Carl’s last blog post titled Perverted Perturbations (and apparently some of his other ones too) seems to have caused a small controversy and upset some readers. One user even went so far as to create an entire website about Carl’s postings on ELITETRACK and then proceeded to use his first posts on our forum for insults. Another respected member of the community contacted me privately expressing concern. Others, have gone on to support Carl in the forum. Here’s my take:
I try to make this site THE site to go to for top notch, unbiased, science-based, coach-proven information. My lofty ambition is for it to be an open community for discussion similar to what I’ve experienced in my own formal education. More specifically, I want it to be a place where many different opinions and philosophies can come to the ‘table’ and discuss and debate the topics of the day. I never want this site to be about one person or one idea. In fact, I try to go out of my way with my blog posting, article selection, and choice of contributors and moderators to ensure that I’m not selecting clones of my own training ideologies. I’ve learned, especially during my doctoral studies, that heated debate over differences of opinion is one of, if not the best, means of spurring future innovation, questioning your own practices and ideas, and ultimately learning. Some of our greatest posts in the forum have involved very heated discussion between myself and others with Barry Ross, Dan Andrews, and others. It’s this type of debate that gets me excited to visit the forums and has spurred self-reflection on my own training theories, helped me to mold my coaching, and let me understand what I don’t know. The process isn’t always pretty though. One of the things that’s important is open mindedness. It simply doesn’t work if you’re the type of person who believes what they want to believe without letting the facts of the matter get in the way. Another important aspect of good intellectual discourse is civility. Once that breaks down, insults and curses get thrown around, and any productive discussion is all but finished. If we can ALL meet this basic criteria the community as a whole is going to benefit. If anyone, myself included, doesn’t meet this criterion call us out and refer us back to this post.
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Mike Young
Latest posts by Mike Young (see all)
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