Mit sidney pacific mail forward5/28/2023 ![]() It is first worth noting that Just Jerusalem literature steers potential participants (the contest is open to anyone) away from submitting certain ideas. Diane Davis, director of the steering committee of Jerusalem 2050, the MIT group running the Just Jerusalem competition, stated that the competition’s affiliation with MIT brings “a veneer of neutrality because we have a reputation for using serious, scholarly methods, not political ideology, when facing difficult problems.” Is it really possible for a contest about the status of Jerusalem to be free of “political ideology”? Or, rather, is the purported neutrality of the competition really just a “veneer,” as Davis bizarrely asserted? ( The American Heritage Dictionary defines veneer as “a deceptive, superficial show.”) If that description seems straightforward enough, another comment about the contest might seem somewhat more odd. The competition, according to its executive summary, is meant “to generate new ideas and discussions about Jerusalem as it might be in the future - a just city shared in peace by all residents” and to lead to a “plurality of ideas and design visions that will make the competition a starting point for future deliberations over the city.” And so, at first glance, there is nothing especially remarkable about the Just Jerusalem competition at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The university is a place for the exchange and exploration of ideas. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |