Date: Tue, 14 Jan 1997 09:39:50 -0600 (CST)
From: "Harry M. Cleaver" <hmcleave-AT-mundo.eco.utexas.edu>
Subject: Re: Kicking out Karl


Dave: You have wrongly imputed far more meaning to my comments than was
intended. In a sense you have done to me what you feared I was doing to
Karl and Max. You have suggested not only hidden motive, but
nefarious hidden motive. Please see comments interspersed below.

On Tue, 14 Jan 1997 dave-AT-skatta.demon.co.uk wrote:

> On Mon, 13 Jan 1997 10:45:07 -0600 (CST), Harry Cleaver wrote:
> 
> >Folks:You have to wonder about the psychology/politics of people who
> >persist in ugly, offensive intervention into groups for which they have
> >nothing but contempt. Either they have serious psychological problems or
> >they intend to be destructively disruptive for political purposes. It's
> >crude politics but not unheard of. 
> 
> In my previous post I suggested a number of possible interpretations
> of Karls motivations. I did so to try and illustrate the impossibility
> of ascertaining what these might really be in a Virtual forum. Having
> done so however I feel I must object to and distance myself from the
> way this is put above. 
> 

Dave: I liked your post and agreed with the point about the impossibility
of really knowing about motivations. I think this is often true in regular
space as well, not just cyberspace. This is one reason why I "wonder"
about what goes on in the heads of such people. I have NOT pretended to
give a diagnosis.

> One may well "wonder" about the people who contribute to a list -
> whether its wondering about the impression  given/created by postings,
> or about the real people (one hopes) are there behind the postings.
> 
> "Wondering" in public about the "psychological problems" which might
> motivate postings is something different entirely. It is a rhetorical
> way of publically suggesting something without saying it. And I think
> what it is suggesting is entirely objectionable.
> 
Dave: This is where you make a jump I disagree with. I was NOT employing
"a rhetorical" trick to say something without saying it. I was saying what
I was saying and that was it. I can IMAGINE all kinds of explanations for
persistent intervention into a dispised group; I was NOT implying one or
another.

> The currents which adopted the term "autonomy" in the  70's did so in
> reaction and opposition to many things. Among those things were
> psychiatric institutions and psychiatriac theory used by capitalist
> regimes world-wide for disciplinary purposes. 
> 
Dave: I agree with many of those critiques; did so at the time. I quite
liked Laing & Cooper's work, for instance. Still do, for all its
limitations. 

> Among those things were left-capitalist political parties that
> stigmatised opponents as "unstable" or "mentally ill" (while
> tolerating and even facilitating extremes of behavior from people who
> were loyal members).
> 
Dave:All too well known behavior, and condemnable. The fact that such
things have happened, however, should hardly stop us from trying to
understand why political people do strange things at times. My comment
about "serious psychological problems" was not meant to imply these kinds
of attacks; the possibilities invoked were much wider and what I had in
mind was quite different than such attacks imply. I don't even think
interms of "mental illness" in the old sense. I think you have overreacted
to and jumped to an extreme interpretation which deflects attention from
the issue of why people intervene destructively in public forums. Note: I
was NOT suggesting we keep discussing this, and almost sent you this note
privately to avoid it. While I think such issues CAN be analysed
politically it has not been my impression that people on this list have
any interest in such matters at this point, especially vis a vis someone
on the list, but even more generally. 

> And the other side of such public "wondering" could be a conception
> that the overthrow of capital and state will be carried out by
> "rational" "sane" "undamaged" people. When the reality of capitalism
> is that we are all "damaged" to some extent by the day to day reality
> of exploitation, oppression and alienation, and that that is why they
> must be overthrown.
> 
Dave: This is more of the same. I think this is exactly the kind of
unwarrented extrapolation from one comment to a whole world of
ideas/political behavior which is uncalled for. If you are worried about
whether my comments tended in this direction, I think it would have been
better for you to have put your remarks in the form of a question. If you
had asked such a question, I could have said, "No, that is not at all what
I had in mind." Drawing comprehensive conclusions about another's ideas
and politics on the basis of key words or phrases is an unfortunate and
all to common characteristic of sectarian thinking that would quickly
categorize people and dismiss them if they are in the wrong category. (No,
I am not calling you a sectarian, just identifying a kind of thinking that
I don't think is productive.) 

> (I would add that in a forum which orients itself to a form of
> autonomism which presumably includes the writings and practise of
> Felix Guattarri this is a surprising as well as objectionable
> characterisation).
> 
> dave
> 

Dave: If my comments had all the weight that you attribute to them, I
would hardily agree. But they do not. I respect and use Deleuze &
Guattari's work in many ways. I repeat: I was not calling anyone "mentally
ill" or evoking a spectre of "rational" revolutionaries, or anything like
it. I was merely wondering out loud about a phenomenon that recurs on
Internet lists, to a degree much greater than in face to face meetings.
I've been participating in or moderating such lists for about three years
now and have run into such behavior before, and expect to again. I also
expect that I will continue to wonder about what motivates such behavior
and speculate to myself about the personalities that generate it. I don't
see any problem with that.

Harry
............................................................................
Harry Cleaver
Department of Economics
University of Texas at Austin
Austin, Texas 78712-1173  USA
Phone Numbers: (hm)  (512) 442-5036
               (off) (512) 475-8535   Fax:(512) 471-3510
E-mail: hmcleave-AT-eco.utexas.edu
Cleaver homepage: 
http://www.eco.utexas.edu/faculty/Cleaver/index.html
Chiapas95 homepage:
http://www.eco.utexas.edu/faculty/Cleaver/chiapas95.html
Accion Zapatista homepage:
http://www.utexas.edu/students/nave/
............................................................................



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