On Sun, 06 Dec 2020 19:47:02 +0100, Per Jessen wrote:
They differ, but I rarely see cultures where being actively offensive to people is considered acceptable normal behavior.
Somewhat tangential, but in the last four years the world has observed one major culture change to just that. (entirely offtopic here).
Yep. I've been avoiding using that as an example because that opens a whole different rabbit hole to go down, and opinions are strong on both sides.
I see cultures where being direct is considered kind, but there's a pretty wide gap between being direct and being offensive - and it is possible to be direct without being offensive.
That is an interesting perspective. For the last thirty years, I have worked in several countries/cultures, and the latter, "being direct without being offensive", has only ever been an issue when mono-lingual English speakers were involved. (no offense intended, only fact)
I am an immigrant in my country of residence, and remarkably people appreciate my Scandinavian directness, even find it refreshing. (which is akin to Berlin-style directness).
I understand what you mean - I've got friends in Germany who taught me first-hand about that style of directness. But they also manage it without being offensive, even when not speaking in German.
I teach my son not to use 'WTF' in text because I consider it to be nekulturny, but the F-word is not generally considered offensive in German-speaking Switzerland.
The issue is perhaps how often people actually care or understand to say "that's offensive to me because ...."
For those who are in marginalized communities and groups, having to teach the 101-level "here's why you're being offensive" gets old.
I know what 101 means, but the rest is gobbledegok, I'm afraid.
I suppose a relevant example might be this: In the forums and the Facebook group, we routinely get questions from new members asking "where do I download openSUSE?" - in spite of the fact that it's pretty clear where to obtain it from if you go to the project's website. After answering that question for the ten billionth time, it gets a little old. The same holds true for someone explaining their life story to someone who maybe even only wants to understand. It gets old and it gets frustrating.
Especially in marginalized communities who have actively made a lot of noise about why certain behaviors are generally considered offensive.
Jim, I have to ask, who are these "marginalized communities" ? Do we have some of them here, in openSUSE, on this or other lists?
We certainly do. Some of those marginalized communities are regional - in the US, for example, it might be people of color, people with non- conforming gender identities (ie, trans, gay, bisexual, asexual, etc), some who are not neurotypical (ie, are on the autism spectrum - which is fairly common in technical fields particularly). -- Jim Henderson Please keep on-topic replies on the list so everyone benefits