Knightriders quote

[Sir Edward]

"It's tough to live by the code. I mean it's real hard to live for something you believe in. People try it and then they get tired of it, like they get tired of their diets, or exercise, or their marriage, or their kids, or their job, or themselves, or they get tired of their god." -- Ed Harris as Billy, Knightriders (1981)

(As an aside, I posted this on facebook. Wow, what a crapstorm it kicked up. On of the "friends" on there seems to be on a personal quest to deflate everyone around him. His problem was with folks considering themselves to be knights in the modern day. I've seen him do this before. It makes me wonder why I accepted the friend invitation)

[Sir Wolf]

blah... all i can think of is "Remember the knightrider when you look into the night sky"... Mad Amm hehe

[Sir James A]

"Faith, Heart and Steel; that is how we persevere" - That's my favorite comment in that "storm". I left a bit of a book on there.

I hope Andrew will find something of relevance in it. He does seem to be vehemently opposed to knights in general, yet, saying things that are quite wrong, which surprises me since his page seems to say he has a good amount of education on the subject. He seems to be passionate enough about helping people, just ... maybe misguided is the word I'm looking for?

[Sir Edward]

Thanks for chiming in. I'm inches away from de-friending him, I think. This isn't the first time he's argued vehemently with myself and my friends. The last time (and I don't even remember the topic at the moment), even after we carefully and methodically countered every single point he made, he still had to get the last word, and it carried a heavy tone of "well, I'm right and you're wrong, no matter what".

This time around it feels like he's on a mission to tear down anyone who is interested in knights and chivalry, as if we're all deluded and think that heraldry and armor make us better than everyone else.

I wonder if he's had a bad experience with some SCA knights or something. I know some of those guys span the spectrum. Some are awesomely chivalrous. Others are a tad arrogant.

Anyway, you can't have a civil discussion with people who behave that way.

[Sir Andrew]

Yeah, he was doing an ace job of trying to tear down Sir Santana while we were conversing last evening. I have a word for him but I won't bring this forum down to that level...I'm sure all here can guess.....

[Sir James A]

Thanks for chiming in. I'm inches away from de-friending him, I think. This isn't the first time he's argued vehemently with myself and my friends. The last time (and I don't even remember the topic at the moment), even after we carefully and methodically countered every single point he made, he still had to get the last word, and it carried a heavy tone of "well, I'm right and you're wrong, no matter what".

This time around it feels like he's on a mission to tear down anyone who is interested in knights and chivalry, as if we're all deluded and think that heraldry and armor make us better than everyone else.

I wonder if he's had a bad experience with some SCA knights or something. I know some of those guys span the spectrum. Some are awesomely chivalrous. Others are a tad arrogant.

Anyway, you can't have a civil discussion with people who behave that way.

I gave it one last effort, my brain is about shot for the day since he countered my responses to his "facts" with basically "i have a degree, you don't", and I don't think there's much we can discuss if the only thing he's going to use for his position is his opinions and feelings ... there's no argument to that because everyone is entitled to their own, of course.

After a bit, I thought his name sounded somewhat familiar, and now I know why: http://www.partsandtechnical.com/bio.html

I spoke with him back in August '08 in regards to turning my sheets of 16 gauge stainless into armor. He was very polite in the email, though looking at it there's a couple things that make me think you may be onto something with the SCA knights. I never did get to meet him due to schedule conflicts and being over an hour away with no way to transport the steel. There's a few things that lead me to think there is some religious logistics for his stance, and arguing about religion is a often lose/lose situation for everyone.

He's certainly not acting the way I'd expect someone with a degree in history and interest in medieval times to act.

[Sir Brian]

 

I feel like I just walked into a dollar discussion and finding only a quarter in my pocket!

What did I miss?

[Sir James A]

I feel like I just walked into a dollar discussion and finding only a quarter in my pocket!

What did I miss?

Have a look at Sir Edward's facebook page. There's a 60ish comment "thread" there from the quote. The tail end was chapters in reply to chapters between Andrew and I, so I responded via PM on FB to him so that we would stop cluttering Sir Edward's wall and the storm will hopefully settle.

Turns out Andrew has quite the list of credentials, and I am hoping it's just some sort of "phase" that he is in where he is trying to drag down anyone under the banner of chivalry or knighthood; ironically, that would be exactly the point of the quote Sir Edward posted. Maybe I can get him in better spirits; I'm giving it a shot as best as I can, but I have much more passion than I do profession in the field, so hopefully I can still do something....

[Sir Wolf]

i wasn't gonna step in that hornets nest hehehe. some people like to live up to ideals, others do not. its all life and everyone has the right to choose what they want to do hehhe

[Sir Edward]

Yeah, I just defriended him last night after waiting to see a few more of his comments. I don't think it ever occurred to him that bashing my friends and I on one of my own postings was a little over the top or perhaps unwelcome. I think some of the younger guys (our own Sir Nathan, and also Joshua) handled themselves quite well.

I want to call this guy a troll, but I think a real troll will just say whatever it takes to drag a reaction out of people. I think he genuinely feels the way he says he does. But while accusing us all of taking ourselves too seriously, it really was all about him. About how silly he thinks knighthood and chivalry are. And when he finally started to calm down, he was still going on about how he doesn't have the time to pretend with us.

Since he has a history of using my posts as his personal soapbox, and doesn't seem to respect me or my friends on there, I figured it was time to just quietly drop him.

[Sir William]

LOL @ pretend

Just because he took it upon himself to pretend to be a knight doesn't mean others are following his example.  If anything, I'm pretending to be a Fed when in fact, I'm just a knight forced to masquerade as the working class to afford my accoutrements- since I have no overlord who sees eye to eye w/me regarding my passions.  But they do pay the bills so...

I'm just glad you guys didn't take the bait and ream this guy out- sounds like he needs it but it is much more potent when it occurs during some form of self-discovery.  It sounds like as things started to wind down, he was slowly coming to a conclusion that the ultimate problem lies within him.

[Sir Brian]

Crap! Ninja'd TWICE! 

Ah yes I did find that FB post and WOW!

What good is scholastic knowledge if it isn’t tempered with wisdom? What is wisdom worth if it is without compassion?

I don’t know if Drew’s credentials are valid or not and frankly I don’t care because by his conduct he has forfeited any claims of validity to his credentials IMO. As far as I’m concerned he is a broken mechanical monkey that I have neither the patience nor inclination to even ponder the root cause(s) of his obviously numerous societal malfunctions.

There is absolutely no excuse for being discourteous, the height of which I consider to be disrespectful of another person’s beliefs or ideals. You can disagree as much as you like but never should one descend to blatant disparagement. The old adage of “If you don’t have anything nice to say then don’t say anything at all” comes to mind.

I become instantly suspicious of any mook that is so quick to dispense their résumé. In fact I found most of his posts and rebuttals to be nothing more than the sarcastic, patronizing rants of a progressive elitist.

I would recommend you not only de-friend him Sir Edward but also delete his comments so his sanctimonious bile doesn’t spread. - Oops! Nevermind you all ready did that! 

One of my golden rules:
I will not state any disparaging remarks unless I am prepared to shed blood over it, whether it is my blood or the blood of the one I am in contention with.

And definitely agree our younger knightly brethren accounted for themselves very well! 

[Sir Edward]

I received a private message from him the next day after I de-friended him. He was trying to clarify his position and say that intent and tone get lost in the text sometimes. The thing is, he was still trying to say he thinks these guys need to step back and realize where the line is between reality and fanciful romanticism. I think we got that from the main thread.

Anyway, I still haven't replied. I still found the whole thing very disrespectful.

[Sir Brian]

That’s all well and good but there is still the fact that it isn’t his place, right or responsibility to admonish, advise, or as you said disrespect anyone else’s beliefs. Let him rot. Left-handed apologies are worse than no apologies at all IMO. 

[Sir William]

I still found the whole thing very disrespectful.

It was; I didn't need to read that entire thread to pick up on that.  Here's the thing, for me- words have meaning, and you know them when you use them.  Saying things like knighthood and chivalry are silly, or those that aspire to such are just pretenders- forget tone, these words were meant to be incendiary.  He meant for it to be taken as such...but now that you've de-friended him and no one's got time or inclination to talk to him, he knows he went too far- he just wants it all to go away so he can have his friends back.

Not necessarily the thought processes of a healthy, well-adjusted human being.