beurocracy and exclusivity in the caving community

[JasonC]

Fulk is of course right that it is foolish to talk about a caving community as if it were a homogeneous entity with common views on everything.

But anyone who has been to Hidden Earth, Eurospeleo, CHECC etc cannot doubt the existence of some sort of community of cavers.  When two reasonably keen cavers meet for the first time, they will find plenty to talk about, even to agree on, I'd call this a community.

I think the disagreement come from the different meanings different people attach to the same word - as usual in many heated arguments

[cavemanmike]

 I've seen"the caving community" change for the better and this is mostly (in my experience)down to younger people getting involved and being pro active.
The old empire building attitudes are falling by the wayside which painters a brighter future for are wonderful sport/pastime/hobby/bla bla bla.
Not that I'm blowing smoke up rodrams arse but I think he's doing a sterling job

[nearlywhite]

Everyone else in the thread seems to think you're wrong.

That may well be true but it isn't the whole truth, however, since this forum does not comprise the totality of the nation's cavers and those that don't visit/use this site, by definition, support my view as correct by their very absence.

Quote of the year. 

This is only AN instance of the caving community at work - they can oppose your views elsewhere too. And they do. When asserting something doesn't exist, and given some evidence that counters it, you can't then say but I have an infinite amount of no evidence.

And cheers Mike, I'm just trying to counter the usual defeatist bilge that comes out - people don't realise that it makes my job harder because other people get scared to volunteer because they don't want to have to face the negative grumblings of a very vocal minority. They don't realise they're hurting their own community.

[NewStuff]

Would you care to expand on this?

Sure. A lot of the way things are done by and for the BCA (and other aspects of caving, clubs) are firmly rooted in the past. Just because things were done in a particular way in the past and worked, doesn't mean they should continue to be done that way, nor that they still work now. It's changing, but there's still a few that seem to have a mental block that it could possible work any other way than the way it has always been. Sadly, some of those are in a position they can apply a large braking force to the inevitable changes happening. The old ways are still there, in a lot of places, though thankfully less "in your face" than it has been in the past, for the most part at least.

Chris - yet again, I can't decide if you're trolling, drunk, or have a genuine learning difficulty. I'll humor you, just in case it's the latter.
What about this thread "proves" your point?

[Fulk]

Thanks, NewStuff

[droid]

Do the organisations cooperate? By and large, yes, but there are also vicious personal feuds which can, and do, percolate up from individuals (and occasionally groups) to infect and fracture organisations. I would suggest that most cavers have a tendency to anarchy: bureaucracy is aimed at taming this, but it will only work under wise leadership...(cf many other threads)...otherwise organisations fracture (cf history of British Speleological Association, England's first national body).

This is very true.

I often think that in discussions on this forum, people put more stake on the author of a post rather than the contents.

This ad hominem approach by individuals, elevated to the level of * members of organisations* rather than a self-elected forum, is where the problem lies, IMHO.

[cavemanmike]

 Good to see a strong positive debate without to many fireworks 

[Fulk]

NewStuff: I got broken off while typing my previous post. I figured that I understood what you were getting at in principle, but I was going to go on to ask you if you would be prepared to provide specific examples of what you're getting at.

[Cap'n Chris]

There's just one caving community then. So I must be in it. Is this correct?

Or are there many caving communities (e.g. clubs, regions, non-club groups)? Which is it?

Both?

[NewStuff]

Fulk - Recent stuff, see Jane/Pegasus resignation letter and the current BCA sec thread.

There's just one caving community then. So I must be in it. Is this correct?

Or are there many caving communities (e.g. clubs, regions, non-club groups)? Which is it?

Both?

Should be rather obvious it's both.

[Cap'n Chris]

Happy that's clarified. The thread now makes proper sense with its correct title.

And, yes, there is; but it's not surprising and not particularly onerous and that's just the way it is. In fact it's barely perceptible unless you're a non-BCA member, under 18 or a professional (whole new multi-page thread for each of these subcategories perhaps); networking helps since it's generally who you know, not what you know, that counts but t'internet has made access to caves the easiest it has ever been, ever, to adult club members. CNCC has made massive improvements as well and is a shining example to other regions.

[Fulk]

Thank you.

[Kenilworth]

I well know that there are active and healthy caving clubs and organizations. I'm talking about a different kind of community. In the traditional and ideal sense, a community is based on literal common ground. An actual specific physical piece of earth. The community would then include the ground and all of the things, including people, that it can support. People making up such a community must acknowledge a responsibility of care and mutual support of one another and of their common ground. In a good community, the place is the context for existence. The interdependency is complex and complete. The place cannot be damaged without damaging the community. The people cannot be hurt without hurting it. Every instance of shortsightedness, selfishness, greed, ambition, or violence will reciprocate into the ground or the people, thus the whole community. Such communities are careful and fragile and they are easily lost into the cowardice of "progress".

This is the concept I think of when I hear the word community. It's an idea that is important to me. I understand that there are looser definitions by which there certainly is a caving community. But those looser communities cannot hope to be anything rich and real and valuable without common ground. They can be powerful, certainly, but not sacred.

In order to say the truth more clearly, why can't we use other words than some diminished version of "community". The caving community is lots of things: organizations, clubs, events, freindships, projects, ambitions, love-affairs. Take some time, say what you mean.

I think we overuse the word community for reasons that have nothing to do with linguistic evolution. "Bicycling" "gay" "caving" "workout" "coffee-drinking" "cancer" and on and on, I think people simply want a place to belong. But a shared interest or condition is not enough to make the sort of place that we consciously or subconsciously want, that we need.

[mikem]

OED 2nd definition - the condition of sharing or having certain attitudes and interests in common.

We are a community, end of.

Mike

[alastairgott]

Can I read this thread in a flow chart, so I can see who's arguing with who. 

[Keris82]

Lol! Seems I caused a fair bit of controversy! 

[mikem]

Did I mention you can't spell bureaucracy.... 

[droid]

I'm probably going to cause some controversy with these comments

 

[Kenilworth]

OED 2nd definition - the condition of sharing or having certain attitudes and interests in common.

We are a community, end of.

Mike

The good ol' dictionary can be used to support almost anything. My argument is not about definitions, but that the word may suggest a reality that does not exist. Definitions as free as the above allow for silliness. For example, you and I, Mike, are members of the Male Community. We are both part of the Nose-Having Community, as is the possum smashed on the road out front (we should be mourning this loss of one of our comrades).

It is easy to draw forth the OED and take aimless slices at an argument you don't like, but a definition that reduces a word to meaninglessness is not sufficient to decapitate your opponent.

A common interest in caving, like a common interest in fishing, or tacos, or breasts, is too trivial a thing to support a community worth fighting for, or even referring to as a community.

[mikem]

Having a nose is hardly an attitude or interest. There are c. 6,OOO card-carrying cavers in the UK, that's less than 1 in 1O,OOO of the population & they are starting to emerge from the club tribalism of the last few decades into a more aligned "community" (the size of a large village or small town)...

[Kenilworth]

Having a nose is hardly an attitude or interest. There are c. 6,OOO card-carrying cavers in the UK, that's less than 1 in 1O,OOO of the population & they are starting to emerge from the club tribalism of the last few decades into a more aligned "community" (the size of a large village or small town)...

Most dictionaries (I haven't got an OED but probably it too) have a first definition something like:
"A group of people living in the same place or having a particular characteristic in common." Noses are a characteristic I think. Anyway I bet there are more people interested in tacos than in caves.

National alignment is a step away from community, not toward it. A tribe is more of a community than a nation. The demands upon a community come from the place, not from a greater culture. Culture has to grow out of the place. Contempt for small places is the ruin of community.

I have witnessed small and close and active and interdependent and conscientious groups of cavers acting within and by their places in a way that comes close to the sort of community I'm talking about. They are not part of a larger "caving community" because they have no common physical ground with it, they do not need it, it does not need them. They would be amused to be called a community of themselves. They are best described as a group of friends, or even a family. Families are important building blocks of community, but a community cannot be made of families scattered over a country because a country is not a place it is a label. At its richest, the community is an ecological concept, not a political or cultural one. Cultural alignment approaches monoculturalism, one of the most powerful, destructive, and vulnerable ecological conditions.

I am in love with three pieces of ground, one where I live, one where my grandparents live, and one where they used to live. In all of these places there are many caves but almost no cavers. Alone or with my family, I explore and dig and survey and write in these places. We are not part of any caving community, no matter what the dictionary says. When I was an NSS member, and traveled to projects with caving clubs, I was not a member of a community. What am I?

[mikem]

Whilst Britain has only a limited number of caving areas, which are all quite small, & most of the cavers congregate in those - there are 3 club huts within about 1km of each other on top of Mendip & they do intermingle nowadays! Different to your experience I know...

[Ed]

Whilst Britain has only a limited number of caving areas, which are all quite small, & most of the cavers congregate in those - there are 3 club huts within about 1km of each other on top of Mendip & they do intermingle nowadays! Different to your experience I know...

Intermingle.......they've even been know to interbreed, even BPC and CPC 

[Kenilworth]

Which are also ecogical functions that might have something useful to teach.

[2xw]

What you are Kenilworth is an American who has no clue what he is talking about. The lessons you have learnt in the states do not work here.