ryaner wrote:
Lest it be forgotten in a pile of revisionism and hand-wringing liberalism, my memory is that Bladup was banned after he turned his poison on TMA as a whole, and the eds in particular, after he couldn't handle the eds editing (deleting) some of his posts.
I read that entire thread, and it seemed to me that both sides were doing their share of being unreasonable. Bladup had every reason to feel victimised when he was the only person apparently having photographs deleted for being repetitions of existing scenes. On the other hand, it was understandable why Bladup's images came to the attention of the Eds, given the number of them. What I saw was two over-sensitive people taking entrenched positions and failing to see things from the other's perspective. What I didn't see was anyone clearly in the right or wrong.
I am, frankly, appalled by the cliquish and judgemental attitude of many people here. It's THE INTERNET. Misunderstandings rapidly cascade out of hand - especially where male egos are involved. Some people are more sensitive, less articulate, and more easily provoked to anger than others. Some people are more subtle and in the way they abuse others through the means of patronising and condescending comments. Either way, sometimes a thick skin is required, and a tolerance of others, a willingness to coexist, and an ability to get the fuck over things and move on. From what I'm seeing here, it seems like a lot of people would prefer a cosy little room where everyone sat around and patted each other on the back in agreement.
Nobody likes to be abused (and I've been attacked by Bladup myself), but it's generally more productive to develop a slightly thicker skin and not take things so personally. It's also generally more productive to try and understand people rather than just locking them out of the room. I never detected any malice in Bladup, so chances are if he was offensive, it's because he felt picked on or misunderstood and reacted to it. I'm sure it would be wonderful if we were all capable of rational and reasonable responses to every provocation, but the world isn't like that, and it well behoves us to get down off our collective self-righteous high horses and spare a little more time for those who aren't blessed with our own reserves of patience and tact. Because I for one know that if I didn't have the benefit of a reasonable vocabulary and years of self-development, there's more than a few occasions when I'd probably have done a Bladup myself.
Tolerance and understanding, people. These are things that we give freely - not just when they're earned.
