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From: lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu (Greg Lee)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: Comm. Morality (summary)
Message-ID: <3785@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu>
Date: 18 Apr 89 19:02:29 GMT
References: <825@infovax.lan.informatik.tu-muenchen.dbp.de>
Organization: University of Hawaii
Lines: 25

From article <825@infovax.lan.informatik.tu-muenchen.dbp.de>, by foessmei@lan.informatik.tu-muenchen.dbp.de (Reinhard Foessmeier):
" 
" With regard to the first maxim  ("rejection  of  informational  pollution")
" several people claimed that information can always be avoided and therefore
" does not "pollute".  Some suggested  that  the  maxim  comes  close  to  or
" thoroughgoingly  equals  censorship.   Because  this  really surprised me I
" suspected a mistake in my translation; so yesterday I turned to  a  profes-
" sional  linguist  to  check the meaning of the term "morality".  After con-
" sulting various dictionaries we agreed that it has to do with more or  less
" generally  accepted  principles  that are backed by this public consent but
" not enforced by legislative power.  ...

You and this professional linguist need a better dictionary.  A moral
principle may perfectly well be enforced by legislation.  You should not
take the word of a professional linguist on a matter like this, unless
all you are interested in is the question of how a term has been or is
most commonly used, and the linguist happens to be a lexicographer who
has investigated that particular matter.  As a professional linguist,
let me assure you that there is no accepted theory of linguistics and no
special expert knowledge that bears on the matter.

It's still a mystery to me why censorship in the name of some putatively
moral principle should not be called censorship.

		Greg, lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu