In reply to UKC News:
I have been reading this thread with interest, and it made me think of a fantastic retort to a comment someone made about him a few years back. . I am sure Andy will not mind me using it as I think it holds merit.
Paddy climbed hard, he is a professional well thought of Mountain Instructor, and deserves a big well done.
From Andy Ks blog March 06
Saw a post the other day on UKC were someone was slagging me off (which is fair enough - I slag off enough people here), saying I was a much better climber than a writer, his main point being that my book was crap.
He was wrong, having obviously never read my book or seen me climbing (it’s the other way round, proved by the fact people compliment me on my book not on my climbing).
UKC has a tendency to dredge up the types of people who can only vent bile and negativity, peddling their opinion to anyone who’ll listen, generally no hopers with axes to grind, empty spaces they fill on forum pages and within themselves. They try and shoot people down they will never understand, doing stuff they will never do, be it Dave MaCleod, James Pearson or Simon Yates.
More often than not these people fail to comprehend the complexity of another human being’s life and motivation, a common problem in this world where we have to condense who we are to fit smaller and smaller boxes, be they on facebook, BBC online or UKC.
Personally I’ve found this slagging very useful, as it’s really thickened up my skin no end, and thick skin is what you need as stuff like this actually hurts people you know - they lose sleep over it, they question themselves, it sits in their head like a scar.
In the past they’d be a post like “who’s the best mountain speaker” were 99% of the posts would give me the thumbs up, with just on saying “Saw Andy and thought he was full of himself and left half way through”. Something like this would really spoil my day, my week, hanging in my thoughts until eventually I’d consign it to the shoe box of bad reviews in my head.
I think anyone who’s quick to post comments should consider the harm that their words can do when these posts are not a formed critique, rather more a Scud missile. Go back a search UKC for comments made to people like Alan Mullen, Scott Muir or Arlie Anderson. Read them, consider what you and others wrote, and consider its effect on another human being (because you know they read every last one).
Also consider the fact that when I give an opinion you know who I am, where I live and what I look like. Very few people who are quick to judge aren’t so keen for others to see who was doing the judging.
Often UKC makes me question climbing, it creates a view that it’s a bitter struggle of egos and grade and pointless details. It makes me see climbers as selfish, self obsessed extremists, all romance, humility and empathy moderated out…
...but then you start to get the emails. People who read what it said and didn’t agree, but who would never consider posting, emails that start “I just wanted to say…”. And then I see what real climbers are about; empathy, compassion and the ability to understand the complexity of other people and their lives.
So how did this end? Did I dazzle this guy with wit, wisdom or courtroom style argument?
No I just said what Alan Mullin would have said to him, and called him a cock and left it as that.