Author Topic: The problem with Message Boards - Web Fora (Read 1511 times)

Matthew · « **on:** October 02, 2012, 04:46:12 PM »

Is that anyone with a pulse can get up on his/her soap box, and preach to the world how things should be.

The fact is, opinions are like armpits. Everyone has them, and they stink.

And another fact: Even the wisest youth have little to offer in the way of teaching, especially when their elders are on the receiving end!

The Jєωs at the time of Our Lord didn't allow anyone to be a "Rabbi" or teacher/preacher until they reached the age of 30. Our Lord had many good reasons for delaying the start of his public ministry until He had walked the earth 30 years.

Note: Our Lord never criticized this custom even once, even though He criticized everything else in need of criticism.

I've meet many great trad families, homeschooled families, etc. and some very smart, well-educated, and polite young men and women. But even they have a lot of life ahead of them to experience before they will be able to teach anything to those older than them.

It takes a while to develop actual wisdom. It grows more quickly if one's life is in order (the Faith, practicing virtue, abstinence from the modern world, abstinence from excessive media, good education, time to think, etc.) but there is a secondary, indispensable element that can't be rushed: time/experience.

My point: on a web forum, the rash, idealistic, often extreme 19 year old's ideas are given equal honor beside the wise words of the 50 or 60 year old. It's too democratic.

Maybe CathInfo needs an "age" field. And if you don't fill it in, I fill it in for you :)

Capt McQuigg · « **Reply #1 on:** October 02, 2012, 04:54:33 PM »

Good post.

Wisdom is acquired.

I wouldn't be so harsh on these forums. This one is significantly better behaved than any other that I've ever seen.

As for the foolish posts and childish posters, they tend to out themselves with their very own posts.

JPaul · « **Reply #2 on:** October 02, 2012, 07:08:35 PM »

Quote from: Capt McQuigg

Good post.

Wisdom is acquired.

I wouldn't be so harsh on these forums. This one is significantly better behaved than any other that I've ever seen.

As for the foolish posts and childish posters, they tend to out themselves with their very own posts.

Absolutely!

Emerentiana · « **Reply #3 on:** October 02, 2012, 07:17:19 PM »

My thoughts, exactly Matthew. Its been a peeve of mine for a long time. I remember when I was in my 20's. I had just converted to Catholicism...........didnt know nothing. BUT! I had a wise old 74 year old Catholic friend who taught me so much! :applause: :applause:

Sigismund · « **Reply #4 on:** October 02, 2012, 07:25:48 PM »

Well, I'm 58. Not sure I'm wise, though. :wink:

Hobbledehoy · « **Reply #5 on:** October 02, 2012, 11:01:10 PM »

Quote from: Matthew

I've meet many great trad families, homeschooled families, etc. and some very smart, well-educated, and polite young men and women. But even they have a lot of life ahead of them to experience before they will be able to teach anything to those older than them.

It takes a while to develop actual wisdom. It grows more quickly if one's life is in order (the Faith, practicing virtue, abstinence from the modern world, abstinence from excessive media, good education, time to think, etc.) but there is a secondary, indispensable element that can't be rushed: time/experience.

My point: on a web forum, the rash, idealistic, often extreme 19 year old's ideas are given equal honor beside the wise words of the 50 or 60 year old. It's too democratic.

Maybe CathInfo needs an "age" field. And if you don't fill it in, I fill it in for you :)

Thanks for this sobering reminder!

We need to be put in our place by our elders sometimes, lest we run off our mouths/keyboards unto excess.

I think that "knowing too much" makes kids shirk off responsibility and obfuscates their self-knowledge (without which one cannot have true humility), arrogating to themselves prerogatives that are not theirs, to the prejudice of the divinely-established hierarchical structure of the Christian household.

I have seen it many times before, and have been guilty of this myself in the past.

A very difficult life these past few years has taught me more than all my tomes have throughout my academic career.

Delicate, soft hands of a writer and literary critic had gotten me little more than delusions in an imaginary ivory tower throughout my youth, but hands scraped, bruised and roughed up by hard manual labor and cement mixing have brought me much more. And I still have a long way to go...

Kaesekopf · « **Reply #6 on:** October 02, 2012, 11:05:32 PM »

The Jєωs at the time of Our Lord didn't allow anyone to be a "Rabbi" or teacher/preacher until they reached the age of 30. Our Lord had many good reasons for delaying the start of his public ministry until He had walked the earth 30 years.

Seriously?

Today I learned....

Iuvenalis · « **Reply #7 on:** October 02, 2012, 11:27:53 PM »

Well, Our Lord was teaching in the temple at 12

Hobbledehoy · « **Reply #8 on:** October 02, 2012, 11:50:18 PM »

Quote from: Iuvenalis

Well, Our Lord was teaching in the temple at 12

Yes, but (aside from the fact that he was teaching the Doctors ex officio, to put it very lightly, as the only-begotten Son of the Eternal Father, Who, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, is the very God Who had revealed the Sacred Scriptures upon which the Doctors of the Law were discoursing), He humbly submitted to the domestic authority of the Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph, his legal foster-father and guardian, whom humility and divine Providence (as revealed by the Angel) in turn bade to take his role as head of the Sacred Family during his earthly sojourn, despite his great fear before the majesty and sanctity of the Incarnate Word and His Virgin Mother.

Iuvenalis · « **Reply #9 on:** October 03, 2012, 10:14:01 AM »

Matthew,

I don't really have a problem with including our age(s) with our posts, I just doubt it will change any behaviors or fix the problem you wish to address.

It also is yet one more piece of identifying information and we have a member being stalked by an unstable priest and another living in a despotism that won't even let their people use gmail.

Lastly, there are even Canadians who would be under penalty of 'hate speech' (or Germans or Brits) and age would be one more factor in identifying all these people.

As with our poster who is being monitored by a priest, even restricting this info to US posters can have consequences.

I don't even think our country of origin/flag should be displayed.

With this info, or any info, with all the disparate circuмstances, I think 'less is more'

Jaynek · « **Reply #10 on:** October 03, 2012, 11:44:56 AM »

Quote from: Matthew

My point: on a web forum, the rash, idealistic, often extreme 19 year old's ideas are given equal honor beside the wise words of the 50 or 60 year old. It's too democratic.

There is a great deal of truth in what you are saying, but there are other factors to consider. I am 54, but because I am a convert to Catholicism and relatively new to tradition, one couldn't count me among the wise.

I've often noticed how much wiser my husband is than I am. It may be partly due to the grace he has been given as head of our family, but I think that much of it is because he is from a Catholic family and practiced his faith from infancy.

parentsfortruth · « **Reply #11 on:** October 03, 2012, 02:04:53 PM »

My mother in law tried to have things sent from the "Couple to Couple League" (code name for Operation: "Family Planning") years ago. She's 84 in a couple days, and I told her in no uncertain terms it was unwanted. She even had it sent to herself, changed the address on it, and sent it to me when I told them to stop sending it to me. Then I had to call them again, and ask them not to send it to her either, since it was being sent to me forwarded by her.

I'm not saying that older people generally don't have more wisdom. Sometimes, it is the younger folks that have to correct engrained errors in their elders. She was basically asking me to do this, and saying I didn't need permission from the priest, which is absolutely an erroneous opinion. My admonishment didn't seem to help at all. Eventually she laid off, but only because I refused to discuss it with her anymore after much aggravation.

Capt McQuigg · « **Reply #12 on:** October 03, 2012, 03:21:36 PM »

Quote from: Sigismund

Well, I'm 58. Not sure I'm wise, though. :wink:

I'll bet you're wiser now at 58 than you were at 18! :cheers:

Kephapaulos · « **Reply #13 on:** October 03, 2012, 11:14:36 PM »

I support you, Matthew, in wanting to require the age of a forum member to be shown. It is true that there are the privacy issue as Iuvenlias pointed out and the exceptions to the rule as mentioned by Jaynek and parentsfortruth, but so many people have the same birthday. The powers that be probably know most of our birth dates anyway. I do understand though that there are the cases like the recent one of the priest stalking someone or a person controlling someone's internet access. I suppose those could be exceptions to the rule of someone's age not being shown.

I am 28. I am in I suppose the almost second to last most recent generation of adults. I still have a lot to learn, but I have already been seeing how being in one's later twenties pushing thirty is so different from being in one's late teens or early twenties. Maturity is indeed a major distinctive factor.

It is a sad state of affairs. Up to even perhaps about the time of the Council, whether a Catholic or not, one could generally and easily assume to always look up to the older generations and trust their advice. Now we have to sift around and be prudent about from whom to ask advice and whom to follow in example.

We still need to always look up to our elders though in spite of however they, but we need exercise prudence in how to regard them. I remember especially when Bishop Williamson talked in one of his Eleison Comments about how the the wife should always make her husband look good and respectable to the children no matter how he is. Unfortunately, even those in authority are made to look bad, that is not to say that many of them do not do it to themselves, but as far as the older generations are concerned, we need to, as best as we can, respect them.

Kephapaulos · « **Reply #14 on:** October 03, 2012, 11:39:40 PM »

I have pondered about the age issue for awhile too.

The older generation of today (that of my grandparents) would, of course, have known about hard times, but one can find it mind boggling how many of the next generation (that of my parents) fell away and were left to chance in many cases. The older generation wanted things materially easier for my parent's generation but such an attitude did not help. That contributed to the increasing friendliness to the world.

As I know what Matthew as pointed out about what Archbishop Lefebvre said about subjects not making the superiors but superiors making the subjects, having the error in opposition to that truth has been another detrimental factor to society today. The subjects end up being charged with the responsibility that is that of the superior. "Your vote is supposed to count!" "You can make a difference!" "The laity have to do their part!" "Who are you to judge the Pope?!" (i.e. "The Pope is always right! You are wrong!")

Within the Church, much of the older generation (that of Benedict XVI) is so far gone into the Modernist heresy. Only so few survived it. It depends with my parents' generation. Some still continue with the heresy, while others believed it but came back. Even so, others survived too. My generation and the younger ones have gone further into oblivion, but they can ironically have a better chance of coming to the Truth and seeing the situation objectively and with hindsight. Not to pride the younger generations but that can end up being the case.

Nevertheless, it is tragic to see that the younger generations lack the finesse and mannerliness that hearkens back to the "good ol' days". I wish I had more of that myself. For example, I remember my mother teaching me that the man should walk on the side of the sidewalk closer to the street, while the woman is to be further in for the sake of protecting the woman from if a car runs off the road. Many in my generation would not think of doing that though. I have seen it when I have walked to my class during the week. I feel kind of bad for not getting to do it, but a lot people don't seem to care about that now.

Sorry to veer off topic sort of here, but it would be good to have our ages revealed here because we are not all on the same level. Age and experience make considerable differences. As my priest has told me in the confessional about me and my parents: we can never be equal to our parents. And so hence we can never be equal to everyone in every regard.