The Essence of Peer Review!

Brothers, I have to slam on the brakes on my article regarding Masonry, our membership, and the cultural effects of a changing society on our craft. This is what Peer Review is all about.

I sent the article out about a week ago to be reviewed by four brothers who I turn to for many of my sanity checks. As they started sending me their comments, one in particular stood out and specifically called me out for a major gap. He thought that the particular gap is in my "Solutions" section and he pointed out that I had overlooked or ignored a possible solution completely. Here's the catch - it was a hunch that he couldn't quite flesh out as we talked, but I understood what he was telling me and I went back to my analysis, thousands of scraps of paper, and stacks (and folders) of source articles.

My brethren, this is exactly why I do Peer Review on my articles and writing projects. The brother was correct. I will go further, he was not only correct that I had overlooked a major point, but it was likely because I had been locked into a rigid belief, so the issue and the idea that emerged from it was literally invisible to me.

Now, to those of you who have heard me over the years say "I'm not opposed to change necessarily out of hand, I can change my mind on an issue if confronted with a sound argument" I will give you a heads up - this is one of those cases where the counter argument to my own, long-held belief popped up and has compelled me to change my mind and my position on a question I have long battled to defend. I have met the "irrefutable argument" I and have surrendered.

This gap in the article, and my surrender on a key issue facing change within the fraternity forces me to go back to keyboard and address this brother's question. It will be a better paper (yes, longer [sigh], but better) and it will illustrate a major change in one of my hard and fast positions on the state and need of our fraternity. I anticipate this will take less than a week to finish and I plan to publish on or before next weekend (6-7 August).

So for those who may have been waiting to see me actually change my mind, and who have been perhaps waiting to see if there really is something out there that can compel me to "modernize" my thinking, I offer you this - hang tight my brethren, the proof is on the way!

Travel on!

-BroBill