From: cbcox-AT-rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu (Carrol Cox)
Subject: Re: M-I: Re: fiascos. YES to louis g
Date: Sun, 6 Apr 1997 10:45:47 -0500 (CDT)


    (still in mehitabel mode) I have seen no better summing up of the
essential parameters of any maillist than that of louis g copied
below. i rather suspect that any maillist designed to keep out
anyone's favorite junk poster will also be a dead list.

    Carrol
>
>
>
> 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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