Secular French post-modern philosopher Michel Foucault, 1 not a religious believer and even a practicing homosexual, nonetheless questioned rigorously the supposed "objectivity" upon which modern Western Liberal societies are now built.
In my brief foray into the Wikia campaigns, I was saddened at the attempts by many to impose an apparent "objectivity" (by force if necessary) over an over-lapping set of complex political viewpoints arising from an equally complex set of underlying and over-arching worldviews.
What constitutes "normativity"? As Foucault questioned regarding sexuality, is heterosexuality normative, and if so why? Is homosexuality normative, especially if the ancient Greek philosophers seemed to welcome it? Whose reigning sets of institutions, social and more importantly academic, will define what is normative? What happens with groups, like Muslems and Jews living in France in 2006, who, for the sake of a secular normativity, are denied of religious liberties such as not being allowed to wear religious headware in public? Is the secular view normative? Is the Jewish view? Is the Islamic view? Who decides? Here is the problem that Wikia Campaigns will now confront. Any public forum wishing to remain credible will not seek to silence or eliminate voices that the forum's moderators happen to be in disagreement with. Granted, Wikia Campaigns will seek to be objective, but in seeking objectivity, as Foucault would rightly question, whose sets of knowledges, whose protocol, and by whose authority would one define such objectivity? Simply claiming academic or professional standing, although a move with obvious merit (i.e. it is more difficult to obtain entrance into schools such as Harvard, Duke, etc.), nonetheless does not solve the issue. Pro-abortionists have ethicists teaching at Princeton. Pro-lifers have ethicists also teaching at Princeton. Which Ivy League ethicist are we supposed to view as authoritative?
Because of the incommensurability (to use moral philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre's terminology 2) of current Western European, N. American and the elite world moral debates (e.g. pro-life vs. pro-abortion), in order that no perspective be silenced, a quick and easy antidote is for Wikia Campaigns to adopt a type of "Social Contract" (e.g. as described by Rousseau) so that every participant in Wikia Campaigns will agree to a mutually binding, mutually determined set of normative rules, policies and procedures. One example could be rules and standards that would govern the giving of academic lectures--i.e. a formal statement followed by short, pre-determined lengths of responses, without editting for content or even tone (e.g. many academic debates can become quite heated, even in the elite academic institutions of the United States such as Duke or Notre Dame). The pre-determined length will allow short, well-written, non-caustic responses, in short, similar to a televised political debate. Only through adopting a mutually-binding, mutually-determined social contractarian form of on-line communication can the attempts at "knowledge control," as described by Foucault and others, be avoided. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by RobJKing (talk • contribs) .
- You raise some interesting questions, but I think it would be presumptive for us to attempt to answer them definitively, and very anti-wiki to attempt to impose those answers on all of the editors. We are building a set of policies to ensure that diverse perspectives are welcome and that they are presented so as to be as informative as possible. The purpose of the APOV policy is to acknowledge that we don't have definitive answers to some of the types of questions you posed, and to be open to answers that others have to offer. --whosawhatsis? 01:27, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
- Rob, can you cite an example of where we have attempted to force an objective viewpoint on a subject? I know that we have been forced to delete and edit some content to avoid deliberately insulting certain groups and people, but most of the actions of the admins have been in search of a way to allow diverse content, not make it objective. Our policies are designed to allow points of view to be expressed on certain types of pages, like Forums and using Signed Statements, but the rest of the pages are open for anyone to edit. The purpose is to have people come together and agree on a compromise position on issues. If all we did is to become a screaming ground for diverse viewpoints, we wouldn't be taking advantage of the wiki technology at all. It's not participatory politics to just listen to diverse viewpoints and not trying to come together to reach a common goal and agreed steps to reach that goal. Chadlupkes 14:09, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
Chad, Sorry that it has taken me so long to respond to this. My basic objection was with a posting that stated abortion should, de facto, be "bracketted" (read side-lined, marginalized, etc.!) as a political issue, which is as anti-American as one could be. Since the Republican Party (the party of Abraham Lincoln!) consistently has been the Party of Life (anti-abortion and anti-physician assisted suicide), this exclusion of a vitally important political issue was an attempt at Thought Control, similar to the French secularists requiring Jews & Muslems to not wear religious headware in public. The follow-up conversation was especially vociferous in that Luis Villa and others wanted to put the spam filter on me, simply for expressing disagreement with the ORIGINAL posting that advocated the "Unity" movement (the movement that would marginalize "certain" views such as abortion--HORRIFIC that mutilated, mangled baby corpses pile up in America, and even expressing a dissenting voice is labelled as "extremist" or even made a criminal offense if done as a public protest in certain settings). So, basically, trying to silence pro-lifers is what I was most concerned about. Blessings, --RobJKing 21:17, 27 December 2006 (UTC)Rob J King, Pro-Life Political Voice
- Rob, you're talking about the mailing list, the topic of which is the development of this site. You wanted to bring issue discussions to an email list, which in my experience drives people away. And it did. The wiki is where we need to talk about the issues. The mailing list is the wrong place for that. Chadlupkes 23:18, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
Chad, Well, as someone who has written several articles now for the Wiki Campaigns, I completely agree! I simply was bothered by the use of the mailing list to try to promote the Unity Movement which brackets abortion as a political issue (original post by Jennifer to which I thoughtfully responded). The second time that this has happened, was when the mailing list was used to promote the formation of a new independent political party (a "techno-party"), again, far outside of what the mailing list should be about. That would be like me trying to use the mailing list for Republican partisan political promotion (e.g. Vote for Charlie Crist or Vote for Katherine Harris!), rather than debating specific issues (i.e. the Green Party or a "techno-Green Party" is STILL partisan, and as such should not be promoted on the mailing list). Anyways, the problem was not with your own response, just with Luis Villa's (and others) wanting to censor a view because he (they) happened to be in disagreement. --RobJKing 19:20, 29 December 2006 (UTC)Rob J King, Republican Political Voice
- On the one hand, it's not appropriate to use infrastructure improperly, i.e. putting partisan content onto a non-partisan mailing list. On the other hand it's also not appropriate for moderators to be one-sided and super strict. That can drive people away as fast as inappropriate content. The focus needs to be on giving people their voices, and moderating the discussion so that things end up in the right place. You are now working within the wiki infrastructure with increasing confidence, which was my primary objective. Chadlupkes 20:05, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Thank you Chad, you and I are an exercise (and success story!) in highly effective bi-partisan (or multi-partisan!) political leadership, albeit in an on-line setting. Thank you for ALL of your hard work. --RobJKing 19:26, 2 January 2007 (UTC)Rob J King, Republican Political Voice