[Air-l] AOIR on AUT

[mboudour at upatras.gr]

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.
> > 
> > 
> 
>