“I Don't Like Your Examples” (2000)

Then you’re more open minded than most.

The point I was trying to get at is that when discussing a topic like “it is ok to use obviously political examples in a book about programming”, then it’s more interesting to consider what your response will be when they’re political positions different from yours. Nobody minds being “confronted” with opinions they already hold.

Note I explicitly didn’t give an example like ethnic cleansing or shooting gays. Advocating for murder isn’t political opinion in my book.

My main objection to the examples he gives is that a book about technology leaves little to no space to expand on these matters. I think that providing context is of utter importance in written media. In some sense, the author exerts control over the reader, as reading is all about internalising the author's thoughts, and does not give the opportunity to (immediately) ask questions. Just stating (hidden) opinions about things that are off-topic, abuses the trust that a reader puts into the author. Correspondingly, such examples borderline on being rude and are likely to result in strong reactions when discovered.

A well-balanced treatise on something that traces the author's line of thought gives the reader the opportunity to consider his own opinion in the light of the information that is being presented. However, as I wrote above, a book about technology is not the right place for an excursion into the history of war-crimes, and a technology author would first have to convince the reader that he is actually eligible to talk about these matters.

Still, and as I already wrote in some child comment, the author is correct that current technology-books often contain a "hidden" agenda (software being framed as something that primarily satisfies commercial or business interests), and it is also correct that democracies should more openly embrace discussion on polarising topics instead of tabooing it. I would argue that these two issues are best addressed in the following way:

a) Authors should actively think about whether examples are sufficiently neutral, e.g., talk about a database for the organisation of your "birthday party" (all people have birthdays, and many people celebrate them in one way or another) instead of talking about the database managing your companies' employees (at least if the title of your book is not "Relational Databases in Human Resources"). Note that being neutral is different from being uncontroversial. For example, when writing about cognitive neuroscience it is impossible to not (at least implicitly) state that humans are "just animals", although this statement surely upsets people's religious feelings. Yet the statement is still on-topic and neutral, since it is the very premise of this line of research.

b) Non-fictional texts are intrinsically about providing context, and deviating into the off-topic is only watering down the value of these writings. In the context of written communication, democracy is best advanced by providing opinion-pieces which are clearly labelled as such, and (in a perfect world) refer to completely unopinionated material for context. So if you want to advance democracy, embrace discussing your world view, but only when you know that your audience is ready for that (e.g. by clearly labeling your writings as such, or by making sure that your peer actually wants to talk about this topic), and back-up your claims.

I think perhaps you may be conflating "non-controversial" opinions with "objective" opinions. As the author writes:

> The Hidden and Prevailing Ideology

> I believe that just about every technical book comes with a body of politics, an ideology that governs and usually restricts its example set. We don't notice the political slant because it reflects the dominant viewpoint in our society and is thus invisible.

Or more generally -- the status quo is highly political. If you choose to follow a mainstream or establishment viewpoint, it does not logically follow that this mainstream viewpoint is objective or true or correct or laudable, although in some cases it may be. It gets more worrying when you don't consciously realise you've made a choice.

But yes, perhaps accidentally absorbing and signalling non-mainstream subjective political opinions could be hazardous to your career / participation in society / life , but that has nothing to do with the truth or otherwise of those political opinions.

The birthday party example makes database look pointless. I can imagine company big enough to need database for employees, birthday party is more practical inside a text file.

I strongly prefer those democratic controversies not affecting my work. One reason for keeping it out is so that people who think each others opinions are horrible/unnatural can still produce work together.