Re: [Bug-gne]Ideologies vs. Practicality in GNE

[Mike Warren]

Tom Chance <address@hidden> writes:

> *It has to be informative; it must teach us something that from an
> academic or practical standpoint can be useful.

What *doesn't* teach us something? Even our reaction to a
racially-hateful poem can teach us something.

> *It cannot promote the harm of others in the present (but it can
> offer alternative accounts of previous sensitive events).

I think I know what sense of ``promote'' you mean, but at what point
does this become a rather meaningless and arbitrary distinction? When
does this become, ``I don't like this article; it promotes harm.''?
Does questioning accounts of Holocaust incidents ``promote''
anti-Semitism? Does writing about the virtues of communism ``promote''
driving over protesters with tanks? Do stories of sex with minors
``promote'' child molesting? Are histories of serial killers
``promoting'' murder?

There are people who would answer yes and no to each of the above
questions; there are people who -- after seeing any of the above
articles -- might write excellent rebuttals of them. Is it more
valuable in the end to not have either?

I think the answer is no: having the ravings of white supremecists
available for all to see -- and rebut -- makes their ``arguments''
that much weaker. Might a child read KKK articles? Yes. Might they
then also read the rebuttals to those articles? Yes. Are they better
equipped to reject racism having read both, or neither?

-- 
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