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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