TBAY and diversity, continued and long

[Haggridd]

--- In HPFGU-Feedback at yahoogroups.com, "Doriane" <delwynmarch at y...> 
wrote:
> Karen wrote :
> 
> About cultural issues :
> 
> > Oh dear! I really thought for a long time about how to phrase my
> > thoughts in inclusive language. I am truly sorry if I did not 
> > succeed.
> 
> Nah, don't worry, you did a pretty good job :-) But it was a 
perfect 
> opportunity for me to delve deeper into what I know from personal 
> experience to be a not-so-obvious problem.
> 
> > The fact is, the Harry Potter opus *is* a work of English 
> > literature, written by an author who is from a Western, 
Christian, 
> > Anglo-Saxon background. A certain familiarity with the literary 
and 
> > cultural context of the books is *not* a huge leap.
> 
> The way I see it, there are 2 inter-mingled issues here.
> 
> First, you're right of course when you say that JKR is from a WCAS 
> (Western Christian Anglo-Saxon, I'm sick to spell it out :-) 
> background. Which means that in order to understand her books more 
> fully, you have to be familiar with that background.
> 
> But her books are famous all over the world, not just in WCAS 
> countries. Which means that many readers are not necessarily 
familiar 
> with that background.
> 
> So what I was trying to exlain is that we on this list can assume 
> that JKR wrote from that WCAS background, BUT we can *not* assume 
> that everyone *is from* that background or even *knows* it. There 
is 
> a very fine line here, I'm not sure I'm being clear, but this is 
> important.
> 

Haggridd:   This is quite an important point.  See my discussion 
below.


> What matters when we talk to each other is not JKR's background, 
it's 
> OURS. If I dare using my language metaphor again, it's like 
studying 
> Harry Potter in French : we know JKR is British, so we know we 
must 
> be careful not to apply our French background on her *works*. But 
we 
> still study them in French, and we speak French among ourselves. 
We 
> can use French idioms, French symbolism, French whatever you want. 
We 
> can use our French background to talk among ourselves. We don't 
have 
> to use a British background.
> 
> It's the same on the list : we each speak from our own background, 
> which doesn't necessarily happens to be JKR's.
> 
> Of course, one could say that the fact that JKR's background also 
> happens to be the background of a majority of listees is enough to 
> determine that it is the "official" background of the list. I 
would 
> understand that, and I could live with it. I already did, on other 
> occasions, on other lists.
> 

> ...
> 
> Bad Del, bad Del !!! (Sounds of fingers crushed in the door...)


Corect me if I misunderstand you, but I infer from what you have 
written that, in the interests of some vague goal of inclusivity, 
you would destroy all that diversity which you previously celebrated.
Why must there be one set of symbols, metaphors what have you on 
this list?   Who says that this so-called "WCAS" background is 
excluding persons of any background from understanding and/or 
participating in any thread, including TBAY?  You are advocating a 
course of action similar to those idiot editors at Scholastic who 
eliminated the orition British idioms-- yea, even the title-- in PS 
because the poor, befuddled Americans couldn't cope with jumpers and 
triners and the like.  A great part of the charm of reading the book 
is to see the diffent modes of expressing the same ideas ON THEIR 
OWN TERMS.  Likewise, understanding a post from a liste from Israel, 
on the poster's own terms, is more enjoyable simply for the 
difference of mindset and backrground, and how it afects the 
language of the post.  The same with this invention of yours, the 
WCAS-- which is by no means as homogenousor monolithic as you would 
make it.

Why force all listees into the same mold, one of which that 
the "inclusivity police would approve?

Haggridd