Theos-Talk Archives (January 2003 Message tt00015)

--- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, "Tony" <alpha@d...> wrote:
> Hello Paul
> 
> WOW! That really is some mail. What happened? It is helpful actually.
> By tacky I mean sticky, gluey, difficult to move about in, lacking air,
> claustrophobic.
> 
> <<<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.>>>
> 
> Yes, these words you write describe YOU very well. And then there is that
> list of personalities you then went on to post, where you categorise others
> on Theos-World with your comments (because you had nothing better to do
> whilst waiting for your guests). Those comments are comments about you. Or
> did you somehow think they were about them?
> 
> So, regardless of all those other people, the LISTS of people and
> organizations you harbour in your mind - and regardless of how "bad"
> they/we/or some of us may be === it is possible to turn around and look at
> yourself/ourselves and examine your/our own faults WITHOUT going on about
> the faults of others. No one is saying that is easy, but it is PRACTISING
> THEOSOPHY. If no one else on this list practised Theosophy, it would still
> be no excuse for either of us not to.
> 
> If YOU do it you won't have to make up lists and be chained to those
> thoughts any more. You won't have to go on about other people on this and
> other lists, which you have just so well demonstrated that you at present
> do. You will be more concerned about your faults than theirs. And you will
> also be more concerned for other people. The only good reason, if there be
> a good reason, for making up a list of other peoples faults, is so that it
> is possible to see our own faults. The faults you see in others Paul, are
> your faults. *It stands to reason.*
> 
> So in answer to YOUR INVITATION, that is why I think YOU (rather than
> people), do that.
> 
> Cheers for a better New Year, and I mean it!
> Tony.
> 
> 
Hi Tony,

Being a person, I don't imagine myself exempt from any pattern that is observable in "people." What you seem to miss in my post is that the spiritual oneupmanship I complain about on your part is something I've witnessed a hundred, nay a thousand times directed online toward others for every time it has been directed at me. What is this need to put others down online? I neither imagine myself exempt from it nor accept certain Theosophists' apparent obsession with focusing on my alleged personal faults.

There are other fora I read that offer better examples of a healthier kind of online communication than are seen here. There are also fora that offer more extreme and aggressive examples of people putting one another down than here. In the new year I will ponder the extremes and the middle and hope other theos-talk subscribers might learn from such contemplation. Theos-talk isn't the most hellish online forum but it sure as *hell* isn't the most heavenly and my presence here has little impact on that.

Paul


> --- 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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