Date: Wed, 31 Dec 1997 18:35:05 -0800 (PST)
From: MATTHEW FRANCIS WETTLAUFER <mattw-AT-sfsu.edu>
Subject: Re: presentation, representation


Arturo,  

There are many ways to be political or to be engaged--I spent five years
working in El Salvador as a part of my political committment.  I don't
take your criticisms of this group lightly when you take issue with us
because for you our political discussions are phony.  That's short-sighted
of you to narrow down the parameters of what is political and what is not.

Being frustrated with the way the world is fine--say so.  But don't go
about attacking people on this list.  You'll only end up making a lot of
enemies.  Perhaps that is a form of political engagement, but I would
suggest it is an impoverished one.

Matthew Wettlaufer

 On Wed, 31 Dec 1997, Arturo Cherbowski
wrote:

> > Dear Arturo:
> > Given your extreme antipathy for these discussions, one has to wonder why
> > you persist in participating, or, for that matter, in reading all those
> > pretentious books published by pretentious presses like Routledge. On the
> > one hand, the tone and rhetorical address of your remarks seem to indicate
> > that you want to have a voice that counts within an intellectual community,
> > if only to remind us how ridiculous we seem to you. Don't be surprised if
> > we don't find that very interesting. On the other hand, read in tandem with
> > the expletives and concluding exhortation to a violent if clichéd sort of
> > vita activa, your persistance bears the symptoms of some sort of
> > masochistic relationship or fantasy. There are no doubt professionals who
> > can help you with that. I'm afraid this discussion probably cannot.
> > -Alan Smith
>
>
> I read and write these posts precisely for the reasons I say I do. . .
> as a distraction, a way to pass time or procrastinate, sheer
> entertainment (about as good or bad as a "Brady Bunch " re-run) . . .
> believe it or not I have fun (at least sometimes). . . not everybody
> that posts seems ridiculous to me. . . if you had read carefully (which
> I would expect a self-styled intellectual, part of an "intellectual"
> community, to do) you would have realized that I attack only those who
> take this sort of thing.seriously as a form of politics or as somehow
> part and parcel of strugle and resistance. . . now for an intellectual
> such as yourself, participating in a group on Lyotard nonetheless, I do
> find it almost painful and hence gratifying to my masochism to point out
> some of the most basic uncritical stupidities betrayed by your ad
> hominem attack. . . Who is the "we" that you keep refering to in your
> post ? I see only one name or signature. . .and what about that
> pathologizing move at the end ? do you consider anything and everything
> that is distasteful to you, or threatening or unlike yourself, deviant
> and thus in need of "normalization" ?  I could go on and on but what YOU
> write here is so childish and stupid (and notice carefully I mean you --
> Alan Smith) in so many ways that more than this would no longer really
> be entertaining. . . as for fantasy and masochism (are you taking an
> undergrad. intro. psych class or something like that because it sure
> sounds like it ? ) both seem to me to be very healthy in such a
> pathological world. . . a world so pathological that somebody like you
> is probably considered normel
>