Date: Sun, 6 Apr 1997 11:29:57 -0400 (EDT)
From: louisgodena-AT-ids.net (Louis R Godena)
Subject: M-I: Re: fiascos





The truth is,  people "succeed" or "fail" in cyberspace for much the same
reasons they do in real life.    A mailing list,  regardless of how
carefully constructed or judiciously moderated,  is still,  after all,  only
a mailing list.    It exists for the exchange of ideas,  to meet new people,
and,  in the best of all worlds,  to unite the possibilities of cyberspace
with reality.

Period.

Marxism-international cannot collectively atone for all the warts and
idiocies exhibited by its individual members.   It cannot by itself animate
dysfunctional people or ideas,  ameliorate the pain of lost youth,  nor
render the mundane compelling.     It cannot,  sadly,  relieve us of the
tiresome obligation to think for ourselves or to take responsibility for our
mistakess.    Marxism-international is here precisely for the reasons
outlined in its prospectus.

No more,  no less.

It may well be that those who people our little corner of Spoons have
temporarily run out of ideas or the energy to exposit them,  or both.
And,  of course,  there are always the lurking demands of real life.    At
times like this,  yes, we do get more from those whose contributions run to
the rote, the mundane,  the rehearsed,  day-in,  day-out,  regardless of the
topic,  those for whom it is a question of too much time and too little
common sense.    So be it.   Nature abhors a vacuum,  does it not?    

I wish Lou Proyect well.   Same for Gary,  Scott and whoever.   It may well
be that a "closed" list (or at least one more closely moderated) will
provide them with a forum with which they can feel at home.   I must confess
to never having read Ginsberg,  Ellen Wood,  or *Monthly Review*.    Add
this to that ever - lengthening manifest of books,  magazines and people
that will never make my acqaintance,  to the detriment of both of us,  I am
sure.    I am not sure what a mailing list based on any of them would look
like.    Not much like ours,  I would assume. 

In the meantime,  I for one do not see much future in personalities or lists
or parties who count as one of their main tasks the speedy expulsion of
dissentient personalities or ideas.    I,  too,  am a believer in the
precepts governing Rousseau's General Will -- the good of the majority.
Individualism is an oligarchic doctrine.    Nevertheless,
marxism-international will continue as an open list with a minimal set of
rules that facilitate discussion along lines determined largely *by the
participants themselves*.    We will never exist merely to provide vicarious
satisfaction for those whose main focus is on their "enemies" on this or any
other list and whose main goal in politics is tje winning of  pyrrhic
"victories" over the ghosts of their former selves.

Louis Godena,
moderator



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