Dear Johann and all,
I am almost tempted to ask „what is wrong with you guys“ and this is not a personal opinion, but an open question, and I will explain the context right now:
You will have noticed that Cindy is a woman, as is Thea, and as is Luiza, and as am I.
At least as far as I know… why is this important at all?
Interestingly Luiza after being very active here did not write anything for a long time. Maybe she left the list meanwhile...
Thea wrote the following related to the current discussion on this list:
"Maybe those of us who have given up posting out of fear are simply trying to take the advice in The Desiderata of Max Ehrmann (1927) to "Avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are vexatious to the spirit.“
And what Cindy wrote is copied below.
When I posted about Design and Sustainability and the Responsibility that Designers (should) have.
Quite a few men over here reacted in an aggressive and negative way and tried to ridicule what I wrote…. I will not give names and quotes, maybe some of you remember that episode.
Back then Ken and a few other participants in this list were so nice to write something positive as well.
So what is my point?
In this list there are not few but quite some male academics that have a way of trying to discredit contributions of women (but not only women) in a way and a style that is rude and arrogant, at the same time ignorant and feels like they cannot accept that maybe some other people with different cultural backgrounds (and different sexes) could have a point of view and a wisdom that is against everything that they learned, have thought so far, their dominant values and believes.
And they are not able to tolerate these different world views but can only fight them. Sometimes it even seems that they even enjoy doing so.
This has nothing to do with a high level academic debate but has rather the character of misogyny
but that is not directed only against women but also against other cultural backgrounds… and people with other believe systems.
If you now ask for the empirical data behind my assumption then just read through all the past discussions going back and forth here.
Now there is another dimension to this issue of the „age of contempt“.
I do not want to go further (again) into a gender discussion, but why is it the case that many many women (and few men) marched against the new President of the US?
Why is it that in this list we still have academic discussions about these issues and we are not out on the street talking with our neighbors and students and trying to bring the education to everybody that we think is needed to save democratic systems from these kinds of bullies, demagogues, dominating the mainstream policies,
Why are we not out there asking people to reflect and think and build their own opinion instead of just following a seemingly „strong“ leader etc. etc.
Maybe you guys do all of this as well, I do not know many of you in person?
But for me real action is more important at the moment than theoretical discussions.
We know all of what is going wrong, kind of, if we don’t act it might be too lat, at least we can discuss with our neighbors, our students, our friends about these issues.
Not indoctrinating or colonizing but asking them to develop an own perspective, build an opinion, look at it open minded and critically and start acting in a more informed way, at least that, understanding how to identify what is fake and real news ( as real as reality can get for each of us ).
So, of course it is about opinions as well, and believe system and values etc.
Thank you for reading and all the best
Ursula
Ursula Tischner
econcept, Agency for Sustainable Design
Albatrosweg 11
50259 Pulheim
Tel.: +49-151-22650776
[log in to unmask]
www.econcept.org
> Am 26.01.2017 um 10:29 schrieb Johann van der Merwe <[log in to unmask]>:
>
> Oh, dear
> I rest my case ...
>
> As I told my students ad nauseum, opinion and personal views are not
> allowed in this (research) class:
> Please provide your interpretation (while concisely reminding the reader of
> the exact circumstances) to back up your statements ...
>
> Cindy, your post reads like your tweets ... but that should not be the
> case, here.
>
> Johann
>
>
> On 26 January 2017 at 10:24, Cindy Kohtala <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> Shrill and arrogant voices? Trump-like voices? Really? REALLY?
>>
>> Luiza Prado was completely bullied off this list.
>> That is my view on what happened.
>>
>> Cindy
>>
>> --
>> Cindy Kohtala
>> Postdoc researcher
>> Aalto University, Helsinki, Finland
>>
>>> The harsh and unjustified attack on list culture and list members has
>> taken too great a toll.
>>> the attacks on list members by a few shrill and arrogant voices.
>>> It would be a sad thing to think that a few Trump-like voices can so
>> thoroughly disrupt what was once an interesting and passionate community.
>>
>>
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>
>
>
> --
> Dr. Johann van der Merwe
> Independent Design Researcher
>
>
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