Nobody cares about a font, but if you read the thread you'll see that it's also the architecture that is "oppressive" in the eyes of the ideologues. When you're destroying architecture you're destroying culture. The same technocrats who has filled the world with the most depressing brutalist architecture are claiming that some mysterious "others" suffer greatly from the classical looks of museums.
> Of course the people who enjoy these things can come from any type of background but first they have to fell welcome to even experience them.
And in what way would somebody feel unwelcome by a font? Why is a serif font less welcoming than a sans serif font? When you do the thinking for other people and when you're feeling oppressed on their behalf, maybe you should instead re-evaluate what you're doing. Are you as an enlightened hacker able to appreciate different cultures, expressions, and even typefaces with a cool self-distance, while people who are lesser than you have to be baby-sat by other enlightened individuals that protect them from unfamiliar columns and serifs?
> Are you as an enlightened hacker able to appreciate different cultures, expressions, and even typefaces with a cool self-distance, while people who are lesser than you have to be baby-sat by other enlightened individuals that protect them from unfamiliar columns and serifs?
That's quite a lot of nasty to put onto me and I would ask you not to do that.
I'm not doing anyone's thinking. The position that typography carries associative and emotional weight is not novel here. I think you know very well that serif fonts carry a sense of formality and even authority that sans fonts don't.
I'm also not the one making these changes. I'm not sure why you think these decisions are being left up to me and people like me. The MFABoston has quite a robust inclusivity policy and they not only take on board research on these issues but they also facilitate direct contact where possible from people from various groups outside of their own sphere, including experts and service users/potential service users. Further to that they are also committed to a diversity and inclusivity policy with regards to their staffing, offering things like bias training to staff as well as offering staff "employee resource groups" that support staff who are members of societal groups that face systemic barriers to having their voices heard in order to help them overcome those barriers.
If you have any ideas on things they're missing you can contact them via their website.
> When you're destroying architecture you're destroying culture. The same technocrats who has filled the world with the most depressing brutalist architecture are claiming that some mysterious "others" suffer greatly from the classical looks of museums.
Which technocrats are these? The psychology of architecture is also not a novel idea, but it feels like you're speaking with incredulity here? Deyan Sudjic's The Edifice Complex is a fun book about this. There's a reason the White House looks how it does, it's communicating something and it's asking certain behavioural norms from the people who step inside.
I'm not sure what architecture is being destroyed. Here in Europe such buildings are generally protected from significant redevelopment becaues they're rightly recognised as cultural heritage in and of themselves. Is this a real issue?
> That's quite a lot of nasty to put onto me and I would ask you not to do that.
There is a fully saturated air of superiority in the arguments that you are making and defending. How can you and others take it for granted that people referred to as "many demographics" would at all feel at unease with serif fonts? That sounds 100% made up, because it is. It might be easier to just make up how other people are supposed to feel, instead of getting to know these strange "others", that are just like you.
Why not put yourself in the situation? Let's say you went to a foreign place from yours to visit an important public building. This can be a temple, palace, church, mosque, or even a serif-using museum. Would you find it reasonable to demand they change their architecture and their fonts for you to feel welcome? Would you agree with local custodians, if they argued that you don't have the capacity to appreciate the original style, or would you find it demeaning? Classical Roman style architecture is foreign to my culture, and I greatly appreciate when I can visit such a place, why in the world would I feel unwelcome? That would be like getting mad at the light fixtures.
> I think you know very well that serif fonts carry a sense of formality and even authority that sans fonts don't.
Not at all. Serif fonts are printed in novels, while sans serif fonts are used in forms from the tax office. But even if we entertain that idea, so what? Some places are formal, and every human has the capacity to behave formally and be in formal places – if they chose to.
> Which technocrats are these?
> I'm not sure what architecture is being destroyed.
People who are professionals in city planning. I guess it's ordered differently everywhere under different names. They are technicians and they are making the decisions - hence technocrats. A ton of buildings were torn down during the 1900s to make room for brutalist shoeboxes. What's left is usually protected, as you mention.
> There is a fully saturated air of superiority in the arguments that you are making and defending.
I asked you not to do this, but you're continuing to do so and trying to justify it. I won't engage in this way. Any sense of superiority/inferiority or thought prescriptivism that you're sensing in what I'm saying is something you've projected onto me. I'm talking only about accessibility. This exchange has been bizarre.
I apologize if I interpreted wrongfully your reasoning. I did ask how a serif font is supposed to have the properties described, or why anybody should feel unwelcome by classical architecture, but without much answer IMO.
> Of course the people who enjoy these things can come from any type of background but first they have to fell welcome to even experience them.
And in what way would somebody feel unwelcome by a font? Why is a serif font less welcoming than a sans serif font? When you do the thinking for other people and when you're feeling oppressed on their behalf, maybe you should instead re-evaluate what you're doing. Are you as an enlightened hacker able to appreciate different cultures, expressions, and even typefaces with a cool self-distance, while people who are lesser than you have to be baby-sat by other enlightened individuals that protect them from unfamiliar columns and serifs?