Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Sam Sloan's Tricky Ingredients

The above are easy stuff. More tricky is his belief system relating to that 3 letter word that begins with s and ends with x. He’s been really in-your-face with it and it has caused him a lot of trouble on this forum and elsewhere. For me, this is a deal-breaker but I realize that for most, they do not take the kind of moral stands as I do. So, what is his optimal strategy here?

First, we’ve got to respect the fact that he is sincere in what he believes. His record goes back a half-century now to his days in Berkley. As for the children issue, he notes that it is/was legal in the countries where he did it.

Second, we’ve got an environment where tolerance for matters related to the s word is artificially high. It is plausible to see a scenario where Sloan responds to concerns about his website, books, and other media by successfully urging a live-and-let-live attitude.

His best bet would be to put his s-word related stuff on the web behind some kind of wall like other adult-content sites do. As I recall, this was the chief complaint by people on this forum during the time Sloan was on the Board.

As for his views on adults, children, and the s-word, they are what they are. While parents will probably always be uncomfortable having him around their children at chess tournaments, at the rate society keeps accepting more and more gross behavior, it is plausible to imagine his views gaining wider acceptance in the years to come.

The issue needs more finesse than Sloan is probably capable of but once again, it is possible for him to do it.

No comments:

Post a Comment