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Old 08-20-2012, 03:24 PM   #126
Keith Larman
Dojo: AIA, Los Angeles, CA
Location: California
Join Date: Apr 2005
Posts: 1,604
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Re: Aikiweb as a "Big Tent"

I think we also have to be careful about a few things. It is one thing entirely to have a big tent with lots of different stuff underneath. The problems arise when there are issues of fact in dispute. We all have some responsibility to some extent or another to maintain some level of integrity within our arts. And when someone comes along who, well, just makes stuff up, provides self-serving and, well, absolutely wrong definitions of widely used terms in a language he or she clearly does not understand, utilizes what is at best misleading argumentation and at worst totally fallacious reasoning, and then asserts the validity of those things loudly and frequently, well, I think there is merit to challenging those things. I'll avoid current personalities, but use as an example Mark Tennenhouse of years ago. Those of you who remember he was a fella who had all the answers and it ended badly with him demonstrating a woeful lack of knowledge. It made sense that he felt Aikido needed fixing because apparently *his* aikido was in dire need of fixing. Anyway, he was a loud, constant force on-line. Opinionated and very, very sure of himself. Up until he ran smack dab in to a reality check.

Now that was a particularly ugly incident and hard to watch unfold. But... There are those who post occasionally who remind me greatly of that "type", at least with respect to their proclaimed bravura. And given the often glaring disconnect between what's posted, what is being professed, and what most everyone else was taught/what others know by direct experience, I think it is incumbent upon us to not allow those things to go unchallenged. But... It often makes for more ugliness because the simple fact is that someone is, well, wrong. Not just a difference of opinion, but deluded or fantastically ignorant. I just don't really know if there is any way around that.

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