Date: Tue, 28 Apr 1998 23:11:58 +0000 From: vladimir bilenkin <achekhov-AT-unity.ncsu.edu> Subject: M-G: On dead souls, etc. 1. The Spoons and Hans have made a sound decision. Instead of supporting one list with no limit on posts and one list with one post limit they decided to support one list with no limit on posts. 2. I want Rolf, Hugh and other upholders of sacred principles to answer one simple question: who will protect them, how, and against whom? 3. This group of upholders claims or implies to represent the interests of the silent majority. What is the foundation of this claim? Did they get some private correspondence from 100 or so subscribers, most of whom never posted a single message on this list, with a request to represent their interests in deciding where to move the list and how to administer it? If they did I request that they make this correspondence public. If they do not have any proof of this kind we must see them as representing only themselves. 4. In his last post, Rolf produced a remarkable piece of calculation. He suggested that since about a dozen of our subscribers (among them there were at least two fake addresses) spoke up against the recent one-post-a-day kick in the ass from the Spoons and Hans-- we can safely add to them a hundred of subscribers who never spoke up against or in favor of anything. This feat of magic finally made it click in my head. I recalled Gogol's immortal masterpiece _Dead Souls_ whose protagonist Chichikov navigated Russian countryside in search of "dead souls," i.e. dead serfs who were considered alive by the "IRS" of that time until the next census. Chichikov did not have to work hard to persuade landowners to sell him these souls on the cheap. The landowners were happy to so they could avoid paying taxes on these non-existing peasants. But what was Chichikov's interest in such a ghostly business? The cheat planned to sell the dead souls as if they were alive and disappear into the thin air. Russia is big, you know. Could it be that something like trading in dead souls has been going on on this list recently, I thought, reading Hugh, Rolf, and Chris Burford. Here, for example, is what Chris wrote on Apr 27: >If thaxis is going to Utah, I do not think it is acceptable that the >decision on marxism-general should be taken by a vote of less than 10% >of the membership. We need more consensus, and more collective spirit. This is one of those passages which the pomoized academic heads love to call "undecidable." Kafka would certainly greatly appreciate its mystique. But since I am a mundane marxist who appreciates clarity I asked myself: who is the "we" of the second sentence? I immediately rejected the possibility of Chris refering to himself in the first plural. As loyal Brit, he would never usurp the privilege of the few from the Royal House. Could it be that "we" refers to thaxis and Chris, or thaxis and us, or Chris and Hans, or Chris&Hans&us and even the Spoons? It could but it would be very odd. After all, the Spoons have given us a pink slip. Hans has sent us a generous offer in which he clearly stated his respect for our right to decide. Thaxis? But I have not heard any member of thaxis claiming the right to decide on the fate of M-G qua member of thaxis. Actually, I haven't heard any member of other lists saying to us as little as 'good by' before they moved out. And so in pursuit of clarity I had to conclude that if "we" had any meaning short of metaphysical it must've refered to the dead souls of our list. Now, thanks to Gogol, this 'text' begins to make sense: Chris speaks on the behalf of the 'silent majority,' the dead souls of our mailing list, who do not find it "acceptable" for us, those 10% who are still alive, to decide how we are going to live on this list. Oh, immortal Gogol! Vladimir PS. 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