david wrote:This is an interesting topic and one I have thought about some. For me part of the issue is: how do we communicate truth? If you know something is true and you are telling someone else who may not know that it is true, how do you tell them what the truth is? If you are not persuasive and smooth in your presentation of the truth, does that make it less true? If the way you state the truth makes you sound arrogant, does that make it less true? If the way you state the truth causes everyone around you to reject the truth, does that make it less true?
It really is a complicated issue. I have often heard of hunters that are very humble, but I happen to know they have a huge trophy room. They are not really humble, they are just much more smooth about presenting the truth. Maybe they make you think you discovered the secret truth on your own and that makes it feel so much more true.
I have long struggled with these things and partly because of my faith. Jesus said "I and the father are one...no one comes to the father except through me". How could any one possibly be more arrogant than that? It is abrasive and offensive. So should he not have said that so people would not think he is arrogant and offensive? I mean a lot more people would like him if he could have padded the truth and hidden it in a trophy room some where.
So, I struggle myself with presenting things I know about bobcat hunting. I am sure i have come off as arrogant at times because sometimes I just say what I know instead of hiding it in a trophy room somewhere for you to discover some day. And I am aware that I dont know a lot compared to what can be known. BUT what little I know, I know very well and with not a doubt in my mind. There, now even that sounds arrogant.
So what that does to people that dont want to sound arrogant is this: it causes them to not share, or it causes them to have to be very careful and politically correct in the way they share. It takes them twice as long to get a point across because they have to hide it in a trophy room somewhere so you can feel like you discovered the secret on your own. Some people have enough patience to take twice as long to get a point across. Some people just wont even waste their time. As a very well known and very old bobcat hunter recently said to me: "to hell with them if they don't want to learn."
When a man like that offers something for free, and it is knowledge that cost him thousands of dollars and dozens of years to gain; you can see how he might not feel the need to present it in a politically correct fashion so as not to offend anyone. I am not speaking of Dewey, but another bobcat hunter much older than Dewey.
I dont really know Dewey all that well. I know there was a day or two we spent together twenty or thirty years ago. I know I learned more with him in those few hours than I have learned with any other houndman that I have spent hundreds of hours with. That is because he was not only knowledgeable, but he was very generous with that knowledge, and he was a gifted teacher. There is an old saying "them that can: do. Them that cant: teach. " It is so rare to find someone willing and able to teach who also very good at what he is teaching.
To me, I cant understand why any one like Dewey would want to be on here and open themselves up to the kind of criticism that is inevitable in a forum such as this. It is beyond me, and it is beyond anything I ever saw in any of the old time bobcat hunters. I think some one like Dewey has a gift and a drive toward teaching people. Again, I dont know why. But his teaching style is very direct. If you do not like getting a drink of water from a fire hydrant, you probably would not appreciate a day of instruction under Dewey. But you will learn faster if you can drink fast enough while you are back pedaling. And you will never forget it. Maybe that style of teaching does not translate very well to the electronic age. If not, I think it is too bad and a great loss on our part. I know if I was Dewey, I would not be coming back for more criticism. I am thankful he has thicker skin than me.
There is a lot to digest in this post.Sounds to me like you are saying that as long as a man speaks the truth,the delivery or motivation behind it, doesn't matter.Are ego,arrogance and condescension all acceptable forms of behavior as long as a man tells the truth ? I would suggest that if a man possesses these qualities in abundance then he probably has very little concept of what the Truth really is.These words of mine are directed at no one specifically just a general reply to Davids post.
take care well said
take care