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@quid That's not what I said, and to suggest that is insulting.
@Alex:
[no longer relevant]
It seems the originally phrasing was to provocative. I stll think there would be something interesting to discuss, but perhpas this is not the right place and time. Sorry, if it came of as an insult, it was (only) inteded as a somwhat provocative way to challenge your position.
@quid: The sarcasm in your message "@Alex (and Mariano to a lesser extent): I am a bit surprised, Sir, to learn that you, Sir, are against some basic rules regarding the useage of language in general." and your tone toward these two users do not correspond to the friendly style I would prefer to see adopted on this site.
@Georges Elencwajg: thank you for your remark. Could I say the following instead?
[no longer relavant]
+1. It is particularly bad when coming from a user that remains anonymous.
Since meanwhile three people (Georges Elencwajg, Bill Johnson, and Angelo) confirmed that indeed other peoples opinion on once writing should matter, I consider this as enough of a response to my orginally request and retract the direct inquiry regarding this matter towards those that (in my perception) made a claim to the contrary.
Dear quid, I have trouble reading what I wrote in order to understand what you understood.
The purpose of the thread we are talking about is to document non-standard writing occurring in mathematical texts. I think it is undeniable that Bloch's text fits that description. You and I and anyone may have whatever opinion about the content of the text, its appropriateness and what not, but I honestly do not think that has much relevance at all in the matter of deciding if the quote deserves inclusion as an answer to the question in question.
I am sure there exist people who find Courbet's L'Origine du monde objectionable, and their opinion counts just as anyone's, but their opinion is more or less irrelevant in deciding whether, say, to include the painting in a collection of paitings from its period.
Dear Mariano, thank you for the reply. My question, which in the iterim was documented a bit more clearly but then got removed due to various objections, was related to the following sentences.
I do not find the metaphor problematic in the least. I do not see in what way that is relevant, though, just I do not see in what way others finding it problematic is relevant.
The first sentence is your opinion, I happen to disagree quite strongly, but this is (of course) not the problem. My issue is with the second phrase. I do think that in general, and since your brought up the painting I am given to understand that you also mean this beyond the narrow context of this precise thread/answer, it is not common to disregard opinions entirely on such matters; in particular if it comes to uncritical presentation and/or if they are completely public (where I am not sure if I use uncritically in a correct way; as I elabortated what I mean is some explanatory commentary). There are to some extent also laws governing what can and cannot be displayed in what context for what audience, and laws are rules based on in some sense the general, for the context, opinion (at least in a democracy, typically, though often indirectly).
And since you mentioned a painting, there are also now controversies related to exhibitions of (nowadays mainly modern) art. I do not have a quotable example handy, but I know for a fact that it can happen that one or another piece of an exhibition is removed due to some criticism, which before evidently soembody found fitting to include and would also be fitting according to some abstract criteria.
Not that I typically support this, but it can happen in general, which is what we are discussing. But to me it also makes a difference if something is say in an exhibition (and in appropriate context) or presented in such a way that it is somehow unavoidable. So, in some sense I consider it as somewhat less of a problem that this quote is in the colorful language thread than that it was included of all places in a BAMS book review (this is really incomprehensible to me, and indeed what I complained about at first in my comment to the answer was this). By analogy I have little problem with most content in a novel, but I would find it problematic if the usermanual for some device would be written in a potentially controversial way. [Added clarfifcation: when I say 'I have no problem' this does not imply that I do not find it, personally, problematic. Yet, something not being 'problematic' is not the only criterion. However, the balance is considerably different depending on what a publication/medium is for.}
So, I think it is simply not true that opinions regarding what is or is not objectionable are completely disregarded when deciding what to display. Of course, not each and every objection will be reasonable, or one might disagree with some, but to just claim that as a matter of principle opinions in such matters are irrelevant is as said in my experience simply not common practise. Now, you might wish it were so, not sure about this, but this is still something else than to claim that this is like this. And of course you can also say that opinions considering the quote problematic are for some specific reason to be considered as irrelevant, but this is also something else. The only thing I do find problematic is that you claim that anybodies opinion here should as a matter of general principle be irrelevant, as this is typically like this in such a situation, because as I hope to have documented this is in my experience simply not the case.
I largely concur with Mariano, fedja and Darij. The bounds on free speech have to be pretty broad, or else you run the risk of everything that is considered appropriate now being considered inappropriate in a month once peoples sensitivities change yet again.
fedja: Replacing the old rule "no offense meant - no offense made" by the modern "feel offended - are offended" hardly improved the atmosphere.
This is quote-worthy. Then again, the total of fedja's post is, even though I disagree with some of his opinions on other matters. But... what is that panda story about?
EDIT: Ah. Google was my friend.
What bad luck on my part, the free-speech proponents showed up only after I drew the criticisim for being too sarcastic ;D
More seriously, I won't deny that as with virtually all things in life one can also overdo limitations on what one can say. Yet, the actual example brought up so far do not strike me as such that the problem is only noticeable with a particularly sensitive or sophisticated approach. But then this is perhaps relative.
But, fedja, the general idea afaik but you most likely too, is that one should change the language to change the society so to say. In this sense what you say seems backwards. One should avoid the metaphor first in order to achive, or contributing to achieve, some change. Personally I am really convinced that this has some significance. Perhaps slowly and in small amounts, but still.
Since this is ongoing, I would like to point out that MO does have one rule of conduct.
If you think this rule should be clarified, modified, edited, or changed in any way, then please send your suggestions to moderators@mathoverflow.org. (That works for anything else in the faq too.)
Chuck, there is no consensus here that objecting to sexism amounts to censorship. There is a kind of majority, it seems, believing that deleting sexist remarks amounts to censorship. And we are doing that not because we like sexism but for different reasons - for me, it is mainly insistence on free speech.
It seems that every of us has his favorite strawman to bash...
One can object to sexism and at the same time see no problem with quoting Bloch's quote in the context it was quoted.
I see absolutely no hint of anyone here thinking that objecting to sexism is censorship: I surely don't. I don't have any problems distinguishing «quoting a passage» from «adhering to a passage» or «believing and/or propounding a passage as an ideal/normal way of expressing ideas», and I can quote a passage and simultaneously object to its content.
Also, I don't believe that deleting sexist remarks amounts to censorship—and I would most probably object to Bloch using this imagery in an MO answer—much as I would probably object that a speaking in a colloquium talk &c, but I would rather add a comment suggesting a rephrasing than flag it for deletion.
OK, now that Mariano has expanded on his earlier comment/post, I would say I am pretty much in agreement. I think that this was what Bill Johnson had been saying upthread, though I may have misunderstood.
I had started writing an overly emotive comment, but was called away from the computer just in time to realise that i was in danger of charging around MMO without trousers. (Yes, trousers, and the date is still 19/12/11, I don't care what the rest of this continent says ;) ) It may yet turn up as a blog post, since I feel rather strongly about these things as the years go by, and would like to use stronger --ing language than is -- ing accepted here, as Mr Tulip might --ing say.
That said? I also agree with Chuck, in all regards except perhaps his diagnosis
The consensus opinion by mathematicians in this thread -- that objecting to sexism amounts to "political correctness" and censorship
-- see Darij's clarification.
The episode Nilima recounts is outrageous. The remark is degrading and rude, and I am very glad that today, such a remark would have brought the notable mathematician into considerable trouble and embarrassing situations if anyone in the room had felt inclined to pursue this (and I might well have been). This has absolutely nothing to do with Bloch's review and censorship thereof. Bloch used a fairly innocent comparison to a well-known stereotypical image of several men courting and rivalling for a beautiful woman. Whether or not the comparison is well chosen is beside the point, it is simply not offensive, nor intended to be so. The final sentence of the contentious quote of course has a strong sexual connotation, but it is completely free of the salient features of Nilima's episode that make the latter outrageous: there is no insinuation that women are not normally expected to do good mathematics, or that their primary function is to "flesh out their jeans".
I can easily read Powell's "Rivers of blood" speech and see an honest man trying to raise the issue he thinks is important.
I am no expert on the political history of the time, and my knowledge of the Classics is paltry; but my recollection from discussion with more informed people is that Powell was positioning himself for a power-play within the party, and hence the speech was as much rabble-rousing as the plea of an honest Roman looking at the Tiber. And the rabble was definitely there to be roused.
@Alex: we will have to agree to disagree on the reading of the quote from Bloch. It was probably not intended to be offensive; but to me it comes across as so.
I also tend to view censorship as political goons telling newspapers not to print stories about certain well-connected criminals, or redaction of letters being sent home by serving military personnel. In this case, by censorship do you mean the original deletion by Francois, or the hypothetical "censorship" that might have been used by BAMS editors to strike out that passage of his review? Because the latter isn't censorship, in my view, it's editing.
As for the rest of the discussion, which seems to take on the issues of political correctness, there's not much to offer except anecdotes. As a bona-fide woman in mathematics, I'm actually grateful for some degree of 'political correctness' has crept into the seminar room, and professional interactions in general.
Can't say much more than: indeed.
@Yemon I meant the former: calls for deletion and the eventual deletion of a fairly harmless on-topic quote of an official publication, based on the fear that somebody might get offended. I agree that it looks like we will have to agree to disagree (3 "agree"s in a clause - see if you can beat that).
By the way, I also agree with Nilima's assessment that you quote. It's all about what "some degree" means. Like Angelo, I often see a counterproductive angst, rather than "some degree of political correctness".
@Steve Landsburg: A dictioanry definition of 'sexist' is pertaining to, involving, or fostering sexism.
Which leads to the question what is sexism. Here a dictionary definition is: a. attitudes or behaviour based on traditional sexual roles. b. discrimination or devaluation based on a person's sex.
So short answer from my side, all three.
I enjoyed the stories my mother would make up for me when I was a child, but I didn't believe them, and she didn't either. I'm not sure where you're going with this Michael. You don't have to "believe" in something to enjoy it. I sometimes enjoy music I consider to be garbage, but it can be fun garbage. People can sing lyrics that make no sense and still enjoy it. Since the lyrics make no sense, there's nothing to believe in. IMO this thread is off-the-rails and going nowhere.
As said but perhaps not transparently enough (in a similar spirit as Michael) my problem with the quoting (the quote itself is a differen subject) was the precise way it was done (in combination with the comment) IMO suggested a univeral approval (by OP). If at least in some form it would have been acknowledge that one at least could find this also problematic (irrespective of personal opinion) it would already have been a different situation.
So the way in which it was quoted was (IMO) a positive one, as a opposed to a at least neutral, or balanced or critical one.
And in view of the fact that 'calls for deletion' are again mentioned, I would just like to point out that I cannot find that many calls for deletion. (And for example Scott C. who is on record as finding the quote offensive, did not delete it, while he could have; the quote if I remember well was not in the state of deletion when he made his comment). It was delted, so it seems to me, because Francois was of the opinion (and in my opinion this is a legitimate position) that this would be a simple solution. If one would like to continue on this censorship subject, one could equally well say that deletion was done to silence the debate on the subject and its ramifications. [This is meant for the sake of argument.]
@SteveLandsburg: I'll bite. First, I'll concede the point (which is not one that I agree with) that, for whatever reason, women aren't as good on average as men at math. Even though I don't share the belief, I don't think that the belief, or the expression of such a belief, is necessarily indicative of sexism per se. But let's look at two variants of Chuck's story for comparison.
Foreign students, it might reasonably be surmised, are not on average as good at lecturing as American students, since they are not necessarily as fluent in the language. So the graduate director offers to help out the foreign students with their lectures.
There are studies that show that IQ is positively correlated with height, so one might reasonably surmise that tall people will on average be better at math than short people. So the graduate director offers to help out the short grad students with their comprehensive exams.
The crux of the issue is the question of why the graduate director would single out female students as ones to help with comprehensive exams, even if one believes that female students might tend to need more help than men: Why not just target specifically those students that actually need help?
In variant 1, there is a reason to target foreign students; namely, they might have difficulties speaking English if they did not grow up with it. In this scenario, there is a shared understanding of the causal mechanisms behind foriegn students being potentially poor lectureres. No one believes that the graduate director is suggesting that all foreign students are bad lectures; rather, he is merely offering to help them with their English skills. If I am a foreign student from an English-speaking country, I would certainly not be put off by the graduate director's offer, because I understand the specific purpose of the offer and how relevant it is to me (not very). I can take the graduate director's offer at face value.
Variant 2 shows the absurdity of trying to treat Chuck's story like variant 1. What can the graduate director do to specifically help short students with their comprehensive exams? (It is not clear to me, as you seem to imply in your post, that the kind of "help" the director was offering in Chuck's story was simply raising scores.) Why bother picking out a specific trait, like gender or height, that could be correlated with mathematical ability, rather than simply offering help to those who need it?
The explanation of why Chuck's story and others like it revolves around gender rather than height is, I think, obvious to just about anybody. Even if I'm a female student who knows that she's smarter than any of the male students in the room, I have no reason to believe that the graduate director's remark was not meant to apply to me. At best, it seems as though I am automatically being discounted because I am a woman, and at worst, the suggestion of help is downright hostile: A male in a position of power offering to "help out" specifically female subordinates carries some heavy connotations.
So even though the word "sexism" tends to get thrown around a lot, I think that, at least in this case, you're being far too dismissive. The way that gender continues to permeate our society, not just in informal social contexts but in more official capacities (marriage laws, child custody disputes, restrooms), has real potential for harm. As academics, we tend to think that we have moved beyond such things, but the reality is much different. The graduate director in Chuck's story was, among other things, being downright unprofessional, not because he had the belief that women were inferior to men or even because he expressed it, but because he expressed it to an audience that he should not have expressed it to, and he expressed it in a manner that was demeaning and threatening.
(Moderators: As Steve said, if this is too far off-topic, please delete.)
@Evan: there's a very simple answer to your question "Why not just target specifically those students that actually need help?" Perhaps the university is under a lot of pressure to graduate female Ph.D's. So there is more perceived value in graduating female Ph.D's, so more pressure from top-to-bottom to ensure the process is as smooth as possible for them. Male students are a relative commodity so they're not given as much attention.
@Ryan: I am bit dubious regarding the meaning of 'prospective student' but am under the impression that those students had still some choice regarding their institution. So I'd say a graduate director wishing to have many female graduate students (and thus the potential to graduate many female Ph.D.'s) and telling the prospective students 'that he would "help out" the female grad students with comprehensive exams, because in his opinion women weren't as good at math as men' is (leaving all other aspects aside) simply completely incompetent. It is infinitely hard to imagine for me that this would have an encouranging effect to choose this institution for a female student.
quid, I don't really have context for Chuck's anecdote so I don't see where we can go with that. I was responding to Evan's comment. Beside, I think Chuck's anecode has kind of taken the thread off course.
Ryan, well, but Evan was elaborating on the situation described by Chuck. But, agreed and as aluded to, the context is also to me not completely clear (yet it is difficult for me to envision one were I would not find the behavior of said director as described problematic, but this is admittedly not what we are discussing).
This is a bit tangential and not in complete dissent with the preceeding comment by Steve Landsburg, but for the record regarding (emphasize mine):
It is, I think, perfectly reasonable to believe, either on the basis of systematic evidence or of casual observation (if that's all you've got) that short people are, on average, not as good at math as tall people. (It might also be perfectly reasonable for someone else to believe the opposite.)
I think much more often than not if in such contexts 'believes' are based on nothing but 'casual observation' they are more a (biased/flawed) confirmation of somehow pre-existing convictions (and this can well happen subconciously, even if one believes one is an objective observer) than believes based on any actual observation, and thus in general it is not reasonable(1) to have them, or at least one should not make any relevant decision based on them or voice them as (semi-)facts or believes based on observation. (Even for 'systematic evidence' I think one should be very careful to check for what one actually has evidence and for what not, and what one might infer from this in a given situation, but this seems rather in agreement with the conclusion of the preceeding comment.)
(1) Here by 'not reasonable' I mean that it is in general not some rational believe, so not something related to reason. Yet, essentially everybody will have some at least subconsious biases regarding one thing or another deriving from perhaps even impossible to trace sources. So, that it might be understandable to have it (like other imperfections of human nature), but it is not reasonable. And, as said, in particular one should not conciously base ones actions on it; this is IMO not understandable any more.
I don't think that the quoted text is sexist in the least. Bloch is trying to explain how appealing (sexy) the subject of etale cohomology is by using sexually charged language. One might make the argument that such language should not have been allowed in the original publication since it might make some readers uncomfortable, but I think that it's unfair to accuse Bloch, the OP, or the person who posted the quote of sexism.
There are more drifts on this thread than on the great plains.
I cast the first vote to delete the "colorful language" thread.
From my persepective it certainly can also be closed. Indeed, its direct purpose (from my persepective) was fulfilled with the first reply, which in some sense I tried to signal with my brief re-reply acknowledging essentially that the question is answered.
Sorry, to those who found the discussion it created annoying or unfortunate.
@Bill Johnson: If I understand correctly, you are proposing to not merely close the colorful language thread, but to delete it and make in inaccessible/invisible to the large majority of MO users. This strikes me as misguided and a little bit rude, and I hope you will reconsider.
I'm not personally a huge fan of soft big list questions, but many users of this site seem to enjoy them. A large number of people participated int he "colorful language" thread, and it seems rather inconsiderate to them to delete it completely from the site.
A collectively moderated site like MO doesn't work well if people adopt too rigid a standard for what is acceptable. We all should tolerate some differences between what we think MO would be like in an ideal world and what MO is actually like in the real world.
Note that I am NOT arguing that all or most soft big list questions should be allowed. I think it is important that they not be allowed to dominate the site. Closing some of them early, before they get started, is fine. But once a question and garnered a large amount of participation, I think it should be left on the site.
@Kevin Walker: I think it is good that you bring up this matter; while I do not intend to participate in that discussion myself. I am virtually certain you understand correctly. However, I would like to ask you [added: or whoever intends to continue that discussion] to create a new thread for this. For two reason:
First, the atmostphere in this thread is perhaps already a bit heated.
Second, and more importantly, there could be users caring about the matter you bring up that did not pay attention to this thread, or stopped paying attention to it already.
Thank you.
@quid: A reasonable suggestion. I've started a new thread here.
I think this is not the right place for a discussion of affirmative action.
(Note that there is a lot of opposition to affirmative action, which is illegal in many countries and some US states. It's a stretch to assume that Evan has one opinion or the other on this matter.)