From: blissett-AT-unpopular.demon.co.uk (Luther Blissettt)
Subject: Re: [Fwd: Re: AUT: sticks and stones]
Date: Sun, 3 May 1998 20:30:41 +0100


>FRANCO BARCHIESI wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> PS, Katha: while I agree with your first post on this thread about
>> the dangers of decline in the level of discussion on the list, I also
>> think that what you wrote on the Luther Blisset project goes
>> precisely in that direction. Before labelling people the way you did,
>> some more information would not be bad; this of course applies to
>> other people as well.
>>
>   Sorry if I went too far. I was a bit taken aback by the long
>geocities post that was linked here,which to me had a rather
>Dostoyevskian flavor.   Then, too, all this time I had thought Luther
>Blissett was an actual individual person, British, etc. So,as one not in
>on the joke, or project, or whatever you like to call it, I felt that my
>sense of reality had been toyed with.  Perhaps that is one of the points
>of the Luther Blissett project?

I have as an indiividual provided consistent responses to debates. However
I have through out used the name Luther Blissett, a name used by dozens of
other people: e.g. six people who got arrested in Rome while trying to
divert a bus (along with plenty more who weren't arrested. This was part of
a derive linked to a live radio broadcast. Other activities have been more
mundane, such as the publication of pamphlets. This has thrown up certain
strange results. eg a pamphlet written by someone else was criticised as
being a result of me taking too much acid in my youth!!!

This has a relationship to the discussion on free speech, in that the
multiple name project aims to create a new relationship between the speaker
and what is spoken. A lot of debate has been around speech acts being seen
as completely seperate from  other acts. If you feel your sense of reality
has been toyed with, this precisely confirms what I have been saying.

When I write about a woman being confronted by racist graffitti on the
Docklands light Railway, I am writing about my experience. You have no way
of confirming this. (I suppose I could refer you to ther people on the list
who know the individual - but they could also be trying to delude you.) In
the end all we have is intermeshing pieces of text which hopefully
stimulate our minds so that we find things in our daily lives easier to
think about with and cope with.

You may consider that the LBMNP is simply a method by which its
perpetrators can give themselves a false sense of superiority by trciking
people and then relishing their dismay when they discover things are not as
they seem. You may consider it a serious attempt to deal with how the
modern sense of identity is being transformed, and what the political
ramifications are for the class struggle. You may even consider it the
product of peoplke taking too much acid in their youth. You may consider it
a mixture of all three and whatever possibilities which I am sure you can
imagine yourself. However, whatever you choose, it is very unlikely that
you will ever be able to get an adequate verification. In the absence of
that possibility, people usually prefer those assumptions which fit their
world view most easily.

In truth, I am not myself sure where the LBMNP will lead.

>  While on the subject of flaming etc, however, i just want to say that
>I did not raise the question of the *Zaps* connection with the Catholic
>church.  I raised the question of American leftist nonbelievers carrying
>crosses in a NYC demonstration. Those are different, if related, issues.
>  Peace,
>  Katha


I thought this was a good point.

http://www.unpopular.demon.co.uk
http://www.dsnet.it/qwerg/blissett/bliss0.htm
http://www.skatta.demon.co.uk
http://www.geocities.com/~johngray




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