On Sat, 28 May 2005, Bernie Hogan wrote:
Derek,
Not supporting AUT is of course a political gesture, although perhaps a more conservative and/or easy one. I don't know. But I don't think that's what was what people had in mind as apolitical earlier (namely Barry and Jeremy).
By encouraging the group to take a political stance can likely marginalize those that don't agree. Its not really a sensible move to make when we want a coherent and welcoming group on topics relating to the social impact of the Internet.
I'm wondering why is it so difficult to suspect that there is a proper dilemma in action over here? What makes people sensible to one side and not the other one? Isn't there a common argument behind those "encouraging the people to take a political stance" and those protecting the group from "marginalizing those that don't agree"? My feeling is that many people who want to "politicalize" the discussions in a mailing list are doing this deliberately in the sense that they are committed in the importance and the necessity of the political in a discussions forum. Typically sensibilities on issues of social justice are intersecting with the political. What strikes me is the persistence of certain among those who want to preserve a non-political character in a mailing list claiming that their motivations are a-political. I'm not questioning their right to do so. I'm just surprised with the reluctance of certain people to discern moral incomensurabilities and value pluralisms. (After all, as a "mathematician" I would like to have a proof of both the obvious and the details.) What has changed all these centuries since Aristotle's conception of the political? Hasn't history taught us anything after all? Well, I could only assume that indeed "some among the Great Gods" of ours is very difficult to "live together" (Isaiah Berlin). --Moses (praying for pluralism in this mailing list.. :-) M.A. Boudourides Associate Professor Department of Mathematics University of Patras 265 00 Rio-Patras Greece Tel.: +30-2610-996318 Fax: +30-2610-996318, +30-2610-992965 http://www.math.upatras.gr/~mboudour
I don't want you to feel unwelcome because you support AUT any more than I want others to feel unwelcome because they don't. It just seems far enough out of AoIR's range that energy directed towards this issue could be spent better in a host of other groups that are more effectively poised to take action and/or discuss the intricacies of this issue.
To restate, its not that I want to silence discussion on AUT, but rather that I don't want AUT to silence discussion on Internet research topics.
But that's just my opinion, and hey, I haven't yet paid my dues this year :O
Take Care, BERNiE
Bernie Hogan PhD Student Department of Sociology NetLab, Knowledge Media Design Institute University of Toronto
I received a message from Derek McMillan at approximately 5/28/05 2:33 AM. Above is my reply.
LOL. I am amused by the idea that supporting AUT would be political but opposing them is OK because it is non-political. This is doubleplusungood doublethink isn't it.
FWIW I support AUT.There is an advert on British TV to encourage people to vote It says "If you don't do politics, you don't do anything." and suggests that if you are interested in the world around you then you are de facto interested in politics.
I favour a boycott of Israel, not because of its effect of otherwise on the brutal oppression of the Palestinians but because we do not have to be accomplices in that brutal oppression and a boycott is a non-violent civilised way to express that. You have only to listen to the intemperate language with which the Israeli right has responded - rejecting AUT as irrelevant and in the same breath denouncing them as terrorists - to see that it is having an effect.