You know, this entire "debacle" with Karissa the Thin-Skinned (on ADF-Druidry) and JerryBear the Psychopath (on Asatru_n_Action) has gotten me thinking:

Whatever happened to frith?

Quite frankly, it seems to me that modern society has moved past that concept. I don't mean "moved past" as in "no longer needs", incidentally, but more as in "hurtled down the slope of civilization past". What ever happened to simply assuming that the other guy didn't mean any harm unless he turned ugly? Whatever happened to simply being polite?

It's becoming increasingly clear to me that this isn't an embraced concept anymore, except within the bounds of camaraderie. Everywhere you turn, folks are assuming that, instead of saying "But what about these options" you're actually saying "Hey, scheisskopf, look at these things you overlooked like a stupid bastard."

It does no good to simply blame it on e-mail. If frith were a concept we actually embraced as a Folk and a country, we wouldn't need smileys... we'd instead have Frownies or something to show when we were really pissed off. Instead, anything that might be taken wrong gets prefaced or suffixed with a [g] or a ;-) or j/k to show that we mean it in frith.

I don't know where I'm going with this, I suppose. However, I think Frith is something that every person needs to think about in their daily lives. The Gods didn't place us here to be nice to each other... for one thing, unless we're _really_ nice to each other, it would get boring really fast... but I do think it's generally a good policy to try frith before you meet everyone with a dagger in your hand.

Now, to close from the Havamal...

A kind word need not cost much,
The price of praise can be cheap:
With half a loaf and an empty cup
I found myself a friend,

The sitters in the hall seldom know
The kin of the new-comer:
The best man is marred by faults,
The worst is not without worth.