File spoon-archives/baudrillard.archive/baudrillard_1998/baudrillard.9805, message 74


From: "Soren Pedersen" <speder-AT-post2.tele.dk>
Date: Thu, 14 May 1998 10:05:48 +0000
Subject: Re: "evaluation"


Malgosia wrote:

> Well, I am not sure _what_ my position is; I've been trying to figure
> this out for the longest time.  But what I am trying to say is this.
> First of all, the spoon collective has been "exercising power" all along,
> by maintaining this list.  Is unchanging, fixed allocation of creative power 
> somehow by default _within_ "democratic checks and balances", but its 
> termination or re-chanelling is not?  Secondly, to me the "public sphere"
> is something to whose maintenance we all need to contribute.  So in particular,
> if the spoons get tired of maintaining a corner of it, it seems to me very
> proper to say: "hey, we are tired of doing this, somebody please take over".
> BTW, if the "public sphere" is a matter of creating places for discussion,
> then it is quite easy to do.  I am not sure, though, how "public" this sphere
> is.  Computers do belong to either individuals or institutions.  The one this
> list is running on belongs to the U of Virginia and was probably funded
> by corporate money.  Is it "public"?  Does it become "public" by virtue of
> spoon's using it for running lists?  What kinds of lists?  How many?  It is,
> after all, _we_, the spoons, who choose which lists we want to invest our 
> energy in.  We have no notion of "equal time" and we favor stuff that we favor.
> Is this "public"?

I certainly agree that the contining existence of the public sphere 
is a responsibility of all of us. Or should I say: It ought to be! 
Isn't it exactly the forgetting of this ideology which has been the 
most serious deformation of the "real" public sphere? However, it is 
merely participation which is required, but then again, this may be 
an essential difference between the electronic public sphere (which 
does not simply exist beyond the "death" of its creator as in the 
"real" world). Perhaps we really don't disagree about anything. What 
I still find suspect, however, is the foundation for your so-called 
"evaluation". I mean, you would probably have contacted Mark the 
moderator, who would tell you that the list has regressed into a 
"flurry of personal attacts", and that would have been the end of 
this list. There's something wrong with this picture.

About the public sphere and capitalism: I don't see any conflicts 
(not yet, at least - Norris might disagree?). Capitalism did also 
contribute to the creation of the "real" public sphere insofar as 
newsletters carrying mercantilist informations (prices, etc.) 
constituted an excellent opportunity of disseminating political 
information as well. The parallel with Internet - which was not at 
all intended for political discussions, but more for the exchange of 
military and scientific information - is obvious. Of course, we all 
know how capitalism later destroyed what it once facilitated by 
turning extra-mercantilist phenomena such as journalism and politics 
in general into yet another commodity.

- Soren

   

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