Theos-Talk Archives (December 2002 Message tt00099)

Hi. Paul. I have spent eleven years studying the bulletin board format, of
which email lists is one version. I am most likely the only person alive
who has ever actively studied this most interesting medium of human
communication, which has a most extraordinary potential to affect the
consciousness of humanity in a way which is most amazing. I am devoting the
rest of my life to the study of this subject, unless I find something else
with greater potential to affect so many people, which is unlikely.

What is so different about bulletin boards, and how is it that you are
encountering all this friction on these boards, when in your regular life
there is hardly any? There is a simple explanation for this, which I will
not go into in detail. In many ways the bulletin board format mirrors
regular life. People can form community, including individual relationships
and alliances in such community, but, if the board is a certain size and no
larger, every member of that community can look in upon the interactions of
individual members. For this reason, the pecking order functions
differently, and this is most exciting and interesting, as in regular life,
in a church, neighborhood, office, or university community, if person A puts
down person B, person B can go to on to another interaction, in a different
spot, with person C, D, and E and repair his face (re-build his damaged self
esteem), and end up none the worse from his first interaction, as the rest
of the members of the community won't even know about it. This is one of
several MAJOR ways that bulletin boards differ from regular life, while at
the same time mirroring it. I will not go into further detail, but just
mention this to illustrate that there are logical reason to explain the
phenomena you have observed.

There is a word to describe the behavior you have pointed out in your email.
That word is "dishonest." People behave this way in regular life all the
time, and, in my opinion, to the exact degree that they do on email lists,
but this kind of behavior tends to slip by in regular life because: #1. It
is not evidenced in a situation such as this where people, whether they
realize it or not, are vying to preserve a positions in the pecking order,
which is, by the very nature of the bulletin board medium, always
threatened, and #2: such dishonesty is not fixed in stone (with its affect
thereby exaggerated) in the form of a palpable email and archives etc. But,
in my opinion, this dishonesty is a characteristic of almost all human
beings and is affecting human society as destructively in regular life as it
does on these lists, actually probably very much more so.

I am again sorry that I mistook you for Brian. I am not yet done with my
explanation I have promised and will still be making part three, four, and
five of this, so stay tuned. Wry

----- Original Message -----
From: <kpauljohnson@yahoo.com>
To: <theos-talk@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, December 31, 2002 6:01 AM
Subject: Theos-World Tacky tactics


> --- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, "Tony"
> Good morning,
>
> The post quoted below uses some tactics that I've seen repeatedly on
various fora, used by Baha'is, Cayceites, Theosophists, Fourth Way
disciples. Sometimes I've been the target, more often the observer of its
use on others. In every case the dynamic is this: one person is a true
believer, the other a dissident or skeptic. The former expresses disdain
for the latter, not by saying outright "you, X, are beneath me so I look
down on you and denounce you" but rather by making sneering, dismissive
comments to others *about* the skeptic or dissident without naming him or
her. Such comments offer a tiny fig leaf of plausible deniability-- if the
target objects, their authors can turn around and say "I wasn't referring to
you and the fact that you imagine I was just proves you're paranoid." I
will never forget one Baha'i who made a point by point attack on a post I
made and then furiously insisted that he had never read it or anything else
I ever wrote!
> (And never would lower himself to do so.)
>
> Having seen "the treatment" from several folks here, I would guess that
the message is "I'm so disdainful of you that I refuse to address you or
refer to you by name, yet my disdain requires expression via indirect
sneering comments." But hereby welcome and invite explanations from anyone
about why people do that. Seems like passive aggressive stuff to me; throw
a rock, hide your hand.
>
> Tony (whom I know only from this post) wrote:
>
> <alpha@d...> wrote:
>
> > Hi Terrie
> >
> > Your e-mails! Rather like the sun peeping out from behind they dark
black
> > clouds.
>
> What dark clouds?
>
> > You initially wrote:
> > <<<I think/feel that HPB's materials are
> > a worldly, enlightening and unbias resourse AND that what she has
> > written is in fact a tremendous accumulation of reason and wisdom AND
> > quite a respectable gift to have accomplished/offered on up - it's an
> > inspiration, even today.>>>
> >
> > Alas, what seemed a reasonable statement,
>
> "Seemed" is not absolute but relative. So it seemed to *you*, Tony, but
not to me.
>
> has turned into a rather tacky
> > conversation about bias.
>
> Tacky meaning in poor taste? Why is it tacky to discuss bias? Rather
than sneering at the conversation, perhaps you might enlighten us with
non-tacky comments about bias?
>
> Like you, biased is not something I would use
> > about or attribute to H.P.B.
>
> Why not? She was a vigorous polemicist with a very definite agenda. Not
that there is anything wrong with that, but let's not pretend it's not the
case.
>
> We do know she had tremendous powers of
> > discrimination:), and where you might well use discrimination, another
might
> > use bias. The books you read may be to do with your discriminatory
powers,
> > rather than with bias. The sun view is different to the black clouds
view.
>
> That sort of comment is summarized by a very simple phrase, "holier than
thou." Why not get down off your high horse and engage the topic as an
equal among equals? The Theosophical movement is very poorly served IMO by
the tactics its adherents use, congratulating one another with their
superiority to benighted skeptics. I'd advise saving that for private email
because it makes a bad appearance for your "side."
>
>
> > Bias is below the belt, discrimination above the head. Roget is not
law.
>
> Descriptive, not prescriptive. Terrie doesn't have to use the word the
way it is generally used, but will be better understood if she does so.
>
> > I have read some Olcott, and been to several talks given by
Krishnamurti.
> > It is nice to dip into lots of different things, but there is no
particular
> > reason why anyone should feel the need to read Krishnamurti from the
> > Theosophical point of view.
>
> No particular reason? That's rather sweeping. How about the fact that
the maximum membership of the TS was during its promotion of him as the
World Teacher? And that his profile is now much higher than the Society
that nurtured him and which he then rejected?
>
>
> Olcott did a wonderful job as an
> > administrator, and also did mesmeric healing and other great things.
> > But H.P.B. was the Occultist, was of the inner side, so to put it. Here
in
> > London it is warm, and the happy waitress serving the coffees to us
outside
> > in Soho was from Mauritius, and was demanding to see some snow. It is
always
> > supposed to snow at Christmas here, but rarely does. There is something
> > magical about snow. Is it something to do with the fact that every
> > snowflake is a geometrical shape. It is very like H.P.B's writings.
They
> > are full of symbols and geometrical shapes, sounds and colours,
pictures,
> > and so on. As snow flakes are so beautiful, think by how much more so
are
> > the thought flakes in "The Secret Doctrine" and "The Voice of the
Silence,"
> > and All works of That occult or hidden Nature.
> >
> > Keep shining
> > Tony
> >
> Shiny New Year to you!
>
> Paul, no dark cloud
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: thalprin <thalprin@y...> [mailto:thalprin@y...]
> > Sent: 30 December 2002 11:13 pm
> > To: theos-talk@yahoogroups.com
> > Subject: Theos-World Re: Unbiased
> >
> >
> > Hi again
>
>
>
>
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>
>