If you go away...

General Discussion of Diary Posts and Questions on Beekeeping Matters
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AdrianQuineyWI
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If you go away...

Unread post by AdrianQuineyWI »

Allen, I read your posts daily because I enjoy your point of view. However, I understand that if you feel you have to overly-filter what you are thinking it could take pleasure away from writing. As you think about your decision I have a suggestion - delete the line that says "updated daily".
Anyway, I appreciate what you say. It makes me think about what I am doing. I initially came to the diary page to learn about beekeeping, yet I visit daily even when you are sailing because you write well. Nothing lasts forever, and if you feel it is time to stop I will miss your writings and respect your decision.
Allen Dick
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Re: If you go away...

Unread post by Allen Dick »

Thanks for the feedback. I'm just worrying that I pushed some buttons I did not intend to and it took me sufficiently by surprise that I am working through the matter. When I offend my best friends by mistake, that is a big deal to me.

Will I stop posting? I've done it before and went back to writing again, so we will see. Probably I won't quit. Ducking and running does not mean I will escape misunderstandings

As I explained in my examination of what happened, I know that offence is in the mind of the reader, not necessarily in the mind of the 'offender'. Offence must be taken. It cannot easily be given to an unwilling recipient.

How anyone will react is unpredictable. Even when attempting deliberately to offend, the reaction can be amusement, not offense.

And timing is everything. Even the most good-tempered person will take things badly after having just experienced a serious setback or other shock.

Trying to guess what others will think and adapting behaviour beyond common courtesy to try to avoid offending anyone is a mugs game and can never work. If we set out trying too hard not to offend anyone at all, we just wind up offending ourselves.

The alternative is silence and that is bound to offend someone, too.

So, I'll probably just carry on and be a bit sad that my thoughts were considered offensive. What else can I do?
Allen Dick, RR#1 Swalwell, Alberta, Canada T0M 1Y0
51° 33'39.64"N 113°18'52.45"W
http://www.honeybeeworld.com/Allen%27s%20Beehives.kmz
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Countryboy
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Re: If you go away...

Unread post by Countryboy »

Was your statement politically correct? No. But most good folks aren't anal about political correctness. And if they are that anal about PC, how good of a friend are they really? Good friends are supposed to be kindred spirits.

I didn't take offense to your comment. And I have always been the black sheep of my family, living in a white Protestant community in the Bible Belt. I guess I shouldn't call myself the black sheep of the family anymore - my niece married a half black guy.

I'm one of the 20 regular readers on your diary...and I have taken the time to read every page.

You can please some of the people all the time, and all the people some of the time, but you can't please all the people all the time.

And like they say - you should never apologize for anything. The right sort of people don't need an apology, and the wrong sort of people will take a mean advantage of it.

I got online 15 or so years ago. There was a local online news website www.knoxpages.com that was owned by a local ISP (ECR- Electronic Country Road) but they hired an editor (Adam Taylor) to run the website and write news stories. I forget the numbers, but at its peak, I know Adam told me KP was getting several thousand unique IP addresses visiting every day. 15 years ago, that kind of web traffic was huge. It wasn't the news articles that attracted people. It was the discussion forum.

In hindsight, I now see that 15 years ago, the average web user was of higher intelligence than the average person on the street. The forum attracted some very intelligent people, and there were some very lively discussions. About the only rules were no profanity and you had to keep it suitable for teenagers to read.

In time, folks started campaigning for heavier moderation because they were getting their feelings hurt. Adam would ask people to be a little more tactful in responses, but as long as they weren't cussing folks out, he pretty much let folks express their opinions, even if they were unpopular. Eventually, people complained to the website owners at the ISP, and the ISP got involved. Instant heavy moderation. You were not allowed to say anything to offend anyone. If you offended someone, you got banned.

The intelligent thinkers were all quickly banned because they were not politically correct, which left a forum full of dimwitted idiots. The forum died. KP has been sold a couple times since then. Now, Knoxpages doesn't even offer a forum anymore.

I will admit that I may not have been the most tactful person back then. I'm actually a fairly quiet introvert, but I have been known to share my mind. Adam, the former editor of KP, once told me that I was the most hated/complained about person on the forum.

Be true to yourself Allen. The moment you start worrying about how others will receive your words, you have dishonored yourself. In my opinion, folks can like what I say or they can lump it. There is no friend good enough for me to dishonor myself. If folks are offended by what you said, it means you said something that needed said. If no one is ever offended by what you say, it likely means you never said anything worth paying attention to.
B. Farmer Honey
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Allen Dick
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Re: If you go away...

Unread post by Allen Dick »

Thanks for the comments, folks. I hope I have not made too much of this matter.

I am just shocked that my friend took my comments the way he did. They were not intended to refer to anything or anyone beyond Three Hills and the immediate district and certainly not white people or protestants generally -- or all brown and black people.

As I wrote in a recent previous rumination, when discussing any subject there are things that everyone close to the matter knows and assumes others know, but are never discussed publicly. This results in misunderstandings since people, especially outsiders, are working with different facts and assumptions.

Having lived here as long as I have, I am aware of little things that others might not be. History may be in the past now, but history always leaves a legacy that is not apparent on the surface.

Let's leave it at that.
Allen Dick, RR#1 Swalwell, Alberta, Canada T0M 1Y0
51° 33'39.64"N 113°18'52.45"W
http://www.honeybeeworld.com/Allen%27s%20Beehives.kmz
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