[Gendispatch] draft-knodel-terminology-03
Dan Harkins <dharkins@lounge.org> Tue, 21 July 2020 23:43 UTC
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Date: Tue, 21 Jul 2020 16:43:13 -0700
From: Dan Harkins <dharkins@lounge.org>
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Subject: [Gendispatch] draft-knodel-terminology-03
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Hello, This draft sees problems in language from an ethno-centric (namely, white, western-educated) perspective and assumes a uniform reaction to language it deems a problem. It creates language issues based on this perspective that are at best invented and at worst just wrong, although not all of the suggestions are bad. Merely discussing ones perspective on language would not be a problem but the authors are going to be imposing requirements on the RFC editor so it becomes everyone's issue. Therefore, I am compelled to object to this draft. Let's start with "master-slave". The implication is that the "master-slave" construct is seeped in racism. In fact, the last millennia-plus of slavery, ending with the closing of the last of the slave markets of Europe in the early 20th century, was not oriented towards race at all. While there were black Africans being sold in Europe's slave markets most of those being bought and sold were white, mostly from eastern Europe and the Balkans. The characteristic that they had in common was religion-- they were Christians, but more importantly they were not Muslim. Indeed, the 21st century manifestation of state-sanctioned sale of human beings in the Islamic State Caliphate was not race-based either, the slaves were mostly from the indigenous Yazidi sect which are non-Muslim and their slavery was sanctioned by the Caliphate's religious leaders on religious grounds. [1] While slaves in the Confederate States of America were almost entirely African (it was easier to identify an African who escaped bondage than it was an Irishman who escaped bondage), the slaveholders were not all white [2]. Also, the slaves bought in west Africa and transported across the Atlantic were not snatched by whites because they were black, they were snatched by other west African blacks and (Muslim) POC from the Sahel. People were enslaved not due to race but due to losing a war or, again, being a non-Muslim. And they were not enslaved by whites. [3] The idea that master means white and slave means black is ahistorical and is an invention of the elite, western-educated white progressive and critical race theory. And it's an act of cultural supremacy to believe that view is universal. When everything is viewed through the prism of race it's not surprising that one sees race in everything. The draft states that "master-slave" is "technically and historically inaccurate". It gives an example of DNS in which "the 'slave' is able to refuse zone transfers on the ground that it is malformed." How is that inaccurate? Could a real-life slave refuse a command on the grounds that the command given was gibberish or nonsensical? Of course! It defies common sense to think otherwise. There is nothing technically inaccurate with this example and no attempt at showing a historical inaccuracy is attempted by the draft. Indeed, history is quite different from the picture being painted by this draft. The suggested alternatives for "master slave" do not convey the managerial oversight of the "master" and the worker role of the "slave" when used to describe technical phenomena. "Primary replica"? Replica of what? "Primary secondary"? What is this ordering? What does it describe? Nothing that's what! "Active standby"? But none of the components are standing by, they are just implementing different parts of the system differently. The fact that all of the suggested alternatives are inadequate and inappropriate belies a kind of technical ignorance that should disqualify one from imposing rules on terminology. I find the inclusion of a single random comment as "an indicator of actual racism" to demonstrate the need for a "struggle against the racists among us" to be offensive. Calling this random person out as a racist in what is intended on being a permanent document is mean-spirited and unprofessional. I note that Orwell's Politics and the English Language is referenced as a "fun read." Too bad the authors have completely missed the point. Their suggested replacement metaphors are about as stale and tired as the exaggerated ones Orwell lampoons. If one were to follow their guide the resulting RFC would full of "prose [which] consists less and less of words chosen for the sake of their meaning, and more and more of phrases tacked together like the sections of a prefabricated hen-house," as Orwell observes. Indeed, the quote offered in section 3, "one goal of the application of rhetorical theory in the technical communication classroom is to assess the appropriateness of particular terms and to evaluate whether these terms will facilitate or hinder the readers' understanding of the technical material" could be used verbatim in an update of Orwell's article as one of his illustrations of "mental vices" that are manifest in modern writing! It is a prime example of what he describes as the "mixture of vagueness and sheer incompetence [that] is the most marked characteristic of modern English prose, and especially of any kind of political writing". That the authors of the draft don't see this speaks volumes. The idea that elite white, northern Europeans are going to clean up gendered language for the rest of the world is also quite presumptive. This has been attempted before with "Latinx" which is supposed to be a gender-neutral term to refer to both Latinos and Latinas. This, though, is another "I'm here to save you", top down imposition of a solution to a non-problem that is seeing resistance from the targeted victim class: "True, gender marking in language can affect thought. But that issue is largely discussed among the intelligentsia. If you ask the proverbial person on the street, you’ll find no gnawing concern about the bias encoded in gendered word endings.... To Latinos, Latinx may feel like an imposition by activists. It’s also too clever by half for Romance-language speakers accustomed to gendered nouns." [4] There were parts that made me question whether it's a parody or not. But when you get to section 4 you realize it cannot be a parody. The idea that language can be offensive is mundane; that this is some new problem that needs solving though is new. Of course language can be offensive, that is the whole point of the free exchange of ideas. There is no right not to be offended nor should there be. With 7+ billion people on the planet it will always be trivial to find someone offended by something. This draft is full of offense. Which is fine. This critique will no doubt be offensive to some who read it. Isn't free speech grand? But when recommendations are being placed on the RFC editor to impose these sections of the prefabricated hen-house on the woeful draft writer is becomes something else. It goes beyond mere offense. It becomes action, action to force people to conform to a new orthodoxy. And that MUST NOT be tolerated in the IETF. After all that negativity, I feel like I should suggest some edits to make this draft acceptable so let me try: Start by removing all references to the racist affects of language-- [BrodieGravesGraves], [Burgest], [Eglash] and the rest. If the authors want to improve the quality of RFCs they should take a look at refreshing Orwell's tract. Make it for the IETF by suggesting ways for authors to improve their use of language by making it more descriptive, not by suggesting a set of metaphors that have been approved by the Ministry of Truth. I would suggest adding a useful example of how a writer could progress from opaque metaphor to clear description by expanding on the idea behind the text in 3.2. Explain how if a writer used "eighty six" as a verb, as in "that packet gets eighty-sixed", it might be understood by a large plurality of readers but not by many who do not share the cultural heritage from which that metaphor arises. So the writer might resort to "blacklist" as an alternative. But that suffers from the same problem. That term arises out of a certain cultural heritage as well. Instead of criticizing the term on racial grounds note that it is imprecise and vague. There are plenty of people trying to implement an RFC that would have to spend time figuring out what it is the writer means, searching through the cultural baggage implied with the term. It's the kind of stale metaphor that Orwell was discussing. What is the technical matter that is being described? It's a list of criteria to use to deny access. It's a deny list. It's a list of reasons things are blocked from obtaining service. Its a block list. THOSE are descriptive terms. They do not assume any cultural baggage and they are not stale metaphors. That's what this draft should be doing. We don't need rules to police "racist" speech and we don't need speech codes and approved metaphors for RFCs. But we could all use some reminders of how to write better. regards, Dan. [1] Human Rights Watch, "Slavery: The ISIS Rules" https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/09/05/slavery-isis-rules [2] Smithsonian Magazine, "How Native American Slaveholding Complicates the Trail of Tears" https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/how-native-american-slaveholders-complicate-trail-tears-narrative-180968339/ [3] New York Magazine, "The Last Slave" https://www.vulture.com/2018/04/zora-neale-hurston-barracoon-excerpt.html [4] The Atlantic, "Why Latinix Can't Catch On" https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/12/why-latinx-cant-catch-on/603943/
- [Gendispatch] draft-knodel-terminology-03 Dan Harkins
- Re: [Gendispatch] draft-knodel-terminology-03 Salz, Rich
- Re: [Gendispatch] draft-knodel-terminology-03 Dan Harkins
- Re: [Gendispatch] draft-knodel-terminology-03 Salz, Rich
- Re: [Gendispatch] draft-knodel-terminology-03 Keith Moore