Ban on Politics

[paulr]

This thread will probably be banned too, but I'm going to voice my opinion.

To ban politics—which can be broadly understood as relationships between individuals and groups—is ultimately to ban most topics of substance.

It's nearly impossible to talke about art without politics. You can only talk about surfaces. Many people will disagree with this, but give me a Socratic dialog and I'll prove it. Remove the possibility of discussing relationships like individual/society, individual/corporation, individual/nation, nation/society, society/government, subculture/society, subculture/government... not to mention art/society, art/government, art/world, art world / artist .... you have discussions of surfaces and tools.

There are arguments for pure formalism, as a rejection of the political. But this is a radically political position. You can't discuss formalism in depth without acknowledging this.

I understand that it's in everyone's interest to avoiding personal attacks. And that political and religious arguments sometimes lead down this road. But so do arguments about digital cameras. The trick is to ban personal attacks, not the substance of the message board.

The idea that the political is "something else" is too dumb for me sit back and agree too. Every time we talk beyond f-stops and chemicals and pixels we are entering, or at least flirting with, the political. Drawing arbitrary lines, like whatever one led to the shutting down of the recent MFA thread, just make this a shallower and dumber place.

[BrianShaw]

Yup, that seemed premature to me too.

[Lachlan 717]

You wouldn't go to a political forum to discuss large format photography, so why on earth do you think the opposite is appropriate here?

Moreover, this is a global community, and many here couldn't give a stuff about US politics, just as many Seppos don't care what happens outside their [political] borders.

[goamules]

Darn right. Keep discussions of politics and religion out of hobbies and work. Standard rule I've lived by.

I come here to look at photographs, or talk about making them. The content of some pictures may attempt a political "message" and that's fine. But I don't want to hear blather about someone's party, president, social beliefs, etc clogging up a post I can quickly move away from if I don't like the message.

[Dan Fromm]

Troll trolling trollingly.

[Oren Grad]

The rule is a pragmatic one, based primarily on experience rather than theory. The threads do go south, reliably. They cause much general grief and moderating hassle, and poison the atmosphere for discussing the things we do share in common, and which are the main purpose of this forum.

From time to time we'll inevitably make some arguable decisions about where the boundaries are best placed, because we're all only human. But our policy in this area is not going to change.