Ahhh but therein lies the rub.
If that is the actual reason, some arbitrary issue of "tone" then we had better retire Doctor's Opinion, A Member's Eye View, Jack Alexander, even the 12 and 12, to name only a few, before somebody gets "hurt."?
That being said, I have some pretty strong evidence (that I am still following up on) that the motion and decision to retire it was made entirely out of order and in a way that can be argued is very much against the Traditions and Concepts.
Intrigued? So am I. This is why I have spent so much time, money and energy investigating this. The very fact that certain real answers have been so difficult to obtain and the fact that certain parties have told me conflicting answers that can only be seen as sketch at best has turned this simple question, ("What exactly, EXACTLY is wrong with it?") into quite the adventure in detective work.
So far, everything I am finding in my quite thorough investigation of the past few years points to Three Talks being a victim of "cancel culture" and little else.
Surely, the bar to decide to "retire" an entire historical pamphlet that is still in much higher demand than many others still available would be higher than some arbitrary reason than what GSO and the conference report stated? I thought motions were supposed to be specific? What, EXACTLY, is wrong with it??
I truly believe that this is a dangerous precident. If the bar is that low, if no actual specific issues need be raised that the conference can merely start wiping out literature because of "tone" then why can't we take a machete to much of our other "dated feeling" literature as well?
Were the possibilies of an edit if something actially was now provably "wrong or bad medical advice" (of which this pamphlet was never Intended to be, even in 1949, in fact that was the entire stated point of it in the first place) or maybe even an added footnote or disclaimer stating that this may be dated "feeling" but still is important AA history, were these even explored?
"Retiring" something in AA means that while you and I as archivists might know it is available through a manual process on a case by case basis, I wonder that our posterity no longer has a good way to even know it existed since it is no longer in catalog nor is it available on demand in the still too small "history" section of the AA web site. In cases like this, where no clear reason is ever given, even when it is begged for, one could conclude that this is a form of censorship.?
I cannot agree that a copy buried in the unindexed archives is a proper fate for such an important work.?
I have made it available here.? I invite you to tag it for yourselves and to please,? tell me what is specifically objectionable about it in light of pretty much all of our other literature??
If the movement that is trying to "modernize" our historical literature can't get love on the idea of a "plain language" Big Book (whatever that means) then why not go after something that is obtainable, instead? I am under a very strong impression that this is exactly what has occurred here. It is the only theory I have at the moment that fires on all cylinders at once.
Best,
Thom
Thom R.