File spoon-archives/baudrillard.archive/baudrillard_1998/baudrillard.9805, message 65


Date: Tue, 12 May 1998 15:33:12 -0400 (EDT)
From: mnunes-AT-dekalb.dc.peachnet.edu
Subject: "evaluation"


> Interesting! I'll await the Spoon collective's decision with 
> excitement. In the meantime perhaps you would be kind to elaborate on 
> the criterias that the collective is using in their evaluation.

Mostly use/disuse. this discussion came up in re: this list's (and other 
lists') lengthy silences. As far as I know, though, we're not in any real 
threat. And to further clarify: I was not suggesting that this list shut 
down. Far from it.

> 
> I'm not sure how, but this so-called "evaluation" gives me a kind of 
> uneasy feeling. A feeling that I've encountered frequently during my 
> readings of Foucault. Perhaps it has something to do with how sheer 
> exercises of power were effectively masked by recourse to euphemisms 
> such as "evaluation" and "moderation".

Fair enough. And I think what you're saying is worth further discussion.

Although I didn't intend to "discipline" anyone, in rereading my last 
post, I see that it clearly was a disciplinary move, and of a particular 
flavor. Here we have a discussion list with a "topic": Baudrillard. the 
risk of any list, of course, is that you can't control whether or not 
anyone ever posts on that topic (unless it's a closed list). That 
risk is the pleasure of a list, I believe, because it allows for all 
sorts of abberent flights and "unthinkable" associations. 

Then there's that contrary pull of "topic": the discipline of it, 
declaring what fits and what does not fit. After ignoring many, 
many posts, I tuned in and posted my post, mentioning that pass-word of 
"moderator." So why was I attempting to discipline this list? And I 
really am asking myself this question.

>From my past involvement on this list, and my lack of involvement as of 
late, I think it's safe to say that my function here has been far from 
disciplinary. I've tried to facilitate when I thought that was 
necessary, and other than that remain as a participant (silent or 
otherwise). But you raise a point about the function of power, and 
although I clearly wield no real power here (I'm a moderator in name, 
not function: I don't have the "real power" to kick people off the list, 
delete posts, etc, etc. ), I involved myself in a disciplary move. The 
kicker is (and it's a Foucauldian point, for sure): I seem to have been 
disciplining myself. Funny how "power" works, even the illusion of it.

> 
> The virtues of the "virtual" public sphere (which I have seen you 
> enumerate in various articles) might very soon drown in the same 
> disciplinary measures that have marked the historical development of 
> the "real" public sphere.

I wouldn't mind further discussing this point either. Anyone 
interested? Would In particular, following on the Foucault comments 
above, would it be worthwhile to consider Deleuze's "Postscript on the 
Societies of Control" in the context of Internet? There's an online 
version we could read.

Deleuze sees the emergence of a "society of control" post ww2, in the 
same way that Foucault identifies a disciplinary society in the 19th 
century. We might consider how Internet ties in?

And Baudrillard too, of course (hee).


--mark

   

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