Re: A contribution to ongoing terminology work

[Nico Williams <[e-mail]>]

On Fri, Apr 02, 2021 at 07:22:53PM -0400, Sam Hartman wrote:
> Now let us come to "A Modest Proposal."
> This is not the first time that satirical essay has come up in the IETF
> context.
> Ted Hardie used it a couple of times I can remember, and I don't think
> he was the first in my history in the IETF.
> And yet several of those times, specific people in our community spoke
> up and said that because of their background, they felt excluded, hurt,
> or offended by that particular reference.
> 
> So, we as a community have history.  We know that essay strikes at
> people because of their racial or other aspects of their background.
> 
> USING THAT REFERENCE WITHOUT TAKING THAT INTO ACCOUNT IS DISRESPECTFUL
> and EXCLUSIONARY TOWARD CURRENT CONTRIBUTORS.

Let's start with the offensiveness of Swift's "A Modest Proposal".  I
read it yesterday.  It is extremely offensive.  It must have been
extremely offensive in 1729.  Swift clearly meant it to be so.  I won't
quote any of the offensive bits of it.

If we stop there, then we must thoroughly condemn Swift and -who knows-
maybe find new terms for "litte-endian" and "big-endian" and issue new
versions of RFCs that have those terms.

But Swift deployed this offensive satire for a noble cause: to shame the
UK into treating Ireland and Irish people and the poor better.  Swift
obviously did not hold any beliefs like what are contained in that
essay -- quite the contrary.

It is because of that noble cause that we tolerate the offensivness of
that essay.

Now let's talk about shared history.  I myself had never heard of past
controversies at IETF to do with A Modest Proposal, and I've been a
participant here for twenty years.  Perhaps Lloyd had not either.  It
would be exclusionary in the extreme to demand that one search or even
read decades' worth of IETF mailing list archives before participating,
or even just before posting satire.

> If you're going to make a "modest proposal," you'd better be explaining
> why you chose to do something that is hurtful.

"A Modest Proposal" can be quite hurtful if we ignore that it is satire
and its noble cause.  It's much harder to accept that it's hurtful if
one accepts that it is satire for a noble cause -- not that can't be
hurtful, but that we need a fairly high bar for that, else we might be
flooded with grievances.

> What other options did you consider?  Why could you not make your point
> that way?

I posted separately about the context.  I can't speak for Lloyd, but I
suspect that he must have felt it was time to reach for satire given
that context.

As wikipedia notes, use of "A Modest Proposal" is something of a trope
in English writing:

| This satirical hyperbole mocked heartless attitudes towards the poor,
| as well as British policy toward the Irish in general.
|
| In English writing, the phrase "a modest proposal" is now
| conventionally an allusion to this style of straight-faced satire. 

Nico
--