"In an educational environment", Bob?

This part of the board (*) is not an educational environment. Any place in which somebody can post absolute nonsense, and the consensus is that his nonsense should be shielded from rebuttal, is not an educational forum. It is even less one when said crackpot (that would be JamStone) can respond to reasoned arguments with personal attacks and those present willfully turn a blind eye to that fact, but when he starts whining about the fact that the person he can do this to turns out to be able to give as good as he gets, there is a sudden call for action. To call for the enactment of a double standard of this sort on behalf of somebody whose distinguishing feature is the lunacy of his argument is the exact opposite of what goes on in a legitimately educational environment. And when I say so, I speak as somebody who has taught at the University level, so, unlike JamStone, I know whereof I speak.

I doubt very seriously that Stephanie Cass, or any of the other people highly placed in the House of Netjer will be moved by your dishonest appeal and misrepresentation of the situation, but if they are, so be it. It's a large world, and to use the Nisut's own words, most of it is not stuck in 1993. If I have misjudged the House, and it is, I will be delighted to move on, and spend my time where it may be put to more productive use. But somehow, Bob, I get the feeling that you speak for nobody but yourself and the handful of kooks who seem to have taken over this forum, most from the outside.

An educational forum? In a legitimate educational setting, JamStone would have been told to sit down and be quiet ages ago. You know why, Bob? Because legitimate educational forums are not under the control of the freshmen. You say "educational" when what you clearly really mean is "unconditionally nurturing and non-challenging", two things that real education never is. Real education confronts you with the depth and breadth of what it is that you don't know, regardless of how you feel about it, without compromise and without apology.

Sometimes that means telling people that they don't know what they're talking about, and sometimes that means feelings are going to be hurt, like it or not. It can be no other way, because education is about reality and while those with a pathological craving for popularity may bend to popular whim, reality never does. You grow up and deal with it on its own terms, or you don't deal with it at all.

And get this one straight, Bob - growth hurts. It always has and it always will. Anybody who has ever been through a real educational program knows just how much, and in his gut, knows why. It is vegetation and ignorance that is the easy path, and it is a charlatan, not a teacher, who will guide you down that broad and gentle road into mindless oblivion and comfortable ignorance, where one might linger for a while.

But only a while. In the end, nonsense remains nonsense and one can only lie to oneself for so long, before one is no longer fooled. The comfort is transitory, while the knowledge of the wasted opportunities of the time put to such poor use endures. One is as the person who, discovering that it is tiring to rise from bed, lies there all day, and finds that he feels far more tired and miserable than he would have been had he been motivated enough to make the effort to awaken earlier in the day. One fails to recognize that the initial discomfort that comes from the confrontation with one's own ignorance isn't a matter of self-denial, but an investment that will pay off in a deeper, more satisfying and more real pleasure sense of accomplishment later on. The pleasure that comes from knowing that the validation that one's ideas and accomplishments get is real. Like it or not, there's no easy substitute for that pleasure, no royal road to dignity, because you can't fool anybody forever, not even yourself.

Will your leadership, a group of scholars who have already sacrificed so much in their personal lives, on behalf of a value you spit on for the sake of a little easy popularity, do as you ask? I doubt it. It would be a denial of everything a scholar's life is about, and it would make everything they struggled for a lie. They would be denying their true selves and casting away the very credibility that drew people to them in the first place. But, if that should be their pleasure, I will lose nothing I have cause to desire by declining to partake of it with them, because to do so would be a denial of my true self and an unproductive, if not unconscionable diversion from my true path. And the only reward would be the esteem and companionship of those I could no longer respect. This, to me, would seem a poor trade. If the condition of my staying here is that I either refrain from speaking my mind or do so ineffectually when presented with nonsense, then I am being asked to sell out in just that fashion.

You fail to understand things this basic and yet you speak of what should be seen in an "educational" forum, as if you had the slightest idea. How remarkable.

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(*) Note : the part of the board being referred to is the old "Modern-Day Egypt" section.