What is there in all this Joy Division? I'll tell you.

Originally posted by Shug Mr.Morris I'm going to have to agree with Liv on this one, Marty and Muffstar are our forefathers - and if you upset them - you upset all of us....now don't do it again!

respect me.....respect the family....

Liv aka Liv Corleone

Originally posted by Geaux Hagen tabsy, you and i see Morris' comments to marty differently. i don't think he was out of line at all, in fact, he put that last bit about marty in to address the similarities between his original point about Ian and Marty's recent outburst of emotion. it was a footnote so people didn't misinterpret his post. Morris Fan went on a bit too far but so what. if you make your private feelings public, you deserve what you get. i keep mine hidden.....

Mr Hagen, you seem as utterly insensitive as MF with regard to handling another Human Beings feelings. To suggest that someone who displays their feelings publicly 'deserves what they get' absolutely beggars belief! Perhaps you keep yours hidden because you are simply afraid to show that you do harbour true emotions, like the rest of us, and want to appear to be in control of them. There is absolutely nothing wrong with someone reaching out and saying 'hey guys, I could do with a hug here 'cause I feel sad'! Maybe like your emotions you should keep your opinions hidden too!!

Originally posted by Muffy > Originally posted by Geaux Hagen> tabsy, you and i see Morris' comments to marty differently. i don't think he was out of line at all, in fact, he put that last bit about marty in to address the similarities between his original point about Ian and Marty's recent outburst of emotion. it was a footnote so people didn't misinterpret his post. Morris Fan went on a bit too far but so what. if you make your private feelings public, you deserve what you get. i keep mine hidden.....

Mr Hagen, you seem as utterly insensitive as MF with regard to handling another Human Beings feelings. To suggest that someone who displays their feelings publicly 'deserves what they get' absolutely beggars belief! Perhaps you keep yours hidden because you are simply afraid to show that you do harbour true emotions, like the rest of us, and want to appear to be in control of them. There is absolutely nothing wrong with someone reaching out and saying 'hey guys, I could do with a hug here 'cause I feel sad'! Maybe like your emotions you should keep your opinions hidden too!!

thanks Muffy As non-english speaking from origine it is sometimes hard to find the right words to react on some post..but i thank you now , i'm right behind you

ok....i've been reading the various posts and have little clue about what you guys are refering to. when was marty's painful posts that inspired this rant from mr. morris. mr. morris, you're a great joy division fan, but no offense, it's getting tiring to read your long posts that seems a little out of place on a message board.

Originally posted by Liv

The point in all this is Mr Morris Fan, your *discussion of music* resulted in two of our regulars deciding to bugger off! You annoyed Muffy and he left (thankfully with some persuasion from the minx he returned!), and Martin is still intend on not coming back, no matter how much i try to talk him into it.

As for off topic posts, that is one of the things that has made this board so sucessful. Yes we are NO fans but we are also human beings, who like to chat to each other. Where would be be without the pringles/badger racing threads of the past?

And can i just point out to you that this is infact NEW ORDER ONLINE therefore discussing Joy Division is technically off topic....

Oh and by the way... Happy New Year...

Liv

If you read the last sentence of Muffy's post, you will see that he had no quarrel with my continuing to post as I was. He didn't care for the "romanticizing", and there's nothing wrong with that view. As for Martin, he himself has written several times on this very thread - has anyone noticed that he responded in a neutral manner?

The issue more than anything else here was simply my tone of voice. Nothing I wrote was aiming for warmth or compassion, but that does not mean that I'm a heartless and cold person. It was the fact that suddenly I remarked on Martin Gray that my tone then seemed like a vicious personal attack. It wasn't, and it's not.

Yes, you're right - this is NEW ORDER ONLINE. But I do recall one of the webmasters saying that the site was just as much Joy Division as New Order. (Check out the concert, MP3, and discography sections.) However, even if the site is only 20% Joy Division, I think it really adds something to this place to seriously discuss the music. You don't have to like what I write or agree with it, but to criticize the fact that my posts are long - that's why I started this thread. On other threads I keep it pretty short and to the point.

And finally... I don't know how many times I need to recap this: The whole "picking on Martin" thing is a NON-ISSUE - there's nothing to talk about here. No one was insulting anyone, and no one felt that way. Now it's just that everybody keeps chiming in, reinforcing this terrible misperception. I don't want to address this any longer, because there's fundamentally nothing we need to address. Let's move on and talk about Joy Division! (Or New Order! ;))

I wish you all a very happy New Year... (yes, all of you!)

Morris Fan

Perhaps this would all be furthered to a resolution if I specifically addressed some of the dynamics at work. Of course, the main issue is that I fundamentally not "bother" people in the future - and no amount of talking is going to change that. ("Actions speak louder than words.") But maybe you'd all feel a bit better if you understood.

I've been of quite a "philosophical" state of mind for some time now. I studied mathematics in college, which is an interesting subject because you can always have a mathematical train of thought operating in the back of your mind, regardless of whatever else you're doing. But with "philosophy", everything you experience is part of the endeavor. There are no apparent boundaries (and there possibly shouldn't be) between that act and your other acts.

One effect of this is that you don't interact with other people in a way that is normal or comprehensible. You seem to make a big deal out of everything, or you seem not to react at all. The reality is that I'm always engaged in some kind of thought, and then I get involved in that thought to the extent that specific events around me get pushed aside.

To others, I come across as distant or in my own world, or something else entirely. Nothing I've written in this thread, for example, was meant "personally". I think if you read the messages, you'll see that there was definitely a philosophical distance to everything, a kind of "stepping back" to see the issues at work.

Of course, in reality people can and do take things personally. As this is simply a message board, I can only repeat that I meant none of it in that way, and I'll make a determined effort now to communicate myself more effectively. If anyone was offended by what I've written, I can only say that I am really very sorry.

(However, if you're simply disagreeing with the ideas or disliking the style, then we can just argue away. I can deal with someone seriously disagreeing with something I think or picking out a sentence which is "bad poetry". I can deal with real, genuine criticism - in fact, I have a lot of respect for it. But I'll also stand firm in my way if that's how I feel.)

My "philosophical" train of thought crested some time ago, and I'm moving on now, and that by itself is really the turning point. I hate to involve everyone here in some kind of separate aspect of my life, but sometimes you can't compartmentalize your life as you would like, and you just have to deal later with the consequences.

I don't truly believe that an "apology" is really what this situation is calling for, but take all this for whatever it all is. Just don't take it personally.

Sincerely, Morris Fan

Just foad, will you ?

Originally posted by Morris Fan

And finally... I don't know how many times I need to recap this: The whole "picking on Martin" thing is a NON-ISSUE - there's nothing to talk about here. No one was insulting anyone, and no one felt that way. Now it's just that everybody keeps chiming in, reinforcing this terrible misperception. I don't want to address this any longer, because there's fundamentally nothing we need to address. Let's move on and talk about Joy Division! (Or New Order! ;))

I wish you all a very happy New Year... (yes, all of you!)

Morris Fan

I did'nt see your rant as an attack on Marty. I saw it as an attack on those of us who had offered him some words of comfort and encouragement. If you think your ill informed comments regarding our intelligence and motives for doing this were not insulting or taken as an insult then your own intelligence must be questionable to say the least.

Your cold analytical rantings on both the JD thing and Marty's situation seem to me to lack the one fundamental element that makes us human, EMOTION! Perhaps it's time to drop the philosophical outlook and start to FEEL the magic within the music and see if it can indeed stir some emotive responses from you, even if that is only the occasional goosebump!

Happy New Year by the way.

Originally posted by Muffy

I did'nt see your rant as an attack on Marty. I saw it as an attack on those of us who had offered him some words of comfort and encouragement. If you think your ill informed comments regarding our intelligence and motives for doing this were not insulting or taken as an insult then your own intelligence must be questionable to say the least.

Your cold analytical rantings on both the JD thing and Marty's situation seem to me to lack the one fundamental element that makes us human, EMOTION! Perhaps it's time to drop the philosophical outlook and start to FEEL the magic within the music and see if it can indeed stir some emotive responses from you, even if that is only the occasional goosebump!

Happy New Year by the way.

Hopefully you wrote this in the brief span of time between my last two messages. I was really overreacting in the first and in the second I tried to just be down-to-earth with where I was coming from.

One of the aspects of what I wrote was that I felt I only needed to say something once and that it would be heard that way; I'm thinking of my 'disclaimer'. I was not in the usual back-and-forth mindset of conversation. My fault - this is a message board.

I think only time is going to show people that I do not typically write these sorts of 'essays'. It's just sometimes you need to get things off your chest.

... However, of course I feel the emotion of the music! How can you not? I was just taking a very analytical approach on this thread. Perhaps I went 150% with that approach...

Morris Fan

(And I'll assume 'foad' means "Free yourself from Overbearing and Annoying posters who Deliver pointless comments"! ;))

Originally posted by Morris Fan It's fundamentally none of my business the childhood of Ian Curtis. Perhaps he suffered some traumatic abuse, perhaps he was merely very sensitive to little things. But the fact is that he ultimately took his own life, and that's definitely worth a comment.I certainly do not "encourage" anyone to commit suicide. I abhor violence committed in the name of virtually anything, including violence upon oneself, and in line with this I think that Ian Curtis' suicide was, in a sense, the exception to a life lived very differently.Many people react to horrible events with anger or a thirst for revenge. But Ian was able to channel all his energy into something artistic, so as to ultimately leave us with something brilliant. There's a nobility in this, a decision to transform an atrocity into something profound, a decision to not let oneself be destroyed by life but instead to create something beautiful out of one's own tragedy.This is something altogether honorable, even if in the end he felt that suicide was necessary. With the exception of his last act, I view Ian as setting an incredible example, one that is easily experienced by listening to the music.

Re Morris Fan

Quite serious and touching stuff to read for someone who cannot seem to net-communicate.

• But how can we now that the suicide was a well-considered and necessary decision and not a spontaneous decision from a small depressed period in his life where apparently no-one else noticed his depression??

Not often that Mark Johnson got things right in "An Ideal For Living", but I for one happen to agree with his text on Curtis's suicide (even if, as we all know, the lack of comment was because nobody would give him any info to twist and get wrong).

For those who don't know what he said, it was "speculation is not only futile but also an invasion of privacy".

Originally posted by Nigel Spleen Not often that Mark Johnson got things right in "An Ideal For Living", but I for one happen to agree with his text on Curtis's suicide (even if, as we all know, the lack of comment was because nobody would give him any info to twist and get wrong). For those who don't know what he said, it was "speculation is not only futile but also an invasion of privacy".

Re Nigel S

• I couldn't agree more!

Another subject - net-communication: Btw, From personal experience I learned "an invasion of privacy" is a quite popular net-behaviour, and sensible persons should probably stay away to avoid getting trapped in a depression...in a defenceless situation. How can I find humour from that situation, maybe by playing Pere Ubu's "Humour me"?

I agree, Johnson's comment was appropriate

Originally posted by Sébastien Boisvert > Originally posted by Geaux HagenToo intellectual? Well, like I said, I don't mind that because I'm guilty of being an intellectual myself, which is obviously not the case for many people on this board who are part of the "working class, football holligans" type of fans that Barney was describing in NewOrderStory.

There is a very fine line, though, between intelligent and pertinent comment and pretentious and sycophantic diatribe, and it has to be said that on occasion our colleague Morris Fan has tended to drift/shift/jump towards the latter. There is nothing wrong with attempting some analysis on the work of either Joy Division or New Order per se, but the writer always runs the risk of descending into quasi-intellectual "I know lots of big words and can use them" territory. The problem with the posting at the top of the thread, and the subsequent reactions from a number of the "football hooligans" who post on here, is that it could be construed as being deeply offensive to one of our number who had openly admitted to looking deeper into himself for answers than some may dare venture.

Choosing to respond to a thread with a simple, succinct and maybe irreverant message at times is the prerogative of the poster. It is not necessarily the mark of a "football hooligan" ! How many football hooligans do you know with Masters Degrees ?

This would be a dull place if not for all the interesting tangents that develop. You start a thread never knowing in what direction it will turn. I'm always surprised how something someone does as an opinion/observation/list can often become much more interesting with feedback that has absolutely nothing to do with the original thread. That's why I still hang around, that's what makes it interesting.

Originally posted by Sébastien Boisvert > Originally posted by Liv>

I think your reaction is totally UNFAIR, UNJUST, UNCALLED FOR, and simply over the top.S.

This'll probably make me Public enemy #1, but this reaction is also just a little bit over the top ! Shall we all chill and start again with threads about New Order and Joy Division ?

Originally posted by Sébastien Boisvert > Originally posted by Geaux Hagen> at least morris fan didn't start another list. i appreciate when someone has something to say about neworder/joydivision that's from their own perspective. it beats the hell out of embarrassing yourself over some girl you've never met. morris fan has an opinion that deserves to be heard and while his writing is a little academic for this board, there's no harm in writing complete sentences that don't involve football scores.

My own opinion exactly, but in my case, I don't really mind his academic writing -- quite the contrary actually. It's weird, but I hadn't paid attention to this thread until today and I found very interesting all that Morris Fan had to say about Joy Division and Ian Curtis.

I thought this was A LOT MORE interesting than the constant messages I read on this board that are usually one-liners about something futile. I think the message board would be better if half of the messages were in the same trend as those by Morris Fan.

Too intellectual? Well, like I said, I don't mind that because I'm guilty of being an intellectual myself, which is obviously not the case for many people on this board who are part of the "working class, football holligans" type of fans that Barney was describing in NewOrderStory. I am rather in the second group, the "spotty students" (whatever SPOTTY means), even though I'm not a student anymore.

I certainly do not have the intention of slagging off people who THINK before they write or speak, which is a seldom thing these days, unfortunately.

Seb.

Re Seb:

Interesting piece of message. I know it can be quite tempting sometime to speculate on and analyse people and slagging people off here, but. O.K. Barney may have categorized the fans in one interview "football hooligans and spotty students", and that's probably not a very intelligent thing to say, cos the fans are most certainly individuals, from people with steady jobs, disabled, football fans, students. O.K and Morris Fan's messages were very well written and I never meant to slag him off for that, but I only reacted negatively when speculated about the reasons for Ian Curtis' death, but that's what the press love isn't it, speculations. A pretty dark thing to do..

But, perhaps New Order never meant to be a "intellectual band" as Joy Division were, lyricwise, but we still love'em for the music they make.

Can we all just agree to disagree on this and move on? Enough please, on to the next topic.....

Oky MF, if I took your comments the wrong way I apologize, and subsquently do so for the slagging I gave you. As one of the spotty student variety, I can appreciate intellectual discourse, but I also have ahealthy sense of humor. The board needs a nice mix of that, not one way or the other. Fucking hell, the world's collapsing around our feet the least we can do is try and keep some form of sanity.

Originally posted by Sébastien Boisvert > Originally posted by Muffy > > > > Originally posted by Geaux Hagen> > tabsy, you and i see Morris' comments to marty differently. i don't think he was out of line at all, in fact, he put that last bit about marty in to address the similarities between his original point about Ian and Marty's recent outburst of emotion. it was a footnote so people didn't misinterpret his post. Morris Fan went on a bit too far but so what. if you make your private feelings public, you deserve what you get. i keep mine hidden.....>

Mr Hagen, you seem as utterly insensitive as MF with regard to handling another Human Beings feelings. To suggest that someone who displays their feelings publicly 'deserves what they get' absolutely beggars belief! Perhaps you keep yours hidden because you are simply afraid to show that you do harbour true emotions, like the rest of us, and want to appear to be in control of them. There is absolutely nothing wrong with someone reaching out and saying 'hey guys, I could do with a hug here 'cause I feel sad'! Maybe like your emotions you should keep your opinions hidden too!!

I agree with that as well, but I think this is a derivation of the topic here -- Morris Fan's intentions were good. he didn't mean to harm, and I don't even think MARTY HIMSELF reacted badly to that.

So what's the problem in the first place?

You judging for MARTY, in place of MARTY, for something concerning MARTY only.

People don't minding their own business. This is what I see.

I don't like "gang reactions" -- people who will react a certain way just because their leader of people from their gang reacted that certain way, and often this reaction will be against an individual. In cases like these, I tend to be on that individual's side, especially if I think the basic reaction of the "gang" is not founded (n'est pas fondée).

I even feel that one of the peoples in this "gang" slagged off Morris Fan just for the pleasure of slagging him off after reading a few line of his Joy Division text, and got bored because it was too intellectual for him.

S.

Dear Seb,

I can't speak for anyone else here with regard to this thread and the way it has developed but in my own case I took objection to being labeled 'not intelligent enough' and as a 'self important ass'. He was not having a pop at Marty but rather at those of us who had offered him kind words. I was not responding to that for anyone but me. When I see someone apparently criticising me IT IS MY BUSINESS AND RIGHT to respond to that. I have no problem whatsoever with MF's thoughts on JD or Ian Curtis' suicide though I do disagree with the romantic notion he appears to have that it was hounorable or noble of him to do it.

Your comments about 'gang reactions' is a little over the top too. YOU have created a community here, a Joy Division / New Order website with a forum / message board. It is only natural that through time the regular contributors to this place will become friends. That means we will grow fond of each other and consequently defend each other when attacked, and that is all that happened here. It has to be said though that had it not been for MFs initial provocation it would never have happened.

As for 'off topic' messages, if it really is something that bothers you then put a stop to it. Do as Shug suggests, close the thread, issue the warning, e-mail the offender and then boot them out after strike three. I'm sure you'll have good reason to boot the lot of us by February. Alternatively you could accept that there is only so much to say about New Order until they do something fresh. The choice is yours, you have the power!