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Re: What's appropriate mate
Danny Yee (danny@STAFF.CS.SU.OZ.AU)
Mon, 20 Feb 1995 17:31:44 +1000
Travis Garrett Jackson replies to John Cook:
> What are you talking about? Backwood networks? U.S. centrism in the
> anthro-l (and net). I haven't heard of this before, really.
Well, consider the amount of time devoted on this list to discussing
internal details of AAA politics and AAA sessions those of us outside
the US are unlikely to be able to attend. I'm not complaining about
this, but it will be interesting to see what will happen when/if the
demographics of this list swing away from US dominance. (Actually,
unless more non-native English speakers join, it probably won't ever
swing the other way; Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and South
Africa together don't actually have as many people as the United
States does.)
If mailing lists supported geographical restriction of distribution
in the way newsgroups do, this wouldn't be a problem, of course.
> who are you to decide who cares or not? Welcome to higher education
> where we learn to separate between personal rhetoric and argument. If
> you have a point, make it. Don't shovel some sophomoric attempt
> at condescending sarcasm.
The point is that the kind of attitudes expressed by Marius Johnson and
Robert Johnson (are they related by any chance?) in their appeals to
the US constitution as universally applicable are not at all uncommon.
Anthro-l isn't that bad -- as one would hope, anthropologists are
more cluey about these things than most -- but USENET is just crawling
with them. There can be no doubt that US undergraduate students have
far more parochial views of the geography and history of the world
than their European or Australian peers. Arguments over the use of
the word "American" don't even scratch the surface.
Danny Yee.
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