| |
|
Hi Red, in response to your post I'd like to present a slightly different angle on some of the quotes you posted form this thread, to see if this helps. Its interesting to see why you felt the way you did, and curious that I read them differently. To be clear, I'm just presenting my view, not saying that you were wrong, or that what I'm saying is what the posters were trying to say.
There is no excuse to steal. Magicians should not consider themselves above the law. That is unhealthy behaviour. Period.
please tell me what it means to end a post with "Period." other than to say "the end".
I was under the impression that this was an expression of someone's belief, my response of agreement was based on how I tend to feel about one considering oneself above the law. I was under the impression that this was more a case of pointing out that someone emphatically felt that considering oneself above the law while living in a law-filled society is not the most healthy of situations... the phrase 'period' can be used to add emphasis, rather than its literal meaning of 'the end'. Although I understand the implication of it being an 'end of discussion' type phrase.
No one has said that no magic occured have they? I didn't see it if they had.
you could just be constructing a flimsy psuedo-magical justification for a sudden compulsive desire to steal
Bingo.
Yes...most definately.
you are making justifications for your own poor behaviour and blaming the bloody rock for it.
I don't think the pyrite can be anything magical at all for you.
Although I can see these are getting more strongly worded, my initial impression is that these could be read as people querying not the actual magical content, or potential magical content, but the potential use of magic as an excuse. The responses to Kowalski have, generally, seemed to me to be people poking with varying degrees of politeness in order to uncover hir reasoning... as yet nothing has implied to me that the pyrite was taken in a magical way, for a magical reason; the stated complete lack of intention, thought for purpose, or care about the piece gives me pause for thought.
The next few points I don't have anything to say about specifically although I am, as I've said, generally under the impression that most people are trying to ascertain what went on thought process-wise... in other words to find the answer to the question; 'why I took the stuff?' When most responses have been mostly indicating that there is a division between what many people participating find to be useful/healthy magical practice, people have said so (again ,with varying degrees of politeness).
Feeling compelled to absolutely absolutely HAVE to have something and acting on that compulsion willy-nilly is not the sign of a functional magical practice. Sorry.
I wonder how many people would be quick to say something similar about feeling compelled to cut or burn yourself? because that's something I do as part of my magical practice, and I'd like to feel comfortable discussing it here.
I think that the emphasis here is not on the feeling of the compulsion to do something considered 'socially transgressive', as I hope it has been demonstrated regularly that Barbelith is generally a safe space for reasonable discussion on these topics, instead, the emphasis seems to be more on the aspect of 'willy-nilly' indulgence of the compulsion, rather than a considered response or a regular practice with benefits of some description (however obscure those benefits are to the people outside the practice).
The impression I get from Kowalski's posts is that ze took the piece on a whim, does not utilise theft in a regular practice (ethics of that would be interesting to debate aside from this particular dissection) whatever regular implies, has no intention of using it, and no real intention of looking closely at hir motivations. Ze may consider this analysis to be wrong, but I can only go on the impression I have from the posts, and my impression is that the looking for/at motivations has been rather quickly dismissed, or at the very least dissmissed in the context of this discussion, which leaves people wondering where the motivation-hunting-process was. As that is important to me I'd like to see it, if ze does not want to share, perhaps saying 'I don't want to discuss it' would be better recieved, although 'why not?' may be a speedy reply, or 'why are you asking us 'why' then?'. |
|
|
