Personality and Behavior (was RE: [Northkeep] Sir Balvins Defence)

[Carl Chipman]

Oops, sorry about the wrong attribution (Diarmaid instead of Ainar) of
the original message.

Diarmaid, I don't agree.

Prowess, courage, honesty, loyalty, generosity, faith, courtesy, and
franchise are what are listed as the virtues of those wishing to be
chivalric in the ideal, and are the things I hope to strive for.

None of these things are what is called for "for being an asshole".

You point out that "a lot of people have trouble fitting in with
groups".  That is a true statement.  And indeed, it's good for us as
people to constant recheck our behavior to make sure that we are
generous and courteous people.  That being said, it does not require us
to claim their faults as our own.

I can't remember where I heard this, but I once heard "If a couple of
the players are playing bad, you replace the players.  If all of the
players are playing bad you replace the coach."   If there were hundreds
of people having trouble fitting in to the group, I'd say that the group
needed major fixing.  However, since only a couple of people have
trouble, I'd say its probably the people themselves who need work.

I've known the people in this group to take in many, um, challenging
folks, work with them, help them, and grow them up into good peoples.
Saying to them "You're not nice enough" is not a true of fair statement
in my opinion.  If that's what you're saying, I disagree with your
statements.  If however, you're saying "Hey we should all just do a
quick self-evaluation to make sure that we're being as courteous and
generous as we should.", then I agree with that.

Jean Paul

P.S. As a final note, I must say the phrase "selfishly ignoring others"
just sounds so.....wrong...for lack of a better description

Carl Chipman
Nomadics, Inc.
cchipman at nomadics.com
http://www.nomadics.com


-----Original Message-----
From: northkeep-admin at ansteorra.org
[mailto:northkeep-admin at ansteorra.org] On Behalf Of Marc Carlson
Sent: Monday, May 27, 2002 6:01 PM
To: northkeep at ansteorra.org
Subject: Re: Personality and Behavior (was RE: [Northkeep] Sir Balvins
Defence)

>From: cchipman at nomadics.com (Carl Chipman)
>Diarmaid, I know you're just being sarcastic, but there is a vein of
>truth to your tongue-in-cheek statement.

Oh, don't get me wrong - my message was thoroughly serious.  I had been
previously confused by people talking about "chivalry" and "The Dream"
and
crap like that.  Obviously it's not something people feel willing to try
to
-actually- make an effort at.

That's fine with me - I'm all up for being an asshole.  In fact, it
takes a
lot of work for me NOT to be one most of the time.  If you don't like
that -
suck it up and get over it.  But don't delude yourself that I'm acting
or
pretending.

No one ever suggested 'aiding and abetting self destructive behavior'.
What was suggest was recognizing that a lot of people may have trouble
fitting in with groups, thinking about how you come across, and making
an
attempt to help those feel welcome might be a good idea.  The response
has
pretty much been "to hell with those whiners".  That's your choice.  It
will
certainly keep down on the populace numbers.

Personally, I have found that simply trying to work with people was good
enough, but clearly that's not what want to hear -- they want to hear
that
they are in the right for selfishly ignoring others.  My problems with
"the
Group" have traditionally not had anything to do with not feeling like I
fit
in.  My personal problems have tended to be based on hypocrisy and
people
claiming one thing and doing another.
That's obviously the problem here, as well.  That's my mistake, and MY
fault
for having even minimal expectations of other people.

BTW, I didn't forward the original message.  Ainar did.

Marc/Diarmaid
"Suck it up and get over it" -- Matthew 5-7 (NKV)

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