[governance] Where are we going?

[Vittorio Bertola]

Milton Mueller ha scritto:
> You are thus advocating
> self-censorship and deference to authority, in the hopes that that will
> buy ICANN some time. The attitude is, "don't do anything that will
> provoke people."

There is a basic point that I think needs to be done here, even if it 
brings us much farther than Internet governance itself.

What you call "self-censorship and deference to authority" (thus 
implying that governments speak for the sake of authority rather than to 
convey an actual feeling of their citizens, something that would at 
least deserve case by case evaluation) could be considered by others 
basic respect for different opinions, especially when the issues touch 
into the personal sphere of ethics.

For example, I am an atheist and in my country blasphemy is not 
forbidden by law, but still I don't go around saying blasphemies about 
the gods of whatever religion, even if I'm technically free to do that.

So, I consider abortion a right of every woman, but I would not see why 
you would want to make headlines by creating a .abortion TLD, thus 
possibly offending and provoking those cultures and individuals which 
have not matured that right yet. Note that this does not prevent 
abortion itself, where legal, or its discussion in any way! It's just 
overloading the domain name system with content-related value battles 
that do not pertain to it.

I understand that the "respect" or "decency" argument is often used as 
an excuse to promote actual censorship. However, I think that in certain 
cases it is a valid argument and will become more valid as the world 
gets further integrated and needs more inclusion and reciprocal 
understanding; there needs to be a specific evaluation and balancing of 
different views and sensitivities. You need a tolerant attitude towards 
other people's taboos, or even just different views of the world; and an 
approach that uses dialogue to let people freely grow out of them, 
rather than aggressive vindication of your supposed freedom to disregard 
them.
-- 
vb.                   Vittorio Bertola - vb [a] bertola.eu   <--------
-------->  finally with a new website at http://bertola.eu/  <--------
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