Statutes of the Association

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Article 1 — Fundamental Principles and Objectives

The Association is strictly non-partisan: it does not support or represent any political party, candidate or partisan organisation and does not promote any electoral position. It is non-denominational: it is not affiliated with any religion or religious doctrine and does not engage in conversion or proselytism. It is non-political in the institutional sense: it is not a political party whose purpose is to obtain or exercise political power. It may nevertheless freely study political phenomena, institutions and ideologies. It unequivocally condemns violence, threats, intimidation, harassment and incitement to hatred, regardless of the motive.

Objective 1 — Promoting Well-being and Emancipation Through Access to Knowledge

To promote the overall well-being and emancipation of men from all backgrounds by providing them with access to a compilation of verified, thematic and rigorously sourced encyclopaedic knowledge. This approach is intended to enable visitors and members of the Association to develop their knowledge, critical thinking and ability to understand masculinity and masculinism in their diversity and complexity, as well as the societies and the world in which they live.

It also seeks to encourage, through the knowledge collected and compared, the development of reflections, strategies and ways of life capable of fostering autonomy, fulfilment and more harmonious, respectful and peaceful social relationships.

Objective 2 — Combating Isolation and Fostering Social Connections

To help reduce unwanted loneliness and social isolation among men by providing accessible spaces for dialogue, exchange, reflection and meeting others. To this end, the Association provides online discussion spaces, including comment sections and group chat, as well as opportunities for in-person meetings and exchanges, particularly during the Annual General Meeting.

The Association may also organise or support cultural, educational, social or charitable events intended to foster social connections, solidarity and participation in collective life. These spaces and events are intended to enable everyone to express themselves, share their experiences and knowledge, meet other people and, more broadly, develop social relationships based on respect, kindness, solidarity and non-violence.

Objective 3 — Preserving Lexical Heritage, Documenting the Evolution of the Meaning of Words and Concepts, and Taking a Critical View of Their Transformation

To preserve lexical heritage and document the evolution, over time, of the meaning of words and concepts, so that everyone may assess the transformations of language and the representations it conveys.

This approach draws in particular on George Orwell’s reflections on language, especially in his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, through the concept of “Newspeak”, and in his essay Politics and the English Language.

It is based on the idea that the transformation, restriction, impoverishment or disappearance of certain words and meanings may reduce the ability to formulate, understand or transmit certain ideas.

The Association pays particular attention to older definitions, especially those drawn from historical dictionaries and recognised works of lexicography. It considers that these definitions often have particular documentary and intellectual value and may, in some cases, be more precise, more complete or more faithful to the historically established meaning and uses of a term than certain contemporary definitions. This preference constitutes a deliberate choice within the Association’s editorial approach.

The Association therefore intends to highlight semantic changes rather than regard the different meanings of a term as necessarily equivalent. When the evolution of a word or concept appears to have resulted in a substantial change, impoverishment, reversal or distortion of its earlier meaning, this transformation may be explicitly identified, documented and subjected to critical examination.

This critical perspective does not, however, lead the Association to consider every evolution of language to be a distortion. Semantic transformations are placed in their historical, social and cultural context and compared with multiple sources. As far as possible, the Association distinguishes between a natural evolution of usage, an extension or specialisation of meaning, a change in representation, and what may be interpreted as an alteration or diversion of the earlier meaning.

The Association therefore does not claim absolute neutrality in its selection and presentation of sources: it openly adopts a methodological preference for preserving, studying and comparing older definitions, together with a critical perspective on contemporary transformations of vocabulary. It nevertheless considers that this position must be explicit, documented and open to discussion rather than concealed behind a claim of neutrality.

Comparing older and contemporary definitions should therefore enable readers to observe changes in language directly, understand their contexts and assess for themselves the nature and extent of the transformations identified. When the Association makes a critical assessment of a semantic change, that assessment must be distinguishable from the documentary facts and quoted definitions, so that everyone may exercise their own judgement.

Download the current English version of the AIMEncyclopaedias Statutes (PDF).