Date: Fri Jun 23 13:52:16 1995 From: Tom Blancato <tblancato-AT-envirolink.org> Subject: eng/Laurie/Jason engcubbi-AT-acs.eku.edu wrote: Yes and no. Yes, no two lists are alike, but I don't agree that a priori taxonomy are useless for those reasons. --- "a priori" taxonomies are not "fully" or "really" a priori. They are fully, or considerably, bound by the hermeneutic situation. The items of the taxonomy are derived, from what? They are clarified *out of* list engagement and thinking. Laurie wrote: The issue of unsubbing to active lists is a matter of the kind of discourse people expected to take place on the list. The truth is that very active lists and news groups develop a casual spirit among regulars that results in posts that are often off the stated topic of the group or list because people start revealing aspects of their own lives so as to know one another better. Meanwhile others subscribe to the list or group very focused on the topic and become frustrated by the off-topic community development. It's the case on the majority of lists and groups I'm familiar with. It becomes a question of the ratio of on-topic to off-topic posts. One newsgroup I follow went to a system of heading subject lines with WOTP for "warning: off topic post." The group still has to deal with the tension though because by its nature as a tv fan group for Mystery Science Theater 3000, topics that start off on-topic often lead elsewhere. That is ultimately a situation the group needs to thrash out for itself. Laurie, really shutting up this time This supports the point about the power/role of the heading. Also, it supports the idea of FPSP lists. jason wrote: why does a "list-proposal" list turn to list-death and list-killing? interesting --- Because the it's one of the cheif organizing principles in this kind of space (as to *why* that is the case, well, that's another story, an endless one). The "very being at all", or "verybeing" is an "all or nothing" approach, and it's right in there with the whole ragtag bunch: crisis (we have to *do* something, NOW!), history (and thus began the list, and it was said at that time, for undoubtedly the best of all possible reasons...), hysteria (but what if *everyone*?...), polemos (ok, it's the derrida list versus the DG list, they're the *enemies*), and what I just call "verybeing" (wherein the "very being" is called into question: i.e., at a meeting, "I disagree, but *why are you even here?*, or: a list: why does this list *exist*, as opposed to the how of a being, etc., which opens up more multiple truths, it seems to me), sexiness/action/opportunism(this just feels right right now and plays on present circumstances, i.e., exhaustion of topics, forgetting previous issues, etc.), immediate action agenda (this is what is on the table, that's off the agenda). Regards, Tom --- ************************************************************************ "It is only after one ceases to reduce public affairs to the business of dominion that the original data in the realm of human affairs will appear, or, rather, reappear, in their authentic diversity." -- Hannah Arendt Crises of the Republic; lying in politics, civil disobedience on violence, thoughts on politics, and revolution. Hannah Arendt [1st ed.] New York, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich [1972] pages 142-143 Tom Blancato tblancato-AT-envirolink.org Eyes on Violence (nonviolence and human rights monitoring in Haiti) Thoughtaction Collective (reparative justice project) 521 Main Street PO Box 495 Harmony PA 16037 412-453-0211 ------------------
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