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Old 3rd May 2020, 10:47 PM   #18
A. G. Maisey
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Join Date: May 2006
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OK David, you want more than I intended to give?

If a journalist is given information long before it becomes publicly available, and his informant is somebody who is in a privileged position in respect of the information itself and the people it involves, and his informant has told him that the information is off the record, tell me, what does that journalist do?

Most especially what does he do if he wants to obtain information in future from his informant? Sometimes the information might never become publicly available, sometimes it might become available long after it is of any interest to anybody, but the rule is the same:- if one is given privileged information one keeps one's mouth shut.

Sometimes we are in possession of knowledge that it unwise to give to others, and would undermine our integrity if we did . In respect of the book under discussion, I do not have a copy of this book, but I have seen and read the material that is contained in this book.

As to my remark about purchasing "every other book that they can get their hands on", that remark contains a qualification that very adequately takes care of the money problem that we all face at some level or another. If one is a little short of funds then clearly one is unable to get their hands on a lot of things.

Going back a long time, the only way I could get my hands on Raffles' "History of Java" was to do a 50 kilometer round trip to the State Library in Sydney, and then spend the afternoon reading and making notes. I needed a copy of that book more than a mongrel dog needs a hiding, but only originals were available from antique booksellers and they were simply beyond my means.

I do understand what you have said David, and in fact the core of my post #10 is in the last line of that post.

In my experience the way in which to build knowledge is first & foremost to identify exactly what it is that one wishes to know or to learn, and that identification of "knowledge needed" then becomes one's guide to where and how to seek that knowledge. In respect of knowledge concerning keris, and in particular Balinese keris, very seldom does the material presented in print that focuses upon keris assist the understanding of a true student of the keris.

But on the other hand, if one is not so much a student of the keris, but rather a collector of the keris, then the nature of the knowledge needed is different, and knowledge at this "collector level" can be added to by virtually everything in print.

I will leave it to other people to comment on Mr. Kam's book, since I do not actually own a copy of the publication, I will not.
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