File spoon-archives/list-proposals.archive/list-proposals_2000/list-proposals.0001, message 27


Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2000 21:34:09 +0100
From: Reg Lilly <rlilly-AT-skidmore.edu>
Subject: Re: Long, Long, Long, Post


Well, I'll try again, having accidently dispatched the last one prematurely. ..

"Nathaniel I. Cordova" wrote:
> 
> Dear All:
> 

>     I think it very apropos for a list/forum/BB on issues of subjectivity to
> deal with exactly those kinds of issues. We could have a list to do just
> that, or we could have a list that treats the issue of subjectivity broadly
> enough to encompass challenges to whatever complicity allows it to be in the
> first place, tackling directly those issues you mention. *My preference is
> for the latter.* [A bulletin board system would allow for a forum or more
> dedicated to those concerns, if those issues are seen as truly and vastly in
> opposition to a possible "business as usual" approach of academic treatment
> of subjectivity].
> 
	I think devising a system, format, regime of practices, etcetera, that would be able to be a 'big tent' while providing
some more 'intimate' or 'circumscribable' discursive spaces would be ideal.  I think large lists can be great, but what
I miss is the sort of thing that Shawn, Malgosia, Flannon and others have expressed a desire for, is some manner of
preventing discourse from sloshing around and the general and evanescent level of big-list discourse, and spawning some
for forcussed and intensive, more 'productive' activity.



> 
>     I apologize if I sounded dismissive or flippant. Let me be straight. We
> all are members of lists. We've all experienced the moment in which we see
> posts that are unrelated and just plain out of the focus, thematic area of
> the list. Unless we want a list to discuss the interconnectedness of
> everything, we do need to set boundaries. My example was no good, I saw that
> after I sent it and re-read it. This is what I meant to say:  I believe that
> exchanges on micro-practices that do not relate those practices/experiences
> to larger understandings, that do not stand in dialectical relationship to
> theory (whether pre-existent, or newly formulated) don't help as much for
> the efficacy or usefulness of the list. I don't say that members should not
> post such exchanges as "Yesterday I felt compelled to buy Palmolive liquid
> dishwashing detergent, the jingle in the commercial has been on my head all
> day long, and I felt as if I really needed this product if I want to keep a
> house well." Yes, all well and good, but what is the significance of those
> assertions in relation to the list/forum thematic? So my point was that I'd
> like to see a list that discusses substantively issues of subjectivity. That
> it creates connections and consequences of those practices, and theories,
> and accounts articulated.
> 

	No apology necessary -- I suspected there was more to your thinking on this score, but I wasn't very artful and getting
at it.

>
>     I don't see my response as a cop out.

	Ditto above.

> 
>     We could all go on, but let's not preclude the outcome of what the list
> might prove to be. 

	I admit the delicate balance to strike is between being myopically directed to predetermined results, and an openness
to the chance and accidental.  I think what I want to focus attention on is less the 'mechanics' of setting up a list,
which is really quite easy, and it's technical management, to what one might call the cognitive work that is more
difficult, more fun, and, I think, would mark the project as something more than 'nitch-listing.'

> 
> It
> might be that as I asked Malgosia, the Collective has a vision, stance, or
> goals in mind regarding effecting change they'd like to promote, and that
> further action on the part of the Collective on lists or anything else
> requires filtering through such a vision. If so, I'd like to hear it.

	The vision thing is where the action is, or isn't.


> 
>     The same applies to the questions about what and whose knowledge is
> generated, propounded, and shared. etc. I think those questions can and must
> be addressed directly in the list/forum. We must be sure to ask them and
> engage them, and encourage discussion about those issues. They are after all
> integral to the issue of subjectivity.
> 
>     I don't want to leave anyone with the impression that I do not want to
> answer any questions or challenges face on. Perhaps I have misinterpreted
> what has been meant by "effecting" in this instance. 

	No, Nathaniel, you've been more than forthcoming, and I appreciate it.  What may seem like your being keel-hauled, is
more a case of questions and issues that are constantly simmering below the surface and waiting for someone, like you,
to come along and give us, or me, a chance to raise. them.


reg

   

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