On a separate note about this topic, I can almost guarantee this thread is going to attract the usual ABS bashers.
When you deal with large groups and organizations there are several types of people you will encounter. There are the Kool-aide drinking joiners, these folks need to be a part of something for personal validation and will fervently defend their group to the end, wearing rose colored glasses that makes any moderately good thing appear ten times greater, while totally filtering out any negatives; it is easy to do this when only looking out from the inside.
Then there are the outsiders who have for some deep personal reason taken a dislike for the group in question. For these people only the negative aspects will be worthy of note, and they may even ignore any positives. The real problem with this group is that time has stood still at the point they made up their mind about the group, and they will only work off from outdated information they gathered at the time of their disillusionment, they will however accept any new rumors or innuendo that reinforce their negative viewpoints. I see this type of person most often involved in religious bigotry, spewing venom and casting judgment without any real knowledge of the group other than their opinion based assumptions. Dig deep enough into these people and you will find some petty little injury they are still nursing instead of letting go of.
The group I hope to be in when I can are the people who reserve judgment until all the facts are in. They take the past that they can verify along with the present conditions into account, and try to make objective assessments based upon direct observation. They realize the first group, due to their warm fuzzy bias, is no more reliable as a source of information as the second with their personal axes to grind; they like to see for themselves and then make up their own minds.
The greatest difference in these groups, however, is in how they deal with the situation they have assessed if a need for improvement is found. The first group will may not recognize the need at all, and if they do will simply accept it as a necessary evil in comparison to all the real or imagined virtues. The second group will decide the only course of action is to tear down or destroy the entire thing, endlessly condemning it with their distant bit@#ing*. The more people they can turn away with their exaggerated fault finding and name calling the better. The last group take a more novel approach, they see the good things and the potential they have and do something truly radical – they get involved
. They realize there is always room for improvement so even the good points can be fine tuned but can wait until the non working a parts are repaired. Instead of settling for the status quo, or casting stones from a distance, they get to know the real situation and try to help improve things for all.
I would say that if you hear the same criticism from many sources take that into account along with the wonderful glowing claims about the virtues, but take them both with a grain of salt while you set out to verify them for yourself. This is one of those situations where reality can be what you make of it.
*Continual criticism with no suggestions or solutions is nothing more bit@#ing!
