Don't Just Sit There...Do Something! (Part 1)

There are people in the Seattle Integral Salon, SeattleIntegral, that I've never met. Sure, some are from London, Germany, South America, Australia, New Zealand, and even Phoenix and DC. But there are of lot of local members on our discussion list, who live in, or around, Seattle, that have never come to an event, written or answered a post on that list, or done anything integral at all that I'm aware of. Of course, just because I'm not aware of it doesn't make it so.

Maybe some of these people (Lurkers, as they are known in group world) are doing amazing things that would blow us all away. If they are, I would hope they would be inspiring the rest of us to greater horizontal and vertical awareness by modeling the possibilities for the rest of us.......but most lurkers just lurk.

This isn't my first list. I belong to Don Beck's Spiral Dynamics Integral list, and I was a member of the Ken Wilber Yahoo list for a couple of years, until it started getting nasty, and I decided to opt out. I also belong, and have belonged, to several other lists, local and internationally. I created the SeattleIntegral list and have moderated it for these last three years, through good, and some difficult, times. On these various lists, we've had lots of discussions about lurkers, and when those have happened, sometimes a lurker will speak up. According to the few who do speak up, sometimes they're just too busy (but not too busy to read?), some don't feel they have enough knowledge to contribute (but knowledgeable enough not to ask questions?), and some are just shy.

Then there are those with agendas.

The agenda joiners don't want you to know who they are, and won't introduce themselves to the group. Geoffrey Falk, self-proclaimed Wilber critic and cult writer, quietly joined our list and proceeded to write a scathing analysis of a social event (a social event??? That's what you got?) we sponsored without ever asking one of us what our intentions were. Even today, a year later, I can't take Falk seriously because of his rash assumptions and because his shadow mercilessly appears in his criticisms. According to Wikipedia, Falk apparently had an abusive experience with a community. I feel compassion for him, but I'm not going to let him beat up on me or SI.

I've also recognized people from other lists, who have tried to join the SI list, who were extremely disruptive when allowed to participate. I've told more than one, upon joining the group, that I would not tolerate the behavior they exhibited on other sites, and that if they started, I would remove them immediately. They were also told that if they wanted to conduct respectful exchanges with others, they would be welcome. They didn't stay.

But, I'm not really talking about the agenda joiners. The ones I've been thinking about do nothing.....and I think I know why a lot of them do nothing, and I'll address it in another posting, soon.

Bumper sticker image from the iBoutique