[Elfsea] Questions that need to be asked...

Timothy Rayburn timothy at elfsea.net
Tue Jul 8 11:04:26 PDT 2003


Greetings Elfsea!

We are in the process of questioning the candidates who wish to be the next Baron & Baroness of Elfsea, and this is a good thing, and important to counsel the Crown.

Occasionally in the process of such events, there are questions which you wish would be asked, but are uncomfortable to ask yourself.  There are various reasons, from fear of being a "social outcast" to not wishing to risk angering one of the candidates.

These feelings are understandable, but if you feel this way, my first counsel to you would be to ask the question, it is almost surely not going to get anything near the level of reaction you feel it will.

If you still feel that you cannot ask the question, then I offer the following service.  Send your question to "questions at elfsea.net" and I will ensure that your anonimity is preserved, but the question will get asked in this public forum for the candidates to respond to.  The only type of questions I will not ask are questions directed to one and only one candidate.  Any question worth having the answer to is worth asking all the candidates.  I also reserve the right to not ask a question if I consider it completely inappropriate.

I realize that this is a social game, and that the social pressures can stiffle open discourse, and I hope that this will help with that.

For those who may question the need for this, I offer an example.
If someone were curious about the religous beliefs of the candidates, and how that might affect their leadership of the Barony.  If one candidate were a practioner of norse religion, and the person wishing to ask the question was known to have strong Christian views, then the question might be viewed as an attack on that Candidate, even if it was not meant to be so.  Other examples simply involve cases of the very real social pressure of "peer fear" and fear of "brass hats".

The candidates would all do well to remember that, regardless of their current station, there are those who will consider you a "brass hat" merely because you seek the leadership of this Barony.

I hope I have made clear my offer of assitance, and the reasons for it.

Timothy of Glastinbury




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