On 12-04-04 2:00 AM, Gervase Markham wrote:
> On 03/04/12 16:52, Yvan Boily wrote:
>>> The code of conduct should call for us to respect people, and treat
>>> them well. If people want it to, perhaps it could particularly warn us
>>> to do so if that person is a member of ones of a specific set of
>>> groups. However, it should not call for respect of all ideas or of all
>>> personal behaviours. This would be doing what Mitchell warned against
>>> - enforcing agreement on things outside the Mozilla mission.
>> I give up trying to explain the difference between respecting and idea,
>> and treating it respectfully.
> If I do not respect an idea, but act as if I do, how is that not hypocrisy?
There is a difference between having respect for an idea or a person,
and treating that person or idea with respect. The ability to do so is
the way that people of different values find a compromise, it is not
hypocrisy. It would be hypocrisy if you were expect to promote the idea
or claim to have that idea as a personal value. I don't think it is
unreasonable to expect a community member to at least be respectful
towards an idea that is a cornerstone of the community (that is,
inclusiveness).
>>> And you now clarify that this is about actions and behaviour. You are
>>> therefore asking me to act and behave in a way that conflicts with my
>>> belief about the value, or otherwise, of religious diversity. You are
>>> asking me to be a hypocrite.
>> If you think that treating people and their values with dignity and
>> respect in the workplace or the community makes you a hypocrite, that is
>> something you have to deal with.
> But again, you put "people and their values" together. I am happy to
> treat a person with respect. But if the person values inflicting pain on
> others for their own pleasure (for example), I am not going to treat
> that value with respect. And I hope you wouldn't either.
You are correct, and if the community required me to treat that
behaviour with respect, I would find it challenging, assuming a purely
naive understanding of that comment. If, on the other hand, I found out
that some of the community members were into the BSDM scene, and hurting
each other for pleasure ended up being a mutually consensual between
adults, then it would be wrong to exclude them or fail to show them
respect. You also have to take another point; define pleasure. Do you
mean something that is satisfying? Because I can tell you that I, and
others, have served in the military, and I am proud, and others are
proud of that, and we enjoyed our service. For some of us, that
explicitly meant harming others. Does that mean I and those others in
the community are not worthy of respect, or at least being treated
respectfully as individuals?
None of these issues are simple questions or points to answer, and none
of them has a "right" or "wrong" answer in the context of a community
that is focused on including people with diverse lifestyles and backgrounds.
If you were aiming simply for the case of someone who explicitly hurts
others for the sole purpose of personal gratification, then that person
should be rejected from the community because they are hurting other
people. If you want to distill it down to a simplistic argument, a
person who hurts others for pleasure without consent will cause others
to leave, therefore, an individual who hurts others is excluding others.
>>> I think this statement doesn't have much force without a definition of
>>> "harm", and how it is determined.
>>>
>> harmful to the community = activities or behaviors that contribute to
>> members leaving the community for reasons other than incompatibility
>> with the core mission or values of the community
> Then I'd hope you'd agree with me that it would be harmful to create a
> code of conduct which required assent to political or philosophical
> stances unrelated to our core mission and values (such as "religious
> pluralism is a good thing" or "one must treat any value another
> community member holds, such as sadism, with respect").
I (and others) have focused on treating people with respect, and
treating those ideas with respect in the context of discussions with
people who hold those ideas that are intended for, or explicitly exposed
to the larger community. There is a simple phrase that captures it:
"Agree to disagree". I could understand being challenged to treat a
sadist respectfully if they are attempting to promote their lifestyle to
you in spite of the fact that you have made your position clear, but if
you and a sadist were asked to work on a community related project
together which has no bearing on your life outside of the scope of that
project, then I fail to see how an issue arises.
> Because anyone
> who disagreed with such stances would then have to leave - which would
> be harmful to the community, by your definition.
Is a person who disagrees with inclusiveness leaving because they don't
want to include someone with a differing world view? If so, then they
are not harming the community, since they are leaving because they
cannot agree to the inclusiveness that is a part of the mission and
values of the community.
If I choose to leave because others are discriminating against me
because of my lifestyle choices then I have been excluded. If I choose
to leave because others refuse to live a lifestyle that conforms to my
expectations, then I have chosen to exclude them. The distinction
between those two statements is the acceptance of others differences in
contrast to the imposition of norms on others.