Why people don't get involved

[marymck]

Some pretty nasty and inaccurate things have been said about me on this site. It's made me think about why people don't get involved in community matters. I'm probably giving up after the Windmill campaign. I can understand why, if people do get involved, they keep a low profile and try to keep out of the firing line of those with chips on their shoulders.

So Tim you've won. I'm out. You've said on here that you're thick skinned. Well I'm not. I've tried to answer back using your tactics, but it's not in my nature, I'm not happy about it and it eats me up. I really can't take any more attacks and spreading of lies about me and others that I care about. People just try their best you know.

A few weeks ago I asked you a question you chose to ignore: how many groups have you been involved with that you've fallen out with? I'm now asking you another: how many people have given up and walked away from groups or involvement because they just can't cope with you anymore? I don't expect an answer. I don't expect you even know who you've trashed in your wake.

I'm not giving up on the Windmill, though it's likely to be the last time I get so involved. But I'm not posting about it any more on this site. All we're achieving here is giving Sainsburys and a multimillionaire property developer comfort.

I can understand why so many have walked away from this site and from community involvement.

[Eagle]

I for one Mary have praised your community spirit.

I agree there have been some very negative responses on here from people, I guess , do nothing for the community

Well done Mary. Keep up the good work.

[Annie.]

Mary, I don't need to know all the ins and outs of your campaign, I just need to know how passionate you are about it, I trust your opinion and that of others enough to know you are not saving the Windmill just for fun.
You have my support. Don't give up

[JMLF]

Well Mary, as part of getting involved with the forum well before my time (if all goes well the earliest I'll be moving to Sydenham will be end of Feb) and getting involved in the ins and outs of the communities development etc.. I've become very excited by all the community discussion - mostly by the encouragement but also by the amount of debating, which although at times doesn't always seem entirely straight forward, does show people actually have an opinion (whether right, wrong or unfortunately whether people are just weird and like mucking around with people) which I think is really important when it comes to building a future for a place.

Sooo of the back of the chat about the windmill and having a brief looksy at other local pubs that have fallen by the wayside (greyhound, talma) and those that may be coming back (catford bridge tavern is being taken over by camden breweries, antic are hoping to open a new pub/restaurant in west norwood) I've sent off a little email to antic, camden breweries, late knights breweries and the drafthouse just to kinda say - if your looking to expand/invest, there may be a few worthwhile local places in and around sydenham... What's the harm eh?!

If it wasn't for the forum and all the debating that goes on, then I don't think I would have bothered sending out the messages.

Jon

[Nigel]

Mary
Full support from me - please don't be distracted or deterred and good luck with your fight
A very good morning
Nigel

[Pat Trembath]

Support here, too, Mary. I think Tim needs to spend more time on his allotment...

Happy Christmas, everyone!

[Tim Lund]

Support here, too, Mary. I think Tim needs to spend more time on his allotment...

Happy Christmas, everyone!

Admin - I would say this is a personal remark., and also was the OP, which is a continutation of a thread you have closed, so perhaps at the very least could this thread be moved to the Town Pub?

[Tim Lund]

A few weeks ago I asked you a question you chose to ignore: how many groups have you been involved with that you've fallen out with? I'm now asking you another: how many people have given up and walked away from groups or involvement because they just can't cope with you anymore? I don't expect an answer. I don't expect you even know who you've trashed in your wake.

I think most people will understand why I chose not to answer that question, but I'm happy to say why I antagonise many people - although I hope this should be obvious. I find myself in the same dilemma as many other people when the popular cry is for something which seems - to me, and I know others - misguided. Most people's reaction is just to shrug their shoulders and get on with their lives. In the jargon of economists, they express their consumer preferences by how they chose to spend their money, and businesses try to anticipate those preferences by offering the goods and services these consumers are most interested in spending their money on. They are in fact the overwhelming majority, and just because they don't get involved, it doesn't mean they are not citizens, and should count as much as those of us who do get involved.

But if some of us do want to get involved, should be just go along with the popular cry from others who do, if we think it is wrong? I don't think so, and thanks to this Forum, it is possible to argue against policies with are popular among other activists, such as keeping pubs open, or for policies which are not, such as allowing higher housing densities. I'm perfectly well aware that it will make me unpopular in many quarters, but I also know that if I can make my arguments well, it will earn respect as well, and sometimes even persuade people. Little thanks to me, I admit, but since the rather acrimonious thread I started on SE23.com - Does the Forest Hill Society want more affordable housing? - my perception is that wider opinion has moved significantly in my direction - certainly in the Labour Party at a national level. So - I may not always find the best way of putting the arguments, but I think they are worth listening to.

And it doesn't lead to social isolation; last Saturday, when Pat saw me on the way down to my allotment, I admit I did not stop to chat to her, but that was partly because I'd just been detained by a nice friendly chat with the wife of my main antagonist on that SE23.com thread, and then another with Melissa from the Sydenham & Forest Hill Forum - where I used to be the Treasurer, but in no way have I fallen out. Then as I walked down Sydenham Road I was held up - happily - by one of this Forum's 'lurkers', and received a big hug and a blessing. It is not social death to be disliked by the Sydenham Society; a surprising number of people sympathise.

OTOH, I suspect sometimes it is because I find good ways of putting my arguments that they antagonise so much. As I explained in the precursor spread to this, now closed, I have been in the position of being made to look an idiot, and it's not pleasant. It's also irritating when someone like Michael does make good points against me, so I do my best to deny him the opportunity, even if giving him the chance is sometimes the price of starting a lively thread. But that is how arguments go - if you chose to get involved by arguing for something, you have to expect people to argue against you, quote back at you what you might have written sometime before, and demand that you abide by normal standards of good argument - e.g. publishing the full reasons for your point of view when requested.

Let me illustrate with a true story, in which I withold names for obvious reasons, but I am happy to supply them to Admin. Some people on this Forum might be able to work out who the people are, although probably not. Earlier this year an old friend of mine, who when I first knew him had serious mental health problems, told me about a campaign his sister was deeply involved in. My friend is still a rather timid person, but has held down a responsible job since leaving university, supported, I would guess, by his evangelical Christianity. When I knew him, he found any kind of social engagement difficult, such as visiting pubs with other friends. One of my best friends understood his predicament far better than me, and took him under his wing. Earlier this year I was able to bring them together after many year.

To return to his sister's campaign - he just remarked to me, with a gentle laugh, that he really couldn't see what all the fuss was about. Nor could I, but others, including two famous writers, were to up in arms and thundered away, including in the op-ed pages of The Times. Earlier I'd wanted to contest what I saw as their nonsense; not only was it misguided, but I could see their campaign was doomed to failure, and that all the money enthusiastically raised by community groups would do nothing more than fatten lawyers' pocket. As has actually happened. However, a PR professional advised me just to stay out of it - which I did.

Of course I could also choose not to get involved here, but I choose to live as if I were a member of a free society.

[Eagle]

Tim
I am a trifle confused as to what you are actually getting at , but guess me being thick.


I do not agree however with your first post . Mary was asking a very good question. Why should people put them selves out for the society , when they usually get attacked and abused.
We need more Mary's.

[Rachael]

Tim - as someone who looked in on the Windmill thread from the outside, here's what I saw happening.

Mary is running a campaign to save something that is important to her and her community. It's personal. It's not about the wider context of saving pubs (although I can understand if she brought wider arguments in to support her campaign, because that would be the smart thing to do). The context to her is very specific and personal.

You have an issue with the underlying policy implications of her campaign, and argue about policy. When you do that on a campaign thread, it looks like you are trying to deliberately derail that campaign, rather than argue about policy issues. It becomes a personal attack even if you don't mean it to be. However logical it might seem to you, having that discussion (or argument, if you will) on that thread is not the right place to do it and you risk undermining support you might otherwise have had by doing it. Constantly returning to the thread to argue your point is, in my opinion, counterproductive to your argument.

If you antagonise people (which you happily admit you do), it is as much about the way you state your argument as it is about the content. Does antagonising people help you win your arguments? Because the thrust of your post here is that you want people to listen to your side of the argument, to persuade them to your way of thinking (which is entirely in your rights to do). Do you, on reflection, think that is what you achieved in the two threads on the Windmill that you contributed to?

[michael]

I would go further and say it is because Tim takes such obvious pleasure in finding good ways of putting his arguments to cause antagonism. He is not somebody to look for common ground or build a consensus, when he does, or when he finds that he has finally been pushed into taking an indefensible position, he changes the subject. He is rarely able to see things from somebody elses' perspective, and seem to think that because he holds a belief it must be objectively true.

Discussions on pubs, religion, and housing tend to all go in the same direction with Tim. It is not about what people are saying, it is all about the opportunity to debate anything and score debating points. And while some may be impressed with Tim's debating style, I'm not. Just in the last week he has implied linkage between abstinence and religion as an attempt to undermine my credibility (not my argument), and worse than that:

which I interpreted to mean that this is what you said of anyone who disagrees with you, leading to them quietly slipping away. Which of "misinformed, misguided, lacking in humanity, spiteful and vilified" do you feel I am not?

This was a cheap shot when challenged to defend what he posted. I can only assume that Tim knows perfectly well that had Mary claimed that he was all of these things would not actually imply she felt that way about anyone who disagrees with her. For what it's worth I think that in some of Tim's posts he has been each of these things. But the specific does not imply the generality, in general Tim is not misguided or spiteful, but that does not mean he has his moments. And nor does the fact that I occasionally believe this about Tim mean that I think this about everybody who disagrees with Mary.

Occasionally Tim makes valuable contributions and provokes interesting discussion, but most of the time he just provokes argument for the sake of it, and makes it difficult to discuss the real issues (ending up with threads about petitions he disagrees with getting locked down).

My advice to Tim is to look for ways to listen to others, consider what they are saying that you agree with, recognise their valued contributions, and look to challenge them when appropriate on the specifics of a case rather than your general view that if it doesn't come out of your mouth, it must be in some way flawed.

I could go on, but I think that is quite enough character assassination against somebody who I'm sure is well-meaning, but has upset quite a few people locally over the years.

[Robin Orton]

To me, this is all beginning to sound a bit like playground bullying.

[michael]

Robin,
I really hope that accusation of bullying was not directed at me. It was certainly not intended to be bullying.

[Robin Orton]

I had nobody in particular in mind, it was just the general tone of the thread. Everyone joining in to 'pick on' an individual poster seemed to me rather distasteful.

[Rachael]

I don't think I was picking on Tim in any way, in fact I was very careful not to. I responded directly to his post.

[Tim Lund]

I don't think I was picking on Tim in any way, in fact I was very careful not to. I responded directly to his post.

Thanks Rachel. That was exactly my impression, and I meant to come in earlier to thank for keeping this thread above personalities.

I appreciate that Michael is smarting, but I feel his reaction is rather like someone who can hand it out - say to Eagle - but really doesn't like it when it is handed back to him. It is a shame, because Michael often does make a serious effort to counter my arguments, and doesn't normally get so personal. Now I'll try to respond to Rachel's earlier contribution.

[michael]

I appreciate that Michael is smarting, but I feel his reaction is rather like someone who can hand it out - say to Eagle - but really doesn't like it when it is handed back to him. It is a shame, because Michael often does make a serious effort to counter my arguments, and doesn't normally get so personal. Now I'll try to respond to Rachel's earlier contribution.

If that's how you want to see it then that's fine. It sort of proves my point to me.
I don't like making things personal, but when I do it usually has good reason. But write it off as my problem, that's fine if it makes you happy. Better than being accused of bullying or picking on people less than my intellectual size.

[Tim Lund]

Tim - as someone who looked in on the Windmill thread from the outside, here's what I saw happening.

Mary is running a campaign to save something that is important to her and her community. It's personal. It's not about the wider context of saving pubs (although I can understand if she brought wider arguments in to support her campaign, because that would be the smart thing to do). The context to her is very specific and personal.

You have an issue with the underlying policy implications of her campaign, and argue about policy. When you do that on a campaign thread, it looks like you are trying to deliberately derail that campaign, rather than argue about policy issues. It becomes a personal attack even if you don't mean it to be. However logical it might seem to you, having that discussion (or argument, if you will) on that thread is not the right place to do it and you risk undermining support you might otherwise have had by doing it. Constantly returning to the thread to argue your point is, in my opinion, counterproductive to your argument.

What you seem to be saying here is that there should be two distinct types of discussion - theoretical ones, where it's permissible for me to discuss policy, and practical ones where Mary can campaign. That feels like being consigned to an ivory tower. Policy and theory in general do not interest me for their own sake, but for the difference they make to what happens in people's lives, and it would feel rather patronising to me discuss theory in one place, and not bother to connect it to reality where the real action is.

You can see the same sort of connection being made in the Silverdale water leak thread, which is undeniably a practical matter, but because I also think about policy, I find myself asking about the more general problem of how such problems get sorted out, openness of data, competition policy, etc. Thanks to this, I learned about the National Underground Asset group from JRobinson, which I have followed up in emails and discussions not on this Forum. Just last night I was talking to someone from the Institute of Civil Engineers who is going to help me find out more; that's the sort of useful networking you can do by thinking both practically and theoretically.

A less obvious connection is when I debate religion. It isn't just about scoring debating points, although I admit I do take opportunities which present themselves, but a sincerely held belief that the conventional deference to what are accepted as people's sincerely held religious beliefs get in the way of thinking straight, e.g. about issues such as the recently attempt by Universities UK to justify requiring gender segregated seating for lectures by a visiting Islamic scholar. To have a coherent argument why this is wrong, you have to reject "people's sincerely held religious beliefs" as valid grounds in public debate. That then raises the question of how you do decide what the rules of public debate should be, and how in any policy debate you decide what is right and wrong. Traditionally right and wrong have generally been based on religious teaching, which is why my personal code could be described as religious. As you may have noticed, my views on right and wrong on housing are very much based on the Christian teachings I took on as a child, and generally speaking, I accept the morality of the Judaeo-Christian tradition. But most of us know, in our heart of hearts that there is no God, which rather threatens to undermine the overall coherence of our moral codes. That what Nietzche picked on in the 19th century, and his challenge, that we perhaps have to go 'beyond good and evil' is still out there. It's why people find themselves putting scare quotes round term such as right and wrong, and so undermining our ability to think straight about Islamicism, or any other damaging religious belief system, such as Scientology (and of course, some strands within Christianity and Judaism ...)

That's why I pick on of references to him by Rod Taylor or Robin, and the point of the abortive thread 'The Anti-Christ stuck at Good and Evil' was to say moral realism, which is what you need to be able to give clear answers, is still possible without religious belief, and giving up the theism in religion does not have to end up with the sort of pathetic (allegedly) liberal moral relativism that quite understandable annoys Nigel - and me too. It may just sound like making debating points, but in the long run, people's lives, depend getting the right answers.

So although Nigel likes to frame me as an ineffectual, out of touch, intellectual, out of touch I am not. As to ineffectual ...

If you antagonise people (which you happily admit you do), it is as much about the way you state your argument as it is about the content. Does antagonising people help you win your arguments? Because the thrust of your post here is that you want people to listen to your side of the argument, to persuade them to your way of thinking (which is entirely in your rights to do). Do you, on reflection, think that is what you achieved in the two threads on the Windmill that you contributed to?

I'm not sure. A while back I mentioned how I would not like bits of mathematics, and internally fight against accepting their truth, even while I knew I was being absurd. I suspect something similar will be going on with some people reading these threads. Their first reaction will to give Mary respect for her fight to save the Windmill, but, having read my arguments as to why this is a bad idea, and at the very least a waste of time, reluctantly come to question their initial instincts. Even if they don't find it difficult to accept my arguments, it may be that they are reluctant to raise their heads above the parapet, since, as you say, for Mary this is personal. In time, I think the arguments will sink in more. I suspect also, that in the same way that Mary wins respect for standing up for what she believes in, so to others, such as myself, who stand up for that they believe in.

Even in your own response, Rachel, I can detect a slightly less dismissive response to my general provocations - which I appreciate.

[Rachael]

I anticipated your first response in your latest post, which is that it would go against your instincts to separate your theoretical discussions from more practical ones, and to a degree I agree with you. It makes sense to raise these issues in context. What I think is less helpful is to derail the thread from its original purpose, something which will certainly annoy the OP, and other readers too. Did you really expect Mary to cease her campaign after reading your posts? If you did, then I suppose your approach makes sense. But if your intention was to raise the issues to the wider readership of the forum (and perhaps persuade people to your point of view), perhaps it would be more productive to raise them in the original thread then carry on the conversation else thread.

The Silverdale leak thread is different - it's not someone's personal campaign, and the information you bring to it is not challenging someone's deeply felt position. Effective communication is all about the context...

[Tim Lund]

Ok, Rachel, I'll give it a go. Meanwhile, my PC is playing up here, so no keyboard to develop another answer to the question of why people don't get involved, which is that if you think enough about many issues - and the Windmill is just one example - it's no longer clear what is for the best. Ours is a very complex world, which is what I was getting at when I wrote about Rod Taylor being alienated by the dominant mainstream, which is the source of most of the arguments I make.

PC healthier now. The area I was thinking of (no surprise) was Town Planning, having recently heard one say that in his world people tended to occupy silos - you were either a town planner as such, or a civil engineer, or an architect, and you tended to come up with solutions just using your own discipline. Given that all three are professsions require long training, how is the ordinary person to know what's best? I'd say the problem is worse than that, with a fourth profession, economists, also thinking they basically have the answers. I think there's an example coming up of where this is going to produce a bad outcome, with the pressure, from people who think mainly about economics, to increase the supply of housing by building some New Towns somewhere outside London. What I'm thinking of is the current Wolfson Economics Prize

be awarded to the entrant who offers the best answer to the question “How would you deliver a new Garden City which is visionary, economically viable, and popular?”

The case for garden cities is overwhelming with the current housing situation in the UK creating hardship and inequality for millions of people. But finding an innovative way to build communities that truly provide for and support their residents is not simple to achieve. The 2014 Wolfson Economics Prize therefore seeks to develop an answer to the question of how to bring about a new garden city.

OK - I won't go into the details of that right now ...

In the case of SydSoc's Kirkdale Masterplan, it's me who's thinking more like an economist, while Mary and SydSoc are thinking more like architects; there really is an architectural mess there, and architects will be needed in any solution. However, the way I see it is that the need to solve the economic problem - lack of housing supply - takes precedence. It's not that I don't understand the architectural argument, but is why my question then was 'are you going to level the roof line down, or up?'. It is a genuinely difficult problem, and people would be well advised not to get too involved for fear of unintended consequences. OTOH, it would be good for experts from a range of disciplines, and local people, to come up with solutions, but I am not sure how it would best be done. Quite happy to exchange ideas, however