Cultural imperialism

[radegund]

I'm an editor, and it upsets me when I read that US law now prohibits publishers from editing papers by scholars from five "embargoed nations".

In a move that pits national security concerns against academic freedom and the international flow of information, the US Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control recently declared that American publishers cannot edit works authored in nations under trade embargoes. Although publishing the articles is legal, editing is a "service" and it is illegal to perform services for embargoed nations, the agency has ruled.

The nations affected are Iran, Iraq, Sudan, Libya and Cuba. So their scholars can be published in American journals, but only in unedited form (and, as the article later explains, unrefereed also - which completely defeats the purpose from the point of view of the author).

This is pretty sinister, right? It's not just me?

[Countdown of joy: just 35 days until the smoking ban comes into force.]

Comments

[oddcellist.livejournal.com]

No, it's not just you, and it really is - my mind just boggles. How can they do that? But what I'm more curious about is - how do they justify this? Because really, what good does legislation like this acheive?

Forgive me, I'm being incoherent again. But thank you for making me aware of it.

[glitzfrau.livejournal.com]

That horrifies me. It's absolutely shocking, and I hope US academics are making a stand.

[jinxremoving.livejournal.com]

yes, this is sinister.

and, y'know, maybe you can clarify, but i'm wondering whether it's been reported in western papers? or whether the pakistan link is the easiest one you found? because if it hasn't been reported in most western media (i'm sorry, it's very late, otherwise i might have the energy to check), that's food for thought, too.

[radegund.livejournal.com]

Actually, I didn't do any searching myself: this link turned up on the copyediting list I'm on. A subsequent poster mentioned a headline in the Seattle Times, and linked to the IEEE's take on it (http://www.ieee.org/portal/index.jsp?pageID=corp_level1&path=about&file=ofac.xml&xsl=generic.xsl). That poster also said that a Google search on embargo + editing turns up a number of articles.

What is noteworthy is that the Treasury Department's decision was made in September, and yesterday was the first I or those who contributed to the discussion on the list heard of it, although we're pretty up to date with developments in scholarly publishing.

[stephencass.livejournal.com]

This is a big issue here in the office: I won't add anything in a public forum, except to recommend reading my colleague Jean Kumagai's recent article, where she managed to walk the fine line required when one is reporting on one's own employer while still being a journo worth the name (a job made harder by the fact that the IEEE is not a monolithic organization by any means).

[dreamvirus.livejournal.com]

I agree this is an extension of a negative policy but I don't see why it's particularly sinister. Everyone knows economic sanctions exist and kill thousands if not tens of thousands of people every year. Why is it worrying to see that they've extended the definition of an economic sanction to include a "service" such as editing a scholarly article? I mean I understand the whole idea that ideas and freedom of expression are sacred in a way that food isn't but I don't agree with it. When you compare it to what's already happening it really seems like a technicality. I don't mean this in any way as a personal criticism - sorry to have to say that but I do seem to have this unfortunate tendency to offend people.

What I see as "sinister" is the whole idea of a trade embargo. Given the existence of such a thing which is apparently accepted as normal by most people, I fail to see how extensions and redefinitions and modifications of it qualify as sinister or not, it's kind of like looking at different shades of black. I don't find it sinister, I actually find it kind of funny. I mean, it's just absurd...the idea that you can publish the paper but not edit it. It's real-life satire.

[radegund.livejournal.com]

I've been meaning to reply to this comment for days, but haven't had the time to sit down and think it out properly. So I'm afraid an incoherent, half-baked response will have to do you :-)

Let me first evict the straw man: I'm not arguing that ideas are "sacred in a way that food isn't". As someone who works in scholarly publishing, I'm worried that a powerful government has unilaterally decided that the scholarly output of certain countries should be excluded from nominally independent journals for no other reason than that the countries in question are under an almost certainly indefensible trade embargo (the only reason I say "almost" here is that I know so little about the subject).

In practical terms, from what I know of the academic publishing industry, exclusion is the most likely outcome. Journals are prohibited not only from editing papers, but also from refereeing them. As peer review is, rightly or wrongly, an essential element of the kind of publishing under discussion here, this prohibition renders it completely pointless for a scholar from the embargoed countries even to submit to a journal that obeys the new rule.

My characterisation of the move as "sinister" was based on perhaps somewhat fuzzy ideas around state control of information (arguably not a good thing, historically) and the potential subtler effects of such a rule. I had visions of (a) papers from the embargoed countries more or less disappearing from the US scholarly record, leading to the unconscious assumption in the communities that read these journals that no research of any consequence goes on there; (b) papers from the embargoed countries being published unrefereed and unedited, and thus - again subtly, but in ways that I know intimately through my work - coming across as poorly phrased (not least because the command of English would vary widely from author to author), internally inconsistent or even substantially inaccurate, leading to the impression that scholarship in the embargoed countries is generally poorer than elsewhere; (c) innovative research in a given field not being communicated to the global scholarly community (recalling that in many fields, the US journals are virtually the only show in town at an international level), with detrimental results. All tending to reinforce the general cultural and political denigration of the embargoed countries and their inhabitants by agents (witting or unwitting) of the US state. Probably very little of this will happen, but it's a "hearts and minds" thing, and I don't like it.

Finally, I need hardly point out that it's possible to feel that global trade is in what amounts to an ethically bankrupt state, to deplore the inequity in distribution of practically any resource you care to name, from food to bandwidth, and also to feel that this US decision is, yes "sinister". They're not mutually exclusive positions to take, and my original post concerns only one of them.

In case you're in any doubt, I don't, either, mean this reply as any kind of personal criticism!

[dreamvirus.livejournal.com]

"Finally, I need hardly point out that it's possible to feel that global trade is in what amounts to an ethically bankrupt state, to deplore the inequity in distribution of practically any resource you care to name, from food to bandwidth, and also to feel that this US decision is, yes "sinister". They're not mutually exclusive positions to take, and my original post concerns only one of them."

- I'm glad you said that rather than deciding it didn't need to be pointed out! I don't really know what you think about stuff in general any more and I wasn't assuming anything about your views on this subject...you may well feel more strongly about it than I do, in which case my comment probably seemed patronizing or something...anyway point taken, you're under no obligation to talk about the whole elephant every time you focus on a single part.

I think the perspective I'm coming from, if I can clarify it, is one of overload. I read multiple news sources every day, mainstream and "alternative", and I am saturated with so much BAD NEWS and SCARY STUFF that I could never talk about it all. There is so much wrong with the world - so many DIFFERENT kinds of wrongness, on such a huge scale, and so much to be concerned about - that I could never talk about it all. I constantly consider stopping reading the news in order to help my sanity, but I can't stay away. I keep trying to think on a bigger and bigger scale in an effort to synthesize what I've found out and I think sometimes it makes me feel that detail of any kind is trivial - that the changes that are necessary in the world are at such a basic psychological level and on such a global scale that anything less than a total revolution in thinking and society is going to be useless...fighting each individual detail of the wrongness seems to me, in my current state of mind, to be a waste of energy.

Anyway I'm just explaining the perspective my comment came from. People choose what they get angry or scared about, usually something they can relate to from their own experience, and I've got too many things that I'm choosing to be angry or scared about at the moment, most of which I have no personal experience of and can't relate to, but am trying to understand anyway.

[radegund.livejournal.com]

I don't really know what you think about stuff in general any more and I wasn't assuming anything about your views on this subject...

In general, for future reference, woolly leftist green liberal, with some quirks and not much specific knowledge.

in which case my comment probably seemed patronizing or something

Now, I don't want you worrying your pretty little head about that :-)

I think the perspective I'm coming from, if I can clarify it, is one of overload

Oh, yes, I can most definitely identify with that. I frequently find myself overwhelmed by the fact that virtually my entire lifestyle is predicated on the suffering of millions. Not a comfortable thought.

But there's a quotation I'm too lazy to hunt down at the moment, to the effect that it's equally useless to believe we can do nothing as to believe that we can do everything. It's a truism, but nonetheless worth remembering, that news media primarily report negative stories. Good news doesn't seem to have the same marketability (which of course is sick in itself). I find that I can keep my head above water by making sure that I do enough things that affect the world in what I see as a positive way. I recycle everything that can be recycled. I give to selected charities. I try not to give my custom to anti-union companies. I buy locally produced organic vegetables, which also means that I eat what's in season rather than demanding that delicacies be shipped from other climates for my delectation (except for bananas, because I'm inconsistent!). I try not to consume unfairly traded goods in general. It's upsetting that my most tangible power in modern Western society is the power to choose what to consume, but to me that's not a reason for ignoring the choices.

Longer term, projects I would like to get involved in include adult literacy tutoring and a radical school model along these lines (http://www.sudval.org), because I think that education is crucial to empowerment and that the current system is sick and warped to a massive degree.

If I were braver (or rather, if I didn't also have dozens of other passions in life) I might go and work in the Third World, but I try not to think that my decision not to do that precludes me from making a difference where I am.

(continued...)

[radegund.livejournal.com]

I keep trying to think on a bigger and bigger scale in an effort to synthesize what I've found out and I think sometimes it makes me feel that detail of any kind is trivial - that the changes that are necessary in the world are at such a basic psychological level and on such a global scale that anything less than a total revolution in thinking and society is going to be useless...fighting each individual detail of the wrongness seems to me, in my current state of mind, to be a waste of energy.

But in a sense, the details are all we have. Theories can be worked out on as massive a scale as you like, but if you don't have people who are prepared to implement them day by day, hour by hour, where are you? The mental upscaling exercise surely alienates the thinker from humanity, at least to an extent. I think that's dangerous, because people are all we have too.

Also, I'm temperamentally wary of revolution. I don't think society runs on clean lines. It's messy, and it's full of compromises, and the dream of making it All Better seems at best unrealistic. At worst, it's as bad as the situation we have now. As Niall has put it (quite possibly quoting someone), if an ideology is worth anything, sooner or later you have to kill someone for it - and that's not consistent with my personal morality. In any case, I don't believe that principles translate well from generation to generation. I think of Goodbye Lenin in this context: the DDR lasted a matter of decades, and in the end the apathy of the younger generation for the ideological convictions of their parents was a major factor in what pulled it apart. Social change (for good or ill) happens naturally over time because every time a new person is born there's a new perspective on the world.

(Speaking of which, I've added you to my friends list, so you're now able to view this post (http://www.livejournal.com/users/radegund/43283.html).)

I've got too many things that I'm choosing to be angry or scared about at the moment, most of which I have no personal experience of and can't relate to, but am trying to understand anyway

So channel the anger, face the fear! Do something positive every day that will make the world, however infinitesimally, closer to how you want it to be.

(Now who's being patronising? :-) )

[dreamvirus.livejournal.com]

*sticks tongue out at you* That I need to be told to do something positive is something pretty new, maybe I really have let myself get too overwhelmed.

I don't like to think of it as mental upscaling exactly because of what you said, the distancing from humanity and one's own real situation and community. I relate everything to my own life and experience and if I can't communicate it to people close to me I throw it away, or at least regard it as not useful. All I ever want to do is communicate and I actually believe that *all* human social problems are to do with communication and could be solved through improvement of communication. So it may not seem useful for me to spend a week obsessing over quantum theory, until I manage to come to the realization that all of this seemingly abstract science is telling me something very concrete about how I perceive the world and how my mind works, and therefore how I relate to others. If I don't manage to make that connecting thread back to "real life", my lived experience, then I throw it away.

Yeah I'm wary of revolution too, unless it's internal. A million or a billion internal revolutions and no one would need an external one ever again.

[dreamvirus.livejournal.com]

You're right about the good news thing, and I always feel better when I'm actually doing something as opposed to feeling so overwhelmed that I do nothing. On the other hand I want to know how I can do something useful and use whatever talents I have in the best way. I've seen how good people can struggle for their whole lives to make a difference in a practical way and fail, or succeed in a very limited sense, and then I've also seen how some bastard with a really good idea or a new perspective can come along and change everything. The only problem is what seems like a good idea at the time can turn out to be an abomination in practice so you have to be very careful what ideas you go trying to give people. I'd like to be that bastard with a good idea, so I try to find out as much as I can and think as big as I can. Maybe it can never work this way. I don't know.