Re: IESG Statement On Oppressive or Exclusionary Language

[Dan Harkins <[e-mail]>]

   Brian,

On 7/25/20 9:33 PM, Brian E Carpenter wrote:
>> On 7/23/20 9:35 AM, The IESG wrote:
>>> The IESG believes the use of oppressive or exclusionary language is
>>> harmful.  Such terminology is present in some IETF documents, including
>>> standards-track RFCs, and has been for many years. It is at odds with
>>> our objective of creating an inclusive and respectful environment in the
>>> IETF, and among readers of our documents.
>>     Well then the IESG is confused. Language cannot be harmful. It can
>> hurt ones feelings but it cannot cause harm because feelings are just
>> that...feeling.
> So emotional harm isn't "harm" in your book? I think you will find that
> most people disagree.

   Not that caused by mere words, no. Emotional harm can come from 
witnessing
some traumatic event but just listening to someone else talk? Nope.

>>     This is a classic "First World Problem" where affluent people who lack
>> serious life problems create drama in order to provide meaning to their
>> lives.
> A pretty amazing remark, when the developed world has been forced to all
> but shut down for several months by a virus that is now starting to
> run free in the developing world. No drama there, huh?

   That has nothing to do with the idea that words are violence. Really,
I don't know what you're trying to say here.

>> So now we are being told that words that cause harm? For whom? Well
>> these First World People are identifying other communities (by race, by
>> ethnicity) who they declare are harmed by their language.
>>
>>     How arrogant! How patronizing! The Vision of the Anointed, indeed.
> Whereas I suppose your vision is beyond dispute?

   I'm not imposing my vision on anyone. So you don't actually know about my
vision because I'm not telling anyone how to behave. I'm not saying that
anyone's speech is out-of bounds. I'm not telling anyone how to think or
what to say. That's the whole point.

>>> The IESG realizes that the views of the community about this topic are
>>> not uniform. Determining an actionable policy regarding problematic
>>> language is an ongoing process. We wanted to highlight that initial
>>> discussions about this topic are taking place in the general area (a
>>> draft [1] is slated for discussion in GENDISPATCH [2] at IETF 108).
>>> Updating terminology in previously published RFCs is a complex endeavor,
>>> while making adjustments in the language used in our documents in the
>>> future should be more straightforward.
>>>
>>> The IESG looks forward to hearing more from the community, engaging in
>>> those discussions, and helping to develop a framework for handling this
>>> issue going forward.
>>>
>>> [1] https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-knodel-terminology/
>>> [2] https://www.ietf.org/proceedings/108/agenda/agenda-108-gendispatch-03
>>     How about no? Just stop. No need for an "ongoing process" to determine
>> "actionable policy regarding problematic language". [1] is a horrible
>> document that engages in unprofessional personal attack and brings the
>> cancer of "cancel culture" to the IETF.
> I've read it, and I've felt no personal attack whatever, despite being an
> elderly privileged white male who has certainly written documents in
> the past using master/slave and blacklist/whitelist terminology. I've simply
> decided to slightly adjust my detector of unprofessional writing as a result.
> The draft certainly needs more work and critical review, but that's why
> it's called a "draft", after all.

   Well read it again. And look for the reference to [Jansens]. A most
unprofessional attack on a person for something said as a comment to
some random blog post 12 years ago. Not that I'm defending what he said,
just that personal attack for comments on random blogs in 2008 is
unprofessional and is a sign of cancerous "cancel culture."

   As I noted on gendispatch, in 2008 Barack Obama was saying that "marriage
is between a man and a woman", a statement that will get you pilloried, or
worse, today. So maybe we should not be scouring the bowels of the Internet
for comments made in 2008 to use as motivation for the "continued struggle
against racists amongst us."

>>     Critical race theory is a pile of excrement
> Thanks for pointing me to this interesting topic. It appears to be a
> purely American and principally legal theory. The only person who has
> ever mentioned it in the IETF is you, as far as Google knows. Since the
> IETF is international and neither writes nor interprets American laws,
> it seems startlingly irrelevant, which is probably why...

   Nope, not a legal theory at all. It's a post-modern take on race and
equality. It has absolutely nothing to do with American law.

>> and [1] builds an entire
>> house
>> on top of the foundation of critical race theory.
> ... that is untrue. It doesn't mention or cite CRT. Neither do any of the
> documents of the IRTF Human Rights Protocol Considerations Research Group.
> Neither does Google find any direct association of Mallory Knodel or
> Niels ten Oever with CRT. (That is to say, I found articles that refer
> both to CRT and to Mallory's and Niels' work, but disjointly.)

   Well since you thought it's somehow part of American law then I'm
not surprised you missed it. If you're just doing a grep or a google
search then you're doing it wrong.

   Dan.