File spoon-archives/marxism-general.archive/marxism-general_1998/marxism-general.9804, message 123


Date: Sat, 25 Apr 1998 23:50:21 +0100
From: Chris Burford <cburford-AT-gn.apc.org>
Subject: Re: M-G: The future of Marxism space


I support what I see as the main political thrust of the proposals coming
out on m-general. I understand these to be calling for a sort of united
front of progressive people willing to further the understanding of marxism
and its application, hopefully in a practical way, to the struggles in the
world. 

Within that, it is inevitable that people will have come to marxism through
different experiences and different traditions. This will involve some deep
differences of principle, but provided an effort is made to handle the
contradictions positively and people are honest about the differences,
areas of unity can grow. Even where they don't grow, the statement of a
clearly different political line can stimulate the development of a more
correct or at least a better one.

Elsewhere in marxism-space Mark has quoted "Combat Liberalism". This is not
of course correct in any absolutist sense, just because a certain
individual wrote it. It is relevant because it distilled the experience of
people in the course of the Long March, facing many hazards and challenges.
The geographical route of the Long March straggled backwards and forwards,
but the real progress was in the internal communications of the people's
army and their relationship with the population as a whole. Our course may
be similarly convoluted in cyberspace but it is still possible to make the
same sort of progress.

Out of the lessons in this text, the one most relevant to our immediate
situation, I suggest is this criticism of the "fifth" type of liberalism:

"To indulge in personal attacks, to pick quarrels, vent personal spite or
seek revenge instead of entering into an argument and struggling against
incorrect views for the sake of unity or progress or getting the work done
properly."

We have learned some serious lessons recently as a result of provocation,
whatever the motivation behind the provocation may have been. This
provocation would be successful if we tear ourselves apart with
indiscriminate counter-attacks. It is a lesson in the importance of making
focussed criticisms, and whatever the reservations, as if the person in
principle *could* respond if they could only take your point on board.

I have been very critical of two participants on marxism-general, but I
have not repeated any calls for expulsion here/  I can just see that some
of my strong complaints about the posting of material outside these lists
may be because the individuals have experience of usenet newsgroups, which
I do not, where this may be more commonplace. If so it is valuable that we
are having a discussion about different media. I would urge though that
whatever media are adopted or adapted, all participants will expect each
other to conform to some common ground rules. 

It is inevitable that a general list open to marxists of all tendencies
will be contested space and that will be a major factor promoting its
vitality so long as the contest is in terms of the quality and relevance of
the posts. I think there will have to be volume limits, not least to be
fair to subscribers in the third world and other private subscribers. But
if all participants could be self-disciplined it should be possible to
argue persuasively for a quota more than one post a day. I would have
thought this could go up to three posts a day routinely, with the provision
of bringing it down to 2 or 1 as an emergency measure to damp down the
exponential nature of a flame war between just a few participants, when
that becomes necessary, but still without resorting to moderation on
political line.

Sid has raised the question of what type of server. The relative pros and
cons of different sites need to be debated. What we are looking for is a
reasonably independent sort of trust body, sympathetic to the broad
political aims of the project but understanding the range of views that
will get represented. We will never get perfect security, but the sense of
trust in the body will be important.

Chris Burford

London.





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