That's all. Just so glad you're here.

Lori

I dunno about your position here, John.

It seems to me people who demand to have their words excised from a public conversation aren't playing fair. Like children, they want to have the world both ways: they want to be taken seriously in the things they say at the time they say them but they don't want to allow those things to stand in context on their own merits. They aren't willing to submit their conduct to objective standards of judgment.

If such demands by Cisco or Patri have really been forthcoming, I don't see that Tom or any of the rest of us should feel morally obligated to make the least gesture on behalf them. Karma, after all, is karma. Website karma is a perfect opportunity for learning how to see real-world karma, and in a way it would be a sacrilege to try to erase any of it.

Moreover, if either of them has actually demanded excision, he or she should not be welcomed back on an unconditional footing. His or her re-appearance here, together with everyone else's, should be conditional on certain standards of responsible conduct.

Now working out what those standards are, and then implementing them pro-actively is a challenge this online community has not faced yet. It is, it seems to me, a particular version of the general problem of instituting standards for anthroposophical conversation. Here it seems to me there are a couple of obvious ways to go as things stand with the present context.

One is the way you suggest here, wherein those Registering are Advised that they alone are responsible for the tracks they leave here, and the no one is going to clean up after them. They are thereby Advised that there is real karma on this site. Such an Agreement should be sufficient to forestall any moral claims that may arise from people who eventually decide this community isn't for them.

Another is something that will probably emerge as a doable option only later, but one we may start to think about now. That is to offer this site for paid Subscription, so that only people who value it materially will participate on it.

Carl,

When you say:

It seems to me people who demand to have their words excised from a public conversation aren't playing fair. Like children, they want to have the world both ways: they want to be taken seriously in the things they say at the time they say them but they don't want to allow those things to stand in context on their own merits. They aren't willing to submit their conduct to objective standards of judgment.

If such demands by Cisco or Patri have really been forthcoming, I don't see that Tom or any of the rest of us should feel morally obligated to make the least gesture on behalf them. Karma, after all, is karma. Website karma is a perfect opportunity for learning how to see real-world karma, and in a way it would be a sacrilege to try to erase any of it.

it's like telling us about a dream you had last night about being attacked by a dog and then wanting us all to go out and find the beast in the morning. I mean, how much do you know about their situation and how certain are you that you've grasped more than 10% of it? I don't mind having an abstract or acedemic conversation about the removal of their posts. I don't even mind if we all agree to imagine what was behind their desire. I don't mind if we even agree to imagine we comphrehend it fully...

But I read those first two paragraphs of yours and it felt like you think you have a clear notion of Patri and Cisco. Look, I'm all for us coming up with policies and standards when it comes to this topic. But do we really have to get huffy over mental pictures we accumulated that we call "patri" and "cisco"...If we get huffy let's at least acknowledge when our reactions are....reactions to highly creative mental pictures....

Even if Tom would write and say that they did indeed demand rightously that he MUST remove their words....that needs to be a great mystery long before we get smart and certain about how little we owe them karmically.

These are just my reactions to those two paragraphs. It seems to me that the mental pictures of "patri" and "cisco" that you carry are very specific. I'm sure their mental pictures of "Carl" are equally percise and certain. I'm sure they know exactly why "carl" makes the moral errors that "he" makes.

And just for the record (and I say this with a playful punch on your shoulder, even though I mean it seriously), I couldn't disagree more with you when you say:

Moreover, if either of them has actually demanded excision, he or she should not be welcomed back on an unconditional footing. His or her re-appearance here, together with everyone else's, should be conditional on certain standards of responsible conduct.

That sends chills up my spine, Carl (no, I don't think you are possessed) I'm not saying this site won't or shouldn't come up with wonderful rules about who gets kicked off for good and when that should happen and how people need to earn the right back and prove they are ready to meet our standards (gulp), but, man, we've gotta find a way to talk about things like this in a much less dramatic and exaggerated manner. Nothing dangerous happend. We must have humor and fludity in looking at such things. We must be much more ignorant then certain when we talk about what happened between you and a large group of people a few weeks ago. PoF teaches how an elevated ignorance is just what the doctor ordered before you start figuring such things out. The "carl" and "cisco" mental pictures will passive aggresively be fighting for thousands of years, but fortunately we have no responsibility to the inertia of those insane certainties and defensive rituals. We get to breathe deep, laugh and think about conduct on this site without ever evoking those dream-people. Or something like that.

Jeff

Hi Jeff,

Of course I agree that we're responding to one another here like ignorant dream people, and this needs to improve somehow. You recognize also that I've got some ideas, either true or false, about how that situation actually can improve.

Now suppose those ideas turn out to be true. Suppose what we're doing here with PoF and GC actually does matter in the overall scheme of things. Suppose, for example, that Ray Kurzweil is accurate when he predicts a forthcoming technological singularity, and moreover that certain patterns of exploitation seem sure to arise in that process unless people learn to respond with collective intelligence. Suppose, in other words, that there is a pattern of real world significance in anthroposophy, and that we are responsible for it.

In that case, what position would we want to take on impulses to rewrite our history? Would we want to say they were harmless? Or would we want to say that they were mistaken?

Dear friends - the opening of so many of Steiner's lectures. What did he mean by friends? I am fairly certain that he did not know all those present personally - actually I really don't know at all but allow me this one guess. Perhaps I am only a naive idealist.

So let us say that all who come here to listen and read could be treated as friends. Does ethical individalism demand that we request certain formalities and codes of conduct or do we allow friends to reveal themselves through the way they behave in as much freedom as they are able to achieve? In an exchange with Tom I once expressed my view that such a website as this demands out of its raison d'etre that we exercise tolerant co-creativity. I cannot yet put it more clearly.

It is my understanding that any spiritual obligation, whether practiced out of duty or love, only arises out of the spiritual being or raison d'etre. If I am catching on to Carl's position, he experiences that he has found some principles that arise of themselves out of the spirit beings of Goethean converse. He wants to share this with us all and conduct an experiment to validate his research. No double blind groupings here.

I try to understand Steiner from the way he modelled ethical individualism in his conduct - not only from his writings and sayings. He was not known for his memos about sticking to the rules and he laid down all his ritualistic work at one point. I guess - ok please allow me another one - he knew that those around him aspired to ideals that they had not yet attained. He did not appear to compromise by laying down interim formalities unless the being present in the place required some additional support in order to enter life, such as in the School of Spiritual Science. He clearly differentiated the openness of the GAS and the requirements of the School.

There is much that I know I do not know and I am curious enough to try fitting into an experiment if it promises useful learning. I feel that the conduct and content of some of our journals raises a fearsome fence in front of any new contributor. I would like to lower the high jump in honour of the ideal of an open door. There is a guardian on the threshold who is well able to warn those who try to jump the abyss on a motorcycle.

I resist strongly the growth of PoF elitism because I have seen how such arrogance has encapsulated eurythmy. I no doubt also contribute to elitism myself in my unconsciousness and I accept responsibility in trying to minimise it. I do see the need for some special interest groups to set up specific conditions in order to conduct their work in a sympathetic environment. That is something other than an open website and Carl is working out how to provide what he needs in his group. If we want to participate in the world, let us not dig deeper moats than already exist. Let us forgive those who stumble over barbed wire fences. Let us accept those challenges on their own terms in the way they arise in the world today from our aspirations to ethical individuality in co-creating a public debate. We are often just not idealistic and realistic enough.

Tom's post:

Submitted by Tom Last on Fri, 09/14/2007 - 8:56pm.

In response to Carl's comment about Cisco leaving the site and wanting his Journal's removed Cisco told me to tell Carl:
"you can tell Carl he should mind his own freaking business when it comes to my affairs."

I'm sure, Carl, you can express your views in general terms without naming people who are not here to defend themselves.

This beggars belief.  Cisco may well have said those words, but did he mean them?  Moreover, did he instruct you to tell Carl this in public?

Carl's post:

Submitted by Carl Flygt on Fri, 09/14/2007 - 2:58am.

I dunno about your position here, John.

It seems to me people who demand to have their words excised from a public conversation aren't playing fair. Like children, they want to have the world both ways: they want to be taken seriously in the things they say at the time they say them but they don't want to allow those things to stand in context on their own merits. They aren't willing to submit their conduct to objective standards of judgment.

One layer of my understanding of this post from Carl is that he is lashing out at people who he upset, but doesn't understand how.  "They hate him, he hates them." (this is a characterization, not a statement of fact, and I do not know either that they hate him, or that he hates them - this is the words that match the feeling that I get from the various interactions)  Carl's reference to "children" is the trigger for that concept.  I can understand Carl's post at other levels too.  I can understand his points at an intellectual level.  My emotional senses tell me to look deeper.

I am committed to meeting Carl at the level he wants to be met at, and that I do.  I rarely feel moved to respond at that level but I try to read his posts at that level, and John's conversations with Carl have opened his concept content up to me quite considerably.  Thank God.

Carl says "they aren't willing to submit their conduct to objective standards of judgement".  I have a fantasy (a secret thought) that by writing on this site my thinking and my concepts will be judged, and that if I pass, I will be allowed in to the inner sanctum of Anthroposophy.  There, I have named it, and whatever vestiges of power it had over me can go now.  Until I name this fantasy, Carl's words stake a claim for to be that judging authority.  He become a figure of terror and ferocity.

However that is a fantasy, my experience of the reailty of writing on this site is of being able to practice writing, of being able to offer my thinkiing up for challenge. Of engaging with people.  Of taking on new thinking and understanding.   I connect with John's recent post here.  This site has changed me too.  Obviously, if the journals were called blogs, the site would be very different, but apart from that important caveat, this site has shown me that the medium of connection doesn't matter.  In itself, this interaction, rather proves that thinking is a spiritual activity and physical distance, conveyance, etc. do not matter at all.

Tom recently challenged Carl to read POF.  This challenge made no progress because Carl has read POF and he, it seems, has assimilated it to his cause.  I value Carl because he challenges my understanding and practice of freedom.  Agreeing with him and not agreeing with him at the same time strikes me as real and as useful an experience as I could get anywhere.

Peace and freedom everyone,

Sebastian