Book Listing

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70s-child
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Re: Book Listing

Post by 70s-child »

RainbowJude wrote: A little Internet research reveals that if the letter is threatening, then legal action can be taken against the perpetrator should his/her identity be discovered. If the threats have been ongoing, the matter may be taken even more seriously.
Threats, intimidation, black mail etc. are all certainly matters for law-enforcement, but what does that have to do with anonymity? Whether someone threatens me face-to-face or anonymously, I will still go to the police.

In any case as far as I can tell, the spiteful letters in the book are really anonymous hate mail. There is no attempt to threaten or extort. The author on page 75 of my book describes them as "a few sentences of spite and hurtfulness, with perhaps a little truth in them." BTW, I am by no means arguing that this is ok. I have already said this is unethical, but I remain unsure as to whether it merits criminal prosecution. Personally I would send Mrs. Moon for a psych evaluation instead of a prison, esp. since she also has no real motive.

Incidentally in reality anonymous letters are not uncommon. The internet in particular has expanded the scope for anonymous hate mail exponentially. But short of there being actual threats to do damage, it is usually not reported to law-enforcement. Abusive stuff usually gets binned/deleted. The only exceptions might be people in positions of power, to whom such mail may constitute a security threat. But that is a whole different issue.
RainbowJude wrote: There is a vast difference between an elicited feedback form that allows the participant to remain anonymous and an anonymous letter like those we've seen in The Mystery of the Spiteful Letters.
To the recipient of hate comments, the difference is immaterial. Even in the case of solicited feedback, there are several disgruntled persons, who would use the opportunity to rant and whine and generally be spiteful. If the intent is to be spew venom, you can always find various means of doing so. Further, even here you could find instances of threats and intimidation (and suicide and homicide notes), which would need to be handed over to law-enforcement.
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RainbowJude
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Re: Book Listing --> SPITEFUL LETTERS

Post by RainbowJude »

70s-child wrote:Threats, intimidation, black mail etc. are all certainly matters for law-enforcement, but what does that have to do with anonymity?
You're missing the point here. The anonymity doesn't matter. The threats do. But you can't really do much in regard to an anonymous letter until you know who the writer is, can you? You asked a question around the legalities of anonymous notes; all I did was supply an answer to that.
RainbowJude wrote:There is a vast difference between an elicited feedback form that allows the participant to remain anonymous and an anonymous letter like those we've seen in The Mystery of the Spiteful Letters.
70s-child wrote:To the recipient of hate comments, the difference is immaterial. Even in the case of solicited feedback, there are several disgruntled persons, who would use the opportunity to rant and whine and generally be spiteful.
I don't agree at all. A recipient who is a rational person can see the difference in context between the two situations, no matter how disgruntled the complaints against him or her might be. Certainly, he or she might feel bad, but the complaints made within the framework of elicited feedback are expected and related to an inbuilt set of criteria in relation to his/her role of authority. What we see in The Mystery of the Spiteful Letters is not the same thing at all; it's certainly more personal and is often an manipulative and emotional attack on the recipient.

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Anita Bensoussane
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Re: Book Listing --> SPITEFUL LETTERS

Post by Anita Bensoussane »

RainbowJude wrote:
70s-child wrote:Threats, intimidation, black mail etc. are all certainly matters for law-enforcement, but what does that have to do with anonymity?
You're missing the point here. The anonymity doesn't matter. The threats do. But you can't really do much in regard to an anonymous letter until you know who the writer is, can you? You asked a question around the legalities of anonymous notes; all I did was supply an answer to that.
I realise you were making the point that remaining anonymous may not in itself be illegal, RainbowJude, but the anonymity does of course "matter" psychologically as it's all part of the manipulation. It would be particularly unnerving to receive threatening notes from an unknown sender as you would have the feeling of someone watching you and invading your privacy, and not knowing who it is would make you constantly on edge and suspicious of people. Anonymous letter writers often dredge up things from a person's past - things that a person may have tried hard to put behind them, and that they now regret deeply - and to have these things brought up again can be very damaging. Gladys suffers dreadfully at the thought of being branded a thief for life even though she stole things only as a youngster, at the bidding of her parents, and stopped as soon as she realised it was wrong. The letters make her worry that she'll never be able to get away from that label and that no one will ever like or trust her, leading her to leave her job (at least temporarily) and keep a low profile. As the sending of anonymous letters can have devastating consequences for the individuals who receive them, it certainly does seem to me to be a matter for the law.

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Re: Book Listing --> SPITEFUL LETTERS

Post by RainbowJude »

Anita Bensoussane wrote:I realise you were making the point that remaining anonymous may not in itself be illegal, RainbowJude, but the anonymity does of course "matter" psychologically as it's all part of the manipulation.
I wasn't making any point that implied that the anonymity of notes like these does not matter. All I was did was try to look up a few of the actual legalities in regard to the situation in response to 70s-child's question about this issue. I agree completely with you about the psychological effect these notes and I think this is clear if you read through my posts above; it was 70s-child who said that "there were no serious consequences" to letters such as these, not me. I think that the emotional effect of these notes is indeed an incredibly significant consequence for the receivers, which is also clear in my thoughts regarding the anonymous notes in In the Fifth at Malory Towers.

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Re: Book Listing

Post by Anita Bensoussane »

True - I just thought the point was worth emphasising. :)

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70s-child
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Re: Book Listing

Post by 70s-child »

Let me explain myself more clearly. I have always thought that the take-home message of both "Spiteful Letters" as well as "In the fifth..." was that writing anonymous letters was among the cowardliest (is that a word?) of acts done only by the lowest of the low (do we have agreement on this?). On pg. 31 of Spiteful Letters Fatty says this "...usually a beastly cowardly sort of letter, saying things that the writer wouldn't dare say to anyone's face." Similar stuff is there on pg. 279 of my omnibus ed. of Malory Towers. Note that the letters here don't necessarily imply threatening/blackmailing type letters, just anonymous letters - I am making a distinction here because to me this is important.

The problem is that in reality, there are far too many grey areas. Having seen many many examples of anonymous messages, I can't always make a clear-cut association between anonymous hate writing and cowardice. In many cases, it is perfectly acceptable to write hate rants anonymously simply because people want to avoid retaliation. For instance students often put pretty nasty stuff about their teachers and even class-mates anonymously on intranet message boards. You decide whether this sort of stuff is cowardice or if it is pragmatism.

With regard to threatening/stalking/blackmailing messages, I like to call them just that. There is no question that they are criminal acts, but I don't want to confuse it even semantically with a common garden variety anonymous hate rant - the stuff that you see by the gallon on various internet sites. To me the two types of messages are qualitatively different. If someone gets death threats anonymously, I would say they got death threats, not simply an anonymous letter. And in such cases, the cowardice of the sender is not even an issue. These are often deranged and dangerous people who get their kicks out of playing hide-and-seek with you. This has nothing to do with avoiding retaliation.

With regard to "In the Fifth..." the problem, in my view, is more complicated simply because there is the additional variable of bullying. To me, bullying is a game-changer. It can have very serious consequences both for the bully and the victim and needs very careful handling. In this circumstance, simply calling the anonymous letters, a cowardly act done by the lowest of the low, is nothing more than grandstanding. I am not condoning June's actions, but I can see where it comes from. And for me, it is the problem itself that needs to be dealt with, rather than being content with blaming the victim.
RainbowJude wrote:I don't agree at all. A recipient who is a rational person can see the difference in context between the two situations, no matter how disgruntled the complaints against him or her might be.
I think we will just have to agree to disagree on this one, David. I have seen this sort of anonymous rant/note/message, and I assure you that to the target it feels just as personal, emotional, and manipulative as anything that is described in "Spiteful Letters" or "Malory Towers". Just because the process is more formal and institutionalized doesn't take the sting out of it.
RainbowJude wrote:it was 70s-child who said that "there were no serious consequences" to letters such as these, not me.
You sound just like you are ratting on someone! :-) But yes, I did say that. And you are not being fair because you have left out the context - I said it in relation to my question on whether it merits criminal prosecution or something lesser than that. You can disagree, but to me the kind of letters that are mentioned in the two books seem, at least in terms of content, very similar to a hate rant (and as for something like meddler and muddler, which Goon is called, I have been called much worse straight! :-)). And if I don't call the cops out for that it makes no sense to me to call the cops on this one.
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Re: Book Listing

Post by Moonraker »

Agatha Christie's The Moving Finger expands on this theme.

Lymstock is much like any other English village. Those that live there enjoy the peace of rural life until a series of poison pen letters destroy the safety they took for granted. When one villager commits suicide and another is murdered, the village is plunged into suspicion and terror. Once a village of trust, now all inhabitants are on the brink of accusations. Who could be writing the letters and why? Perhaps Miss Marple might be of help...

The above synopsis shows the effect (serious) that the cause (malicious tittle-tattle) brings about. The Moving Finger has a similar theme to Spiteful Letters (apart from the murders!). It is a good read, and I can recommend it!
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70s-child
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Re: Book Listing

Post by 70s-child »

I love Moving Finger! Though there as you say the situation is different because of the murder-suicide. Until then though the story is somewhat similar to Spiteful Letters.
Moonraker wrote: Lymstock is much like any other English village. Those that live there enjoy the peace of rural life until a series of poison pen letters destroy the safety they took for granted.
The setting of a small community, like a village, is actually an important dimension in both books. I think anonymous letters of the type mentioned in both books, would have maximum impact only if you know that the writer is someone in your circle. If it were a big city, and a random person were to mail out a hundred letters with a lot of made up slander, my guess is the average person would just bin the letter. They may not even know who else got similar letters. But in a small community, you can't help wondering just who in your circle would be horrible enough to write such stuff, and how you could not realize that someone you know could be a crank. I think it is probably that feeling of insecurity in their personal assessment of people that makes recipients of such letters nervous.
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Re: Book Listing

Post by Wolfgang »

Tony, all I can say is thank you for your great efforts providing all the illustrations and reviews and so on. Always when I find the time to do some browsing I enjoy it and appreciate your heavy workload.
Just because of personal interest: what software do you use to polish the scans, and what scanner do you use?
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Re: Book Listing

Post by Moonraker »

what software do you use to polish the scans
I did see a can of Pledge in his cupboard.... :D
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Re: Book Listing

Post by Tony Summerfield »

My Scanner is an HP Scanjet G2410 and the thing I use for all illustrations in both the Cave and the Journal is called Micrografx Picture Publisher 8. I don't fully understand either but just about manage to get by! :roll:
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Re: Book Listing

Post by Wolfgang »

Believe it or not, Tony, I also use Micrografx Picture Publisher, but updated to version 10 this year (although this version is also more than 10 years old). A good choice :-).
The update was necessary because my A3-Scanner uses a format Micrografx Picture Publisher 8 doesn't support properly, otherwise I would have stayed with 8.
Thanks for letting me know.
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