One difficulty with inclusiveness and sensitivity to the sensibilities of others in the sense addressed here is that it in fact can tend to engender the opposite. Some in this thread were perceived as expressing views that another member for some reason finds personally objectionable. Should they not be included? Or is inclusion extended only to the inoffensive as defined by those who now become de facto gatekeepers in their interpretation and administration of rules of etiquette?
And as Big Monk rightly pointed out, this thread is in The Pub, and should be taken in that context.
But even in the broader context, this entire space is a forum, by definition a venue for presenting and discussing divergent viewpoints. When we self-censor for fear of contradicting someone else's viewpoint, we cease to have any useful function.
A corollary of this is that we all must be somewhat steeled against the possibility of being confronted by objectionable viewpoints.
It was the emergence of an atmosphere such as is apparently considered welcoming in this context that drove me to abandon an academic career long ago. When disputes as to even matters of fact, let alone opinions or values, are taken as personal affronts, and therefore no situatuon which may potentially give rise to such conflicts is permissible, then the hope of any rigorous, objective intellectual pursuit -- of anyone learning anything they didn't already presume to know -- is forlorn. The logical endpoint is a forum with exactly one participant.
Malice is unacceptable. Discomfort is unavoidable. So we learn and grow.
If we truly want to see this forum, and the broader organization, established as the one, universal, inclusive, go-to source for all things homebrew, we will have to accept that people with interests, priorities and sensibilities so divergent that most of us may appear ridiculous to everyone else must coexist, shrug it off, and focus on whatever brought us here.
Topic: This has gone far enough! (Read 13538 times)
