Losing members

[c hristian]

that indicates that you have raised them well! With minds of their own, and able to (hopefully) get beyond the conditioning that their parents wittedly and unwittedly imposed upon them. Maybe even more aware and more sensitive to all human factors around them! I know that's how it is for me. It's evolution happening right before my eyes.

And I've taken great pleasure in confonting my parents about why they hit when they were young parents. The adminission came that they were scared of us getting into trouble, or hurt, and they didn't know what else to do. (so they, in essence, end up hurting us.) also , it's what they learned from their parents. ...just pass it on. That was a very liberating series of talks.

[Con Murphy]

i have not once hit my child, and he is the most well-behaved child i know. My wife and I, both being the products of physical punishment when we were young, remained absolute in never hitting. It's about respect and closeness.

I know what you are saying here, but there are many different ways to go about remedying the situation, the person doling out discipline can remain flexible and communicative. The British boarding schools , believe it or not, aren't always an oasis of enlightened thinking. i bet you know that already.

Hi c hristian, divided by a common language time again! I was just using a figure of speech. I've never hit either of my kids either, but I have been known to take their toys away if they don't play nicely. As for British boarding schools, I only know about as much as you do about them, ie what I've read or heard second-hand (some good, some bad).

[c hristian]

i gotcha. thanks for clarifying.

[That Was Jonathan E. Then]

I'm not saying this just to cheer Charlie up, but there is a silver lining to all this. What I personally call the "Unspeakable Solipsism of Being" topic has resulted in many forum members generously coming forward with pearls of wisdom and demonstrating a real caring about this community.

I am not happy about the departure of others who made regular and vital contributions — but for the most part I think they brought it upon themselves. To say that one is

approaching the forum with trepidation after having made a potentially controversial post

and that one does

not want to go through the stress of worrying about what the reaction might be

indicates that one is perhaps out of one's depth. I really do not mean to be unkind here, just realistic. There are tools here that allow one to amend or delete one's remarks if one has second thoughts. And I don't mean to pick on the person who made that comment. I'm only using it for illustration.

There's also a social tool that I have not seen employed here, although Charlie mentions it, and that is the apology. It is not asking too much for an apology if one cares about this community. Where's the problem? "I said something that hurt you and I'm sorry." Is that so difficult? Somewhere Nigel said that the use of the offending epithet was "unforgivable." I suspect he meant "inexcusable," as in "there's no way that word should have been used," not "no, I'll never talk to you again." This is a time for generous apologies and forgiveness all round. It worked for me with Howard when I was out of line. There's nothing wrong with recognizing that one has caused offence. In fact, the refusal to recognize one's trespass is a sign of weakness and insecurity.

I think that Howard's analysis in the Solipsism topic is spot on:

To briefly get specific - I'm sure Nikki's 'Sun reader' comment was just an unfortunate throwaway remark which just happened to hit its target with more force than she expected. Des didn't have to resort to such crude bluntness for his response, but I don't imagine he anticipated that his careless words would join a catalogue of verbal abuse that poor Nikki has had to put up with all her life. Result; red faces all round, and a very, very tricky collision to back out of or find the words to mend.

And how often do I agree with Howard in such detail? Wonders will never cease. An emoticon or something could follow this last sentence to indicate a wryly joking remark not a deathly serious insult to Howard's being. But I don't like emoticons or even those things you can do with punctuation marks (because I'm no good at them).

I care very much about the Sound of the World community. It's very important to me that I have this connection with people of similar interests, many of whom live in the UK and thus give me a sense of the younger me. Following Thursday night's meltdown I was in shock, numbed and disoriented. I didn't know what I thought partially because it came as a great surprise to me, although having read what some others have said about the warning signs in the Brown Sugar topic I can see the impending disaster in what I assumed was just Des joking around. I also see that there a variety of viewpoints that are equally valid because they are honestly held by valid people. I was coming to truly appreciate Des's quirky humour and his way of playing with the form of the Forum. Sure, I knew he was a bit of an edge-walker, but people who live in glass houses, etc. I was a little concerned that he might be offended by my joke of a topic about his new topic, so I sent him a PM to reassure him that it was an hommage. No problem there — we chatted about birds, too — although I sort of expected to get a bollocking from somebody else. Nikki had greatly impressed me with her extremely powerful posting to the Brown Sugar topic. Her suggestion to read The Sun did not strike me as a capital offence — perhaps I've been away from England for too long to know the full import of the remark, but it seemed to me have a reasonable mixture of humour and irritation, and I thought her irritation was clearly provoked by Des' antics and refusal to take her seriously, which ultimately was a sign of disrespect on his part. When it comes down to it, I believe that it's up to Des to show good faith by offering an apology.

One thing I've learnt about community is that it's not all everybody agreeing all the time and it's warm and cosy and there's no challenges beyond who washes the tea cups. The strength of a community is its ability to learn from the disagreements that inevitably arise. One has to be able to put up with people you don't see eye-to-eye with. Occasionally, people leave a community for one reason or another and that can be painful for both sides. Sometimes it's temporary and sometimes permanent. In this case, I hope very much that it's only temporary, that good manners prevail, and that all is forgiven.

Beyond my purely personal desires, I believe that the members of the Sound of the World Forum discuss relevant and important cultural topics — and I find that the diversity of the opinions and experiences is what provides most of the value. Do we want to sit around saying nothing more interesting than, "I know what you mean"? I don't think so. However, to discuss the subjects of the topics at hand, without degenerating into personal slag fests, is obviously an essential requirement. It also seems to me quite foolish (because it doesn't work) to attempt to control the direction of discussion with any sort of statements of personal prohibition or even distaste. As Nikki said, quite correctly

if you don't like it switch off, or start another thread.

[That Was Jonathan E. Then]

The British boarding schools , believe it or not, aren't always an oasis of enlightened thinking. i bet you know that already.

As for British boarding schools, I only know about as much as you do about them, ie what I've read or heard second-hand (some good, some bad).

They'll scar you for life — if you let them. Horrible, vile institutions designed to suck the humanity out of one. If . . . was emotionally a very true portrait — and a boy from my school was in it!

[Dayna]

I think it helps if people can just respect the feelings & opinions of someone else. It is very interesting to read different points of veiw on things. It isn't personal if one person doesn't like some type of music or artist & someone else does.
There are some you might think seem like jerks or whatever, but it isn't personal.
It really is a waste to loose some good writing & thinking over differences of opinions, ect.

[Nigel w]

Jonathan wrote

Nigel said that the use of the offending epithet was "unforgivable." I suspect he meant "inexcusable," as in "there's no way that word should have been used," not "no, I'll never talk to you again."

You are exactly right, of course, Jonathan. Inexcusable is the word I should have used. And Dayna. as usual what you say above is spot on...I think 'jerks' is the strongest word I've ever heard you use! Blessings on you : you're one in a million.

[That Was Jonathan E. Then]

Blessings on you : you're one in a million.

Or perhaps one in 300 million — or about six billion! Or more, depending on your perspective on the continuous sequence of the spectrum of life.

[joel]

They'll scar you for life — if you let them. Horrible, vile institutions designed to suck the humanity out of one.

I'm not so sure -- insert smiley here -- but in any case, the boarding school is on the way out. My old alma mater no longer accepts borders, is fully co-educational and offers extra-curricular classes in African drumming.

[Charlie]

Many thanks for all the comments here, which reassure me that the forum will survive the departure of even its most crucial members.

But it is very difficult for me to accept the finality of their decisions.

I note the comment that I may have been too passive in allowing a couple of debates to heat up to boiling point, and I certainly was shaken when the word f***wit was used as a personal affront. Is it too late to ask the person who used that word to edit their own entry, and take it out? I was waiting to see if that would happen naturally, after all this fall-out, but perhaps I should have been more pro-active.

I will greatly miss the additions to the list of birthdays and YouTube entries from one in particular. It is down the survivors to take up the slack.

We have lost our main musicologist, the one who could explain how key changes could affect our emotional reactions.

And we have lost somebody whose perspective was unique amongst our regular contributors, for many reasons, and who was becoming increasingly articulate and forthcoming in her writing.

Subsequently, a fourth regular contributor, Norman D, more or less a founder member, has also backed away

We will survive, yes, but in the short run we are weakened.

If there is anything I could do to enable any of those four to return, I would be grateful for them to let me know, privately or publicly.

[Nigel w]

it is very difficult for me to accept the finality of their decisions.

Nothing is forever, Charlie, until they nail down your box. People may well go away and reflect and in time drift back.

From the heavy hints you drop, at least some of the people we have lost were those directly involved in upping the ante with either inflammatory language and/or responding with increasingly intemperate and strident ferocity when their views were robustly but reasonably challenged.

Jonathan already took up the point about your correspondent who complained about

approaching the forum with trepidation after having made a potentially controversial post ...(and) worrying about what the reaction might be

I don't necessarily agree with him when he suggested that meant they were "out of their depth" but it's a naively untenable position all the same. If you make a post you know to be "potentially controverial" you are deliberately setting out to say something that you know full well may produce a robust reaction. Now that reaction should not be abusive or insulting , obviously. But you can't really say 'I'm going to say something controversial here but I can't deal with it if people strongly disagree with me and shoot my arguments down in flames'.

I think we've all learnt a lot from all this, including the people who have gone away, so don't give up on the possibility of their return to the fold. You can see some of them have still been reading as their names come up at the top of the board as users currently browsing the forum. Who's to say that when they see things have calmed down and they consider their own contribution to what happened that they won't start posting again, too?

[howard male]

Nigel wrote -

...the people who have gone away...You can see some of them have still been reading as their names come up at the top of the board

I would also add, to those who have left us but are still with us (this is increasingly starting to sound like a forum for spiritualists) that if you departure is permanent then you are effectively doing three negative things:

1. Cutting your nose to spite your face - because clearly you enjoyed participating here most of the time.

2. Letting those that you may perceive as having driven you away, win.

3. Upsetting (if that's not too strong a word) the one person the least involved in causing your departure.

Yeah, I know - it's emotional blackmail I'm hitting you with now - but, you know, you've gotta try everything.

I can't remember if this was a comment CG posted or if it was just something he once said to me, but he compared the forum to a garden (bare with me) in that his wife took great pride in her garden while Charlie had this as his place to prune, cultivate, and be proud of. But now one corner of his garden is just bare soil with a few weeds just poking up (yeah, I'm talking about you, Dominic - wanna make something of it!) and so we really need to... actually I'm starting to disappear up my own analogy, so I'll leave it at that.

[That Was Jonathan E. Then]

Most of what Howard said is what I think too. I am seriously bummed this morning after Charlie's latest disclosures. This is senseless. I wonder what psychic winds are blowing through here. This has been a very pleasant garden, even weeds deserve to live — a weed is just a plant in what we humans think is the wrong place, baring noxious weeds that take over — but it feels like a sudden frost hit us. Well, it will be again. Spring is round the corner, leaves are leafing (!), buds are budding, flowers are flowering! It's time to plant.

[c hristian]

the greatest investment you can make is in human relationships.

...unless you bought Google during its IPO.

[Hugh Weldon]

Well said Howard, yes it's not all roses sometimes and I trust you are not leading us up the garden path but ...seriously I hope the necessary pride-swallowing or whatever is needed can take place, maybe let things go quiet for a few days and then we can return to business as usual with all hands on deck.

There is certainly something addictive about the forum but I do hope that after some cooling off it can get back to the friendly and civilised place that it was.

And just to observe in passing that all this hoo-hah started on what appeared at first to be one of the most fruitless and least interesting topics we've had for a while - but I won't start raking all that up again now.