Smoking Policy at the Harmony Festival

[Barry]

Barry I'm puzzled at your attempts to douse this excellent conflagration. I don't think I've ever seen that before from you--maybe I've just missed it.

I have stepped in to cool various "conflagrations" over the years. Sometimes publicly sometime privately.

I've been following it as an avid fan of humane rationality and of humbly standing up for the right thing.

Me too!

Also as a past victim of Miles' scorn--which successfully silenced me for a year.

I know and I have missed your valuable contributions here.

Dixon's resilience and continued reasonableness in the face of ever more scorching excoriation (pardon the alliteration) have been this underdog's delight.

What I have especially appreciated are the examples--from P. Brinton especially--of wise expression. (is my opinion subjective? only partly.) I need all the tutoring I can get in that regard, and Wacco has been a wonderful source for it--as well as great lessons in the opposite.

While it has been somewhat entertaining and illustrative to see these great titans thoroughly trash each other, and I can understand how it strengthens your skill and courage to defend against such attacks, I'm interested in preventing collateral damage to others who are reading and who have no need or desired to mount or defend against such assaults.

Just as Miles scorn silenced you as a participant, it has a similar effect on readers. I've received two private complaints about bullying and the like. My strongest commitment as moderator is to keep this space safe and respectful for all members, both writing and reading. I do give people wide berths, and it's always a very imprecise judgement call of when it's too much. In this case, I felt it was time to try to insert the control rods to keep it from getting out of hand.

This particular issue has felt like a tempest in a teapot to me from the beginning. Though, OTOH, it does raise various important broader issues of personal responsibility, personal freedom, and the realities and responsibilities of the space holders, whether that be the Harmony Festival, the U.S. Government, or for that matter, me!

[Dixon]

I've been following it as an avid fan of humane rationality and of humbly standing up for the right thing. Also as a past victim of Miles' scorn--which successfully silenced me for a year. Dixon's resilience and continued reasonableness in the face of ever more scorching excoriation (pardon the alliteration) have been this underdog's delight.

I already privately emailed Patrick Brinton my thanks for his splendid contributions to this horrendous thread, but have since decided it's better to give people thanks publicly. Thank you, Kathy, for your reasonable and beautifully articulated response. I've been the target of a lot of attacks on this thread (and at least one other) lately, and sometimes I feel so alone and start to wonder if I'm crazy for not seeing sense in the seemingly bizarre and unreasonable attacks on me. I get stressed out and lose sleep, racking my brains over how I can make people understand me! When someone like you, Patrick or Sabrina comes along and shows me, through your supportive posts, that I've really made myself clear all along and my position is really as reasonable as it seems to me--well, it's enormously appreciated. So thanks, Kathy (and Patrick and Sabrina)!

[Dixon]

This particular issue has felt like a tempest in a teapot to me from the beginning.

Yes, to you and many others. Any expression from you of empathy or concern for those who suffer or even die from sidestream smoke has been conspicuous by its absence.

[tomcat]

I remember the good old days when it was a Healthy, Happy hippie festival. Now it is just too big... and with that bigness comes a host of problems that were not present in the early years. The smoking is a big one for me and even tho the event is supposed to be smoke free, it has not been when I went in the last few years. This is really sad. I would love to go listen to some of the bands and enjoy the festival, but the large crowds and especially the smoking deter me from attending.

This is not the only event that has this smoking problem. I went to see Further on New Years a few years ago and the cig smoke was TERRIBLE. It was the worst I've ever experienced. Those clove smokes were horrible. I will not attend a large indoor concert again.
At least the Harmony Festival is outside and the air clears relatively quickly, but I'm just not going to take a chance on it this year.

[podfish]

Yes, to you and many others. Any expression from you of empathy or concern for those who suffer or even die from sidestream smoke has been conspicuous by its absence.

he hasn't said whether he thinks kittens are cute recently either. Generally, I always make a point of pro-forma conspicuous empathy, and try to fake sincerity as needed.
Really, Dixon, don't you see how hyperbolic this all is?? Not that there's any problem with that - many discussions on the web take that form. I see it as an equivalent to a literary style. Some threads are minimalist, with people making their points with subtlety and simple observations. Others are bombastic and full of piss and vinegar. Often, the same people participate in both, usually (hopefully) with no personal animus involved. Seems to me that this thread can/should be seen in that light.

[Barry]

Yes, to you and many others. Any expression from you of empathy or concern for those who suffer or even die from sidestream smoke has been conspicuous by its absence.

While second hand smoke can have health effects when exposed to over a long term, and particularly in an enclosed space, I'm not going to buy it as a significant health problem at the 3-day large outdoor Harmony Festival. Yes, is might be unpleasant (I find tobacco unpleasant has well), but you can move. You can choose to be indignant about that or not. And please spare me from the case of being packed in a large crowd where you can't move. There's lots of places to be that are not dense - and some of those are the best places!

[kpage9]

I took Dixon's main point to be about integrity: you mean what you say and you say what you mean*, whether "you" are a big festival or a person. And his efforts to get the HF to do that--either to rigorously enforce the no-smoking policy or to come out and say that, for example, smoking is "discouraged" rather than prohibited--have been noble, in my book.

But I'm guessing that the issue of sympathy for the victims of smoking was an emotional leak of the frustration that Dixon may be feeling, and maybe even a sense of being ganged-up on...kind of like victims of second-hand smoke. It wasn't part of the main point (although it underpins it), and it carried heat--no surprise that more small fires erupted.

Dixon (and all) I hope you're not offended by the armchair psychoanalysis here. I love that we are engaged in this endeavor to untangle some really important stuff...each in our own way.

kathy

*bit of wisdom spoken by some cartoon character from my childhood--popeye?

["Mad" Miles]

Now that we've all come to agreement about the issues at hand. (I keed, I keed.) Three comments.

Kpage9, you say you are/were, "...a past victim of Miles' scorn--which successfully silenced me for a year." I have just spent about forty minutes reviewing our exchanges, aside from my dumping a commercial review from "My" Favorite Restaurants thread (not my finest hour, but I won't belabor the issue, it's all there in the record for those interested and masochistic enough to revisit it) and our brief interaction at the end of that discussion, I fail to see what it is you're referring to.

And in that particular interaction, you were snippy with me, and I suggested you reread the thread. I'm not interested in a debate about the definition of words, but I fail to see how my reply to you was scornful. Irritated, yes, but hardly: "The feeling or belief that someone or something is worthless or despicable; contempt".

In fact I found at least two instances in which our interactions were pleasant and we were in agreement. So if there's a record of my withering scorn directed at you, I'd be interested in seeing it.

Overnight (yes, I too think about what is written here, and like Dixon have feelings) I was confusing you with Katy the Kat and thinking my refutation of the odious, racist lie that most Palestinian Arabs were never from Palestine and are the "trash" from other Arab nations foisted upon Israel in an anti-Semitic, anti-Zionist plot to overwhelm and destroy Israel. That is a claim that I subject to SCORN and will do so at any and every appropriate opportunity. But in that "debate" we were on the same side!


Barry, making reference to people who have complained to you privately about my behavior here is a low blow. As Dixon ably addressed in his "Gospel According to..." thread today. If I wanted, and thought it appropriate, I could adumbrate the litany of complaints I've heard about you, both here in public, and privately by spoken word and email, but I won't, other than the reference I just made. People complain. Especially when heated disputes, profound or not, trivial or not, take place. If the complaint is sufficiently justified, if it is about a rectifiable problem, then there are ways to handle it. Privately, preferably, publicly if necessary.

On a separate but related matter, stepping in to "quash" the argument between Dixon and me, I won't speak for him, but it had little to no effect on my behavior. Your interventions came at a time when I was winding down. It was my sense that Dixon was as well. It was just a little irritating because of the "paterfamilia" role you took on.

He and I are adults (despite any appearances to the contrary!?) and can handle ourselves without a referee. If you were trying to protect the delicate sensibilities of other Waccoons (Kudos Kpage9 for coining the term!) may I suggest that they're also adults? And that if something they read here is upsetting to them they can always choose to ignore it? Despite any appearances to the contrary, I do that all the time!

I've recently been reminded of the behavior I call "Love Bombing". It derives from cult recruitment practices especially back in the late sixties and early seventies, but continuing today (and probably started at the dawn of human time) effusive expressions of love and affection in order to inveigle the lonely and emotionally vulnerable into a cult. Another definition my brother recently reminded me of is the political use of displays of affection, when non-violently opposing violent authority. The proverbial flower in the barrel of a National Guardsman's rifle. The recent "Love Police" tactic/movement in the protests in Britain. Anarchists who go around offering hugs to riot cops.

But I use it to refer to the unsolicited imposition of psychological observation and analysis, coupled with expressions of esteem and affection, as a mechanism to deflect or submerge conflict, strong emotion, anger.

Last week a facebook friend used it in a political debate, in an effort to resolve the conflict and when I called her on it, her response was to be insulted, get huffy and withdraw, because, "I'm not welcome here." She was welcome, just not her uninvited psychologizing intervention.

A few days later a relative of mine used a similar tactic to try and help, in a situation that didn't need any help. It's a behavior that I'm sensitive to, because to use Dixon's term, it's bullshit! It's also overbearing and intrusive. Not to mention patronizing and controlling in a sneaky way.

Some people are uncomfortable with conflict, some are fine with it, within limits. Jumping into a conflict and starting to declaim about the emotional reasons someone is "unhappy" and to start asking questions and making statements like, "If you know what you desire, then you can achieve it." (True enough but a platitude in a context where people aren't talking about what they want or don't want) or making an observation such as, "I hear you're feeling a lot of anger, is that because you didn't get what you wanted as a child? You need to address those wounds so you won't be so affected when people don't mirror your own values and goals." etc.?

Well, that's what I call "Love Bombing" and as Dixon so ably articulated in his piece early this morning about the differences between Rationalist and New Age cultures, it's "Bullshit!" As well as incredibly irritating when one is trying to have a discussion.

I'm not saying, Barry, that you did a full on "Love Bombing" assault in this thread. I only bring it up because it's something I've been thinking about, and dealing with lately, even more than the usual amount that happens occasionally in these times and our culture. It came out of poor applications of the insights from the Humanistic Psychology movement, I first started encountering it in the late seventies in college.

If I sign up for therapy, I expect something akin to Love Bombing (hopefully not just that, and to the extent it is used as a way to build self-esteem and to prompt reflection in a client, that it is done skillfully and appropriately in a context specific manner. Not just used as a blanket to suppress strong emotions.) If I"m having a conversation, a discussion, perhaps even an argument, I haven't signed up to be psychologically analyzed, nor am I seeking advice on what I should feel and how I should think about why I feel that way.


Dixon, I'm not going to continue the debate about smoking policies at H-Fest with you here. We've both made ourselves sufficiently clear. I just want to say that even though your argument/comments were heated, I never took them personally, at least not very much. Even when they sometimes consisted of a series of insults and expressions of outrage. Most often, they made me laugh. Not at you, at your rampaging passion and hyperbole. Like I said, quite a performance. I was actually enjoying it, except for the occasional brief stings when my pride was engaged.

The lack of affect in written language, was, I think, a big part of our conflict in this thread. When I was being facetious, you took me as being serious. When I was telegraphing my humor, you read it (I think) as dismissive.

In a nutshell, I found your approach to be legalistic and demanding, and I didn't think you took into account some of the nuances, history and social complications that are part of the issue. I tried to point that out in a humorous discursive manner, any evaluation of my success or failure, or just muddying the waters, is up to those who choose to read this thread. No worries Mate.

Sorry you won't make the scene. I still haven't decided whether to go tomorrow. There are many other competing and more economical celebrations happening, starting this evening and going through the weekend. $60 for Michael Franti and clouds of second hand smoke of whatever kind... I really do see your points! Even if that wasn't made clear by me, to you.

Onward Droogies and Malchicks, may smoking at outdoor and indoor festivals be the least of our problems, including the associated contestation.