This is a clear statement that freedom of
expression is one of the most important ideals of the society.  It even
seems to preside over morality.  (i.e. it is better that pornography be
available to net-surfers of all ages, rather than censor "art".)  This may
sound like I disagree with the court decision, but actually, I do.  I do
disagree with the smut, (and the terrorist handbook, which I finally ran
across in a search for constitutional militias on the web), however, I
also realize that "decency" is a broad term, and that by passing such
laws, even theosophy could be eliminated from the web, if someone could
come up with the right excuse.  For instance, the CWL thread, under the
Communications Decency Act, could be made illegal due to its content.
Obviously, we are not promoting smut, no matter what our views on the
subject may be, but "masturbation" COULD BE considered an "indecent" word.
But now I've gone off of the path...*sigh*

A unified theosophical site, IMO, is not only improbable, due to the
different insights and opinions of theosophists (which is made very clear
on this list), but even if it were to occur, the site would eventually,
once again IMO, become governed by one group of people's specific ideals.
For instance, would the TS put a well-researched essay titled, "The
Immorality of Leadbeater", on their website?  I think not.  But...who
knows, maybe they would.  But the "possibility" and, IMO, probability for
such censorship is there, and, if such a site were created, it would last
about three months before people realized they were being censored, and
then you would again have hundreds of different web-pages about theosophy,
with both original and duplicated material.

And with regards to duplicating material...Web sites are moved and/or lost
all the time.  The main reason that people duplicate information is so
that they know the info will be available to their visitors.  If you have
a bunch of links to a hundred different locations, it takes a lot of time
to make sure those links are still valid.  And if they are not, then you
disappoint your visitors and they don't want to come back.  Links are
time-efficient, but, in the long run, it is more feasable(sp?) to
duplicate material.

BTW, I am currently building a web-page, and I plan to do a lot of
duplicating myself.  With Alan's permission, I will more than likely have
a link to his site, for I know its been around a while:).  I still have
yet to visit your site, Patrick (sorry, *cringe*...:-{...), but, with your
permission, I may put a link to your site as well.  Also, I know that
"SpiritWeb"(if it is still called by that name) used to have some great
info on theosophy, so I will probably link mine to theirs as well.  My
mini-web won't be a theosophy site per se, but theos. is a pretty big part
of my life, so I am obviously going to have *some* information about it.
If you want to see what it looks like right now, the address is
(modzer0.uafdorms.alaska.edu/~triaism), (http://, of course), however, I
advise against it, because it is *quite* boring, and as of yet, the only
theosophy page on the miniweb has a title on it which reads, "My thoughts
on theosophy", with nothing written underneath it...hehe.  Kinda makes you
wonder.  Perhaps I am trying the "mystery approach".  (What is she going
to say???)  *laugh*  Anyhow, I'll see yas alls laters.

---
Jaqi.