Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 22:56:43 -0800 (PST)
From: james wilson <
johntwo8@...>
Subject: Re: History/Shotokan Re: new subject
WOW Miss Chase for new President of samuraihistory forum. GOD BLESS all and
go vote
Poor lad. Who gave you the sublime misapprehension that this was a
democracy?
...And it's a damned good thing too: because with no offense to the lady
in question, and as pleasant as I (for one) find her posts, scholarship does
not flourish in such a democracy. Scholarship - which for our purposes here
I'll define as the pursuit of genuine, accurate information - consists of
uncompromising minds seeking uncaring facts, then double-checking them in a
variety of sources: whereas "democratic scholarship" leads, almost
invariably, to consensus misinformation.
I've seen it happen on other lists - the facts that can be documented get
lost in the ridiculous idea that everybody's opinion carries equal weight
and validity, and soon the big mouths have half the readers convinced that
they know as much as the experts.
That helps no one - it frustrates the experts, it deceives the ignorant, it
encourages the B.S.ers, and it degrades the transmission of historical
facts. There's plenty of bad research out there on the web these days,
proving my point far more decisively than I could wish. (Look up a few
sites on Celtic history, for instance, and you'll find more fantasy than
fact by a factor of five to one or worse.) As someone said here not long
ago - and I've been quoting it merrily ever since - "If you want
information, this is a good place to get it. If you want affirmation, get a
good therapist."
One of the great things about this site is that there are some genuine
experts here, who are not afraid to tell people when they're wrong. Now
when the folks don't take that well, or politely... then they get slammed.
And deservedly so. If you go to an expert for facts, then do nothing but
try and disprove or ignore those facts, _without being able to defend your
views as thoroughly as those experts you've asked_, then from my point of
view you've asked for whatever you get. You've certainly earned no mercy at
that point. If you disagree, then you'd better be able to offer
documentation to match the documentation of the experts.
That's straightforward enough, one should think.
Gereg