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Haus: "...generally, a clique, and certainly the idea of a Dominating Barbelith Clique, is about the abuse of power to benefit other members..."
Um, well, no. That may be your perception of what a clique is, and it certainly appears to be how others perceive the effects of a Dominating Barbelith Clique, but it's not what a clique actually is.
A clique is defined as a narrow exclusive circle or group of persons, especially one held together by common interests or pursuits. The above was a tongue-in-cheek attempt to quantify how this idea of a clique dominating Barbelith might work within the definition. Christ's sake, dude, I likened Jack Fear to Jupiter. Not being serious.
However, I think that the majority of the issue surrounding this idea of a Barbeclique is based around your misunderstanding. You and many others have this idea that a clique is fundamentally a bad thing, and so all the fracas surrounding the possibility of a Barbeclique results - more emotional sound effects on both sides, to borrow a phrase, resulting from this misperception.
The resentment over cliques of any shape or form seems to stem from one or both of
i) non-members disliking the exclusivity involved with the clique, which is my point in my post above
ii) non-members perceiving that members of a clique are abusing their apparent power over non-members in order to benefit members, or the clique itself, which is your point, I believe.
The former is a perfectly natural reaction to perceived cliquish behaviour. 'We want to belong, we feel we are barred from belonging, we feel excluded'.
The latter is also a perfectly natural reaction to the former, and probably becomes cumulative over time, especially as, like I say, Barbelith attracts emotionally fragile alternative thinkers.
There may be a Barbeclique. Equally, there may not be - it's really a kind of 'eye of the beholder' issue. And that's the point, surely - large numbers of posters, over time, have raised this issue in a somewhat surly manner. They feel excluded. They clearly feel resentful over it. And instead of projecting reassurance, deliberate attempts to include, listening to objections, they're coldly and incredulously (and often rudely) told that such a clique doesn't exist, they have no evidence of same, and their argument doesn't stand up. To shut up, in other words. Then they feel shouted down. By the clique. It's happened in this thread.
See, you (and I mean you plural, not Haus) need to switch mental gears, here, and I know that this is difficult for some posters, who've got a lot of ego invested in their 'fictionsuits' and how they're perceived. This is the thing - it's not about you. It's about them. If people keep feeling excluded or bullied, and you keep telling them to grow up, or go somewhere else, or get used to it, or whatever sweet little antisocial soundbite Flux and Bio are trotting out this week, then you will alienate people that otherwise might contribute interesting things to this community you seem to have such a hard-on for. And the accusations of 'cliquish behaviour' won't go away, much as they've stuck around for the last two years of the board, and probably longer.
Of course, if all you want out of Barbelith is somewhere to swan around in your virtual hard-man-of-the-internet battlesuit, wittily batting aside retorts with some withering sarcasm and barely concealed insults, then you can go right ahead. I don't really see the objective difference between that pose and Warren Ellis' Old Bastard pose, to be honest, but if you want to be that person, it's your dime. As has been pointed out about Ellis, it's vain, antisocial and terribly egocentric, but then Barbelith does tend to attract emotionally fragile alternative thinkers, and you're no different. Are you? |
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