Alternate Voices: The Calling and its Implications

[Indy Coug]

Originally Posted by Sleeping in EQ

The links did give plenty of context. My definition was not the matter at hand nor did I want it to be. In the past you have skirted real issues by making the issue the person. And which of those tenents have I violated?

6. Be humble, generous, and good natured in tolerating ideas that you find aversive in other Church members, no matter how “reactionary.” As “alternate voices,” we cannot complain when we are ignored or misunderstood if we respond with contempt toward those whose ideas we deplore. Besides, if we have any hope of educating them, we have to start where they are and treat them with love and tolerance. No one is won over by being put down, especially in public. Whether in our writing or in our exchanges during Sunday School classes, we must try to be gracious as well as candid (difficult though it be on occasion) and always remember to show forth afterward “an increase of love toward him whom thou has reproved, lest he esteem thee to be his enemy” (D&C 121:43).

By the way, I am more than willing to take on the real issues, and I feel that I do that a lot more than you seem willing to give credit.

[Sleeping in EQ]

Originally Posted by Indy Coug

All I can tell you is that you wildly misunderstood a very, very, very simple question. If you had just humored me with an answer right away, instead of going off on wild paranoid rantings about what you THOUGHT I was going to do, this could have all been avoided. I even stated later on in the thread I basically agreed with the points made, even though I tend to agree with Jay about the general defensive tone that permeated the piece.

Don't pin this one on me, this is all of your own making.

Wildly misunderstood? You're engaging in spin control if I've ever seen it. The post wasn't about me or my opinions and I objected to your question trying to make it such. Paranoid rantings? You have twisted discussions so as to make them about the persons instead of the issues many times. You're doing it here.

[Indy Coug]

Originally Posted by Sleeping in EQ

Wildly misunderstood? You're engaging in spin control if I've ever seen it. The post wasn't about me or my opinions and I objected to your question trying to make it such. Paranoid rantings? You have twisted discussions so as to make them about the persons instead of the issues many times. You're doing it here.

I tried dropping this several pages ago. Someone even said you needed to apologize to me. I said there was no need and I was willing to let it go.

You apparently decided that wasn't good enough and started whining about me again. The thing that precipitated your outburst was an innocuous three word request.

YOU chose to take that request in the worst possible way. YOU started tearing into me. I tried once again to just get an understanding from you about what an alternate voice was, without making it about you. YOU continued to go after me. I said nothing derisive about you, your motivations, your interpretations or anything of that sort. I was seeking to understand the issue.

YOU made it about the person instead of the issue. In fact, you continue to do so.

[creekster]

SIEQ, if Indy is simply baiting you, why rise to take it? By taking the approach you have you have actually made Indy look much more reasonable than he would have if you had ignored him and he persisted in trying to bait you, and you have allowed him to succeed in his effort to divert focus from the real issues. Moreover, do you give us all such little credit that you fear we are unable to see through baiting techniques that avoid the substance? I am not sure to what end you persist in the back and forth here.

As to Indy, I have no idea if he was trying to bait you or not, as his approach didn't get far enough to tell before this devolved into a sort of lovers' quarrel.

I should add that I actually appreciated the articles referenced.

[Indy Coug]

Originally Posted by creekster

..and you have allowed him to succeed in his effort to divert focus from the real issues.

That wasn't my effort. That's the whole problem here.

[creekster]

Originally Posted by Indy Coug

That wasn't my effort. That's the whole problem here.

I didn't say you had, just that IF you were trying to do so, you suceeded becasue of, and not in spite of, SIEQ's responses.

Jeez, now I'm doing it.

[Indy Coug]

Originally Posted by creekster

I didn't say you had, just that IF you were trying to do so, you suceeded becasue of, and not in spite of, SIEQ's responses.

Jeez, now I'm doing it.

OK, fair enough.

[Detroitdad]

I'll attempt to change the subject back to the original topic..

It seems that Mauss is making the unconcventional point that a more homogeneous population had more heterogeneity of thought within the upper echelons. While the growing heterogeneity of the church lead to more homogeneous thought and policy.

If this is true, is it a good thing? And in what ways would it be possible for the church leadership, if they recognized and regretted the emergence of this trend, to prevent this from taking hold?

In many ways this seems to be an outgrowth of the earlier thread on diversity, in which there were many who thought that diversity was a good thing and others who thought that diversity (at least in terms of ethnic identity) was less important, or that recent changes are making the church more diverse. But, in reviewing this set of articles it makes me wonder if diversity of viewpoint is more what the champions of diversity are after?

[Sleeping in EQ]

Originally Posted by Indy Coug

By the way, I am more than willing to take on the real issues, and I feel that I do that a lot more than you seem willing to give credit.

I don't deplore your ideas, merely your manner. Here's a chance to have a legitimate discussion.

You noted that you found some of Oaks' ideas to be ambiguous. Do you think that's a good thing? A bad thing?

As a reader of many alternative voice publications and symposia reports, I can relate to his comment that one article or session can be uplifting and interesting and the next can cross the line.

[jay santos]

Originally Posted by Detroitdad

I'll attempt to change the subject back to the original topic..

It seems that Mauss is making the unconcventional point that a more homogeneous population had more heterogeneity of thought within the upper echelons. While the growing heterogeneity of the church lead to more homogeneous thought and policy.

If this is true, is it a good thing? And in what ways would it be possible for the church leadership, if they recognized and regretted the emergence of this trend, to prevent this from taking hold?

In many ways this seems to be an outgrowth of the earlier thread on diversity, in which there were many who thought that diversity was a good thing and others who thought that diversity (at least in terms of ethnic identity) was less important, or that recent changes are making the church more diverse. But, in reviewing this set of articles it makes me wonder if diversity of viewpoint is more what the champions of diversity are after?

That point was pretty sketchy, in my opinion.