[Foundation-l] Appropriate surprise (Commons stuff)

[Jussi-Ville Heiskanen]

Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> There are also people who are honestly offended that some people are
> offended by human sexuality content— and some of them view efforts to
> curtail this content to be a threat to their own cultural values.  If
> this isn't your culture, please take a moment to ponder it. If your
> personal culture believes in the open expression of sexuality an
> effort to remove "redundant / low quality" sexuality images while we
> not removing low quality pictures of clay pots, for example, is
> effectively an attack on your beliefs. These people would tell you: If
> you don't like it, don't look. _Understanding_ differences in opinion
> is part of the commons way, so even if you do not embrace this view
> you should at least stop to understand that it is not without merit.
> In any case, while sometimes vocal, people from this end of the
> spectrum don't appear to be all that much of the community.
>
>
>   

I apologize for the late reply, but since this issue is of
a long term nature, hopefully not much harm will come
from only commenting on it now.

I fully admit I experienced a "Hey, I resemble that remark!"
moment regarding the middle part of the paragraph. My
culture is certainly near the end of the spectrum mentioned,
being as I am from Finland (if it tells you anything, we
usually consider our neighbors to the west, the Swedes,
as hopelessly repressed sexually --- and I am not even kidding)

While I am sure there are people to whom the whole paragraph
applies fully in every respect (and I would imagine as you say
they will likely be a vanishingly small percentage of the
community), my personal angle to the issue is completely
different, and I doubt I am alone.

I am not at all offended that people have the capacity to
be offended by whatever gets their goat. I too have the
capacity, but perhaps with respect to other things. I
absolutely have no problem with that.

Personally what was offensive was not people not
bowing down before my cultural values, so to speak.
What *was* offensive however was that people from on
high chose a matter of such obviously subjective import
to privilege a *specific* standard of mores. Not the fact
that it wasn't *mine*, but that it was a specific one.

This problem is compounded by the fact that such
action hugely legitimizes the argument -- while
being certainly untrue -- that Wikimedia is not
genuinely an international project. *This* is the
real issue that needs to be addressed, if any real
progress is to be made, in healing most of the wounds
the community has incurred.


Yours,

Jussi-Ville Heiskanen