[Pan-users] Re: updated info - O.T.

[Duncan]

Alan Meyer posted on Thu, 05 Aug 2010 11:37:33 -0700 as excerpted:

[quote from Stallman from my post]
>> """""
>> [W]e also have the cult of the virgin of emacs. The virgin of emacs is
>> any female who has not yet learned how to use emacs. And in the church
>> of emacs we believe that taking her emacs virginity away is a blessed
>> act."
>> """""

> I read the exchange between David "Lefty" Schlesinger and Richard
> Stallman, and a fair number of the comments.
> 
> I personally thought Stallman's remark was wrong-headed and offensive,
> but Stallman is just one person.  What really got to me was the number
> of responders to the blog, a good majority it seemed, who thought it was
> all a joke and there was nothing wrong or offensive in the speech.
> 
> I didn't expect that so many programmers would agree with Stallman.  I
> hope it's just that they were the ones most motivated to write, and not
> that they're really in the majority.

Well, considering the number of programmers that are borderline Asperger's, 
and the number for whom English isn't a first language or who can't or are 
simply not motivated to do the take/take-away analysis I did... unless 
their sensitivity has been raised by either being some sort of victim 
themselves, or knowing someone personally who has been, I can't find it 
/too/ surprising that say a hundred folks from the community don't see 
anything wrong.  It's also of course possible that there was some sock-
puppeting going on.

But just because you have Asperger's doesn't mean you can't be educated, 
and even if you don't understand it, learn that some things are simply not 
acceptable in polite society and that they are to be avoided, whether one 
really understands why, or not.  OTOH, for one to find the "joke" at all 
funny, one must understand /something/ about its risqué nature.  Well, 
either that, or one is simply responding because others have found it 
funny.

But the point is, if the people who /do/ find it offensive don't protest, 
how are the ones that don't, ultimately to be educated?  As you state, 
Stallman's not a criminal and surely didn't really intend to advocate 
rape.  He certainly does show the symtoms (as I understand them, I'm not a 
medical practitioner of any sort) of Asperger Syndrome and there's little 
doubt that he doesn't understand the problem.  But as one comment I read 
pointed out, he's obviously had some sizable positive reinforcement for 
these comments in the past, and it'll take some sizable negative 
reinforcement for him (and others) to stop.  But I don't think it'd take 
too many incidents of half the audience getting up and walking out to get 
the message across that the comments are simply not acceptable.

> [P]erhaps more directly, and following Duncan's analysis of the
> difference between "take" and "take away", we should imagine something
> more dramatic like being locked in a cell with a powerful and aggressive
> male prisoner who decides to take away our virginity with respect to
> what he has in mind.

Indeed.

> Stallman was not advocating the physical rape of anyone and neither were
> his supporters.  I don't want to make more of this than was there.  He
> and his supporters have nothing in common with criminals.  It's just
> that the imagery Stallman invoked had a sexist and demeaning character
> that I think we should all educate ourselves to see.

I figured that was worth leaving in...

But while the education must start with ourselves, it must not end there.  
After that, by our actions, we must help educate others that such comments 
simply cannot and will not be tolerated, even from someone we respect 
enough to quote in our sigs, as I do Stallman.

Hmm... perhaps putting it in terms Stallman might understand, given the 
quote below (tho the parallel isn't perfect and doesn't in this pseudoquote 
reflect the ability to, with work and time, master the former master)...

"Every abuse victim now has a lord, a master, that has the potential to 
torment them for the rest of their lives.  By speaking such imagery, you 
awake once again this tormentor.  Is that what you really wish to do?"

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman