Conservatives dissatisfied with the "liberal bias" of Wikipedia have joined hands and created Conservapedia, an effort to get the facts straight by contributing with a neutral point of view in the world of dictionary knowledge. Unsurprisingly, the logo of Conservapedia is the American flag. Already this gives a hint of how "neutral" Conservapedia is. (What symbol would you choose so as to induce a conviction ín the reader of your neutrality?) The name itself, Conservapedia, is a hint in the same direction. Perhaps they are alluding to a need to preserve the eternal truths?
I checked the entry on homosexuality (just had to):
http://www.conservapedia.com/Homosexuality
Just as I expected, Conservapedia relates homosexuality to Biblical condemnation, diseases, mental illness, bad parenting and a thousand scandals. Conservapedia mentions virtually all "scientists" who in some way or other have set out to prove the evil nature of the "homosexual lifestyle".
The scary thing when reading this kind of stuff is that it is hard not to react by being slightly amused. "Oh, the American Conservatives, how silly. Morans!" But of course it is more serious than that. That this kind of thing actually exists and that people are deluded enough to maintain this as being "a neutral point of view".
I don't want to say that the debate over neutrality is very illuminating as such. The worst thing with Conservapedia is not that it is not neutral. It is the evil intentions expressed that make it scary. "Proving" that "we" are quite right in oppressing homosexuals "and people like that". But of course, the Conservapedia people would be totally oblivious - or they would seem to be - of why anyone would talk about "oppression" here. (As a side note: Conservapedia has no entry for "oppression", but Wikipedia does)
But debates over neutrality tend to shed some light on how much we can swallow when something is invoked as an instance of "scientific facts" or "a neutral point of view". But this, of course, does not show that neutrality is a mere idiosyncratic construct. This is a misuse of neutrality. (Think about how we talk about manipulation)
From the entry on "evil": "The fight against evil can be radical, even violent, but on a person to person level, often the most successful tactic is admonition."
I checked the entry on homosexuality (just had to):
http://www.conservapedia.com/Homosexuality
Just as I expected, Conservapedia relates homosexuality to Biblical condemnation, diseases, mental illness, bad parenting and a thousand scandals. Conservapedia mentions virtually all "scientists" who in some way or other have set out to prove the evil nature of the "homosexual lifestyle".
The scary thing when reading this kind of stuff is that it is hard not to react by being slightly amused. "Oh, the American Conservatives, how silly. Morans!" But of course it is more serious than that. That this kind of thing actually exists and that people are deluded enough to maintain this as being "a neutral point of view".
I don't want to say that the debate over neutrality is very illuminating as such. The worst thing with Conservapedia is not that it is not neutral. It is the evil intentions expressed that make it scary. "Proving" that "we" are quite right in oppressing homosexuals "and people like that". But of course, the Conservapedia people would be totally oblivious - or they would seem to be - of why anyone would talk about "oppression" here. (As a side note: Conservapedia has no entry for "oppression", but Wikipedia does)
But debates over neutrality tend to shed some light on how much we can swallow when something is invoked as an instance of "scientific facts" or "a neutral point of view". But this, of course, does not show that neutrality is a mere idiosyncratic construct. This is a misuse of neutrality. (Think about how we talk about manipulation)
From the entry on "evil": "The fight against evil can be radical, even violent, but on a person to person level, often the most successful tactic is admonition."
1 comment:
Freaky shit, "conservapedia".. and yet so common. So bloody typical. People think like that. People learn to think like that. Checked out the link.. and well.. don't even know how to comment it..
Very scarry!
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