Subject: [HAB:] The habermas list - PLEASE READ
Date: Fri, 26 Nov 2004 12:43:39 -0500 (EST)


Dear All,

This is to let you know that in about two weeks I intend to close down the
habermas list.  This decision is part of a wider set of decisions having to do 
with the present circumstances of the Spoon Collective - which, as you 
probably know, has been running this list. 

The Spoon Collective, of which I am the sole surviving founder, has been 
operating continually for over 10 years.  Of the 8 people who currently 
constitute it, 3 have been in it basically from the very beginning, and almost 
all the others for almost as long.  

When the Spoon Collective was originally created, a crucial aspect of its life
was our own passionate involvement in the lists we created or took over.  
As  vehicles for bringing into mutual contact and confrontation thinking 
people from all over the computerized world - people from astoundingly 
different walks of life and with astoundingly different ways of thinking, 
but with a shared passion for more accurate perception and deeper understanding
- these lists seemed to us to present a stupendous potential for evolving 
new modes of thought and new modes of life.  And it is essential to note that 
when we were motivated by a thirst for new modes of thought and life, it was 
for _ourselves_ that we wanted them.  Our project was not about providing a 
public or academic or political service, discharging a societal duty, or 
providing platforms for this or that political organization or orientation - 
rather, it was about changing life - the life we think and live - right at the
present moment.

Over the years, however, our relationship with our lists gradually changed,
and we now find our collective endeavor basically reduced to an indifferent
performance of a not-excessively-bothersome piece of labor.  The reasons for 
this are undoubtedly complex - the first and simplest one, perhaps, being that 
the same group of people has been doing the same thing for 10 years.  If our
goal had been less the stability of existing lists and more the preservation
of our own passion, we probably could have done better.  In any case, we find
ourselves a bunch of burnt out and apathetic bureaucrats.

I personally find thie prolongation of this situation no longer tolerable or 
sensical.  As a result, I have (1) announced that I am quitting the Spoon 
Collective; (2) decided to close down a number of lists that I have been 
responsible for; and (3) declared the end of the Spoon Collective as a
certain historic formation, and stipulated that the name no longer be used for
whatever the present members may undertake in the future.

I, of course, cannot judge the value of any particular list from any
perspective but my own - and neither would I want to.  Only each of you can
decide whether you value this list enough to step in and recreate it somewhere
else.  If any of you wants to do this, I can make available to you a copy
of the subscription list, a tarred and gzipped copy of the archive, and 
software support for a smooth transition.  The present list will stop operating
around December 10th.

A number of the other members of Spoon have expressed an interest in either
continuing their present lists or initiating other collective projects at
Virginia.  We very much hope that no matter what develops, the Spoon archives, 
which, in large part, constitute an eminently useful and fascinating resource, 
can continue to be housed in their present location.  In addition, a copy 
of the archives is being installed at the domain driftline.org, where they 
will soon be accessible over the Web.  If anybody would like to house 
additional copies of the full or individual archives elsewhere, this would 
of course increase the goodness.


Yours,
-malgosia


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