and yet, for at least the third time, you advocate abandoning the organization, and do so repeatedly in the post, because of allegations against an individual in leadership. Indeed, this was part of your stated reasoning for not being part of legitimate Masonry. Let me suggest a rhetorical litmus test for your view: if the current GM were removed, woyld you seek to join the recognised GL? I really am not soliciting an answer, just encouraging reflection.
Training people in organizational leadership principles is not the same as being involved in organizations or the same as longitude of experience. Further, generalizing from training on leadership to specific recommendations on individual involvement in an organization is not necessarily an even flow. I remember a new Mason who had been extensively involved in Scouting leadership. He felt this qualified him for Masonic leadership. He was a failure as a Masonic leader. He did not understand the organization.
Having actually been part of the removal process of a national masonic leader, knowledge of leadership principles wasn’t the key. Rather, knowledge of Masonic organizations, organizational change in Masonic organizations, a commitment to the organization rather than the individual, willingness to foster change, and guts were the important factors. When there was disruption in GLNF (largely because of a single individual), many GLs reacted by suspending recognition. They did not abandon (what we view as) legitimate Freemasonry.
That is where we also differ in our views. I think one can legitimately hold membership in an organization without condoning the actions of the leadership. I am a member of a political party. I don’t condone the actions or all the positions of the current party leadership. No one has argued there is a moral imperative I leave the party.
I realize my statement on your limited experience in any genus of Freemasonry can be taken as condescending. Making declarations of moral imperatives can come off as condescending, superior, and lecturing as well. Some might argue there were less than kind motives in your reporting of this disruption, as noted by the need to point out it is the GL with which the majority of us are in amity and your own views, again, as to the organization, rather than just pointing out an admittedly legitimate Masonuc news item. So, yes, let’s do avoid the acidity—or at least acknowledge we are taking the same tone. So, yes, your comments to me do express the outrage and naïveté of the neophyte and new convert to his cause. Perhaps I am more jaundiced and cynical in my view, finding no organization or its leadership to be perfect, and that men demonstrate character flaws, perhaps even of a criminal nature. So if I am a committed member, I foster change. I don’t throw the baby out with the bath water.
