| |
|
One thing that the Temple does do VERY well that the Head Shop doesn't is in terms of knowledge sharing. I'm not terribly interested in Chaos magick - except in its metaphorical terms as part of a spectrum of neurolinguistic programming, structuralist and post-structuralist philosophy etc that all operate to some extent around the fundamental power of language and its relationship to reality - but if someone comes onto the board and wants to know how to energise a sigil or whatever, it seems to me that they get that help.
Maybe the issue here is not about tone or language in the forum but that specific clash between newbie and old-timer. What we need, I suspect, is an understanding on the part of the newbie that if a thread is on a subject they don't understand that the appropriate post to it is not to dismiss it or reduce it to something trivial or something disconnected in their own lives, but to try and do a bit of background reading and/or explicitly ask for clarification on some of the words and issues involved. That helps everyone.
On the other side, the old-timers do - I think - have a responsibility to try and make their discussions comprehensible and understandable. I don't think that means that they have to debase the thinking or use baby-language, but I think it does mean that WHEN ASKED ABOUT ANY GIVEN CONCEPT, they should be prepared to make a minor detour to clarify what the discussion is about, or to point towards more useful resources online.
I think this could enormously help the sense that the Head Shop is hermetically sealed (which of course it isn't), but it does require intelligent and responsible behaviour from both sides that accepts that while knowledge and experience is a pre-requisite to talk about something at a high level, it is only a lack of knowledge that causes most of these problems and not (normally) of intelligence or ability. And that lack can be fixed.
On that related subject, I am still a little frustrated by the quality of the Laboratory thread - I really think the sheer range of issues surrounding medical ethics, experimentation, health, the greenhouse effect, science and technology, space travel etc. etc. should make that place one of the most vibrant places on the board, but the Head Shop does seem to still cherry-pick the ethical or intellectual threads leaving it as a place to point at shiny things. It's better than it was, but it could be so much more... |
|
|
