I think it somewhat presumptuous of Patrick Daems to write the sort of letter that he did (April 7). Taking the opening statement, “You start from the premise that everyone willing and capable of writing an opinion means well for this world … Still, what they want is to improve our lives. You want that, too. We, opinion writers, have that in common,” my first thought was, “Perhaps, and perhaps not.”
I myself have three motives driving my own letter-writing — in the order of their importance:
• To rock the boats (all of them).
• To entertain.
• To make people think.
Only the third motive might fall into Mr. Daems’ seemingly “Pollyannaish” perspective, but the first two, my primaries, fit more into the category of what Alfred told Bruce Wayne about the Joker in “Dark Knight” (2008), which I found to be profoundly impressive.
Alfred said, “Some men aren’t looking for anything logical like money. They can’t be bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.”
Not literally, but figuratively. Perhaps Mr. Daems might want to take that into consideration before he goes about profiling “us opinion-writers.”
Arthur Saginian
Santa Clarita
