From: cbcox-AT-rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu (Carrol Cox)
Subject: Re: M-FEM: What kind of list would you like this to be?
Date: Thu, 26 Jun 1997 00:42:36 -0500 (CDT)


Renate, Zeynep,

    Lou Proyect on m-i intermittently wanted suppression of the name-
callers because he feared they chased away new people on the list. But
I think that if the potential of the internet for politics is going
to be even partially realized a growing number of people must be
willing to spend time deleting horseshit and hanging in there. I
do agree that the dreariest of all exchanges are those you mention,
shouts of "Trotskyist" Stalinist" "Menshivik" etc. But I've never been
in any human grouping--family, political, academic, merely social--that
did not contain its full share of junk.

    On the other hand, I now have the luxury of knowing that if I do
nothing for the next two hours but scan e-mail, no disaster will result,
since I am retired. And Zeynep and others who are not connected to a
campus should not underestimate the pressure under which all faculty
(except in a few elite schools, I presume) exist, a pressure inten-
sified for any faculty member who attempts an active political life.
Marx, after all, was clear enough that the "minimum required for
life" was a historical, not an absolute biological or anthropological
entity, and within a certain framework it can be real pain to have
one's politics subjected by one's friends to gentle mockery.

    But I think one might put it this way. Some comrades had to
live in tunnels for years under the B-52s. At least some of us
must learn to tolerate bullshit personally and work on discovering
methods by which it can be reduced or made more tolerable for others.
I think the old song went, "Let each stand in his [her] place."

Carrol

Renate writes:

>
> Dear Zeynep,
<snip>
>     On flaming:  I never suggested censorship. I just got tired of hearing
> 3 or 4 guys hurl "Stalinist" and "Trotskyist" at each other. It seemed not
> to go anywhere and I wasn't learning anything.  I promise you, I do not "lurk"

>     IN any case, Malgosia certainly asked the right questions.  It brought
> some of us out. Maybe we can stay out.
>     -Renate Bridenthal, History, Brooklyn College