I'm attempting to communicate something very nuanced.
- I'm not talking about bluntness, diplomacy, or words.
- I am talking about mindset, beliefs, and perspective.
Being a little over-simplistic
(minor strawman, but I'm avoiding writing a novel), DIR and GUE promote the concept that they know and teach the right/correct/best/safest way to dive, and that diving any other way is inferior. Over time this becomes an implicit belief, which is then reflected in behavior and communication (like "dogmatism.")
Until that fundamental belief is addressed, the behavior and communication will follow, which naturally leads regular people to feel DIR/GUE behave like elitists. In other words, changing
"DIR/GUE is the best/right/correct/etc way" to
"DIR/GUE is a high quality and safe way to dive (but not the only one)"
Even if you convinced every person in this thread to stop calling DIR/GUE "elitists" it only takes on random diver to interact with an average DIR/GUE diver, for another to appear. Do we change the entire dive-community, lets say adding to Open Water courses
"don't call DIR/GUE elitists," or is it perhaps something DIR/GUE should consider changing about their culture and belief system if they don't want to be viewed as elitists?