Date: Mon, 3 Nov 1997 11:15:43 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Re: new list members, about rules


At 06:59 PM 11/3/97 EET+200, Jukka Laari wrote:
>It surely seems that Juan Inigo woke up the moment his name had been 
>taken up on the list: he tried to "zubscribe", and I will do it. 

Many of us here were on the receiving as well as giving end of Juan's polemics.
I'll bet he was a hell of a lot harsher on me than he was on Steve Keen.
The only one who got insulted worse than me was Lou Proyect, who in turn was
just as much a flamer as I.  However, I nominated Juan for this list,
because, in spite of our disagreements, I find him theoretically
sophisticated and his view is original enough that we could learn from it,
to the extent that we succeed in deciphering it.  Also, I was thinking about
Juan, how much crap he has to suffer in filtering out all the trash from
marxism-thaxis and perhaps other lists, and that perhaps marxism-theory
might be more worthwhile an investment for him as a theorist.

Also, to my recollection Juan entered the original marxism (or was it
marxism2?) list at the moment when it was already in a highly polemical
state.  So why not after all give us a taste of our own medicine?

>Thirdly, Steve mentioned the problem of flame wars. Rightly so, this 
>list ain't intended for that kind of waste of bandwidth. I'll do my 
>best that the list won't turn out to be a sewer. 

I hope Jukka has kept in mind another reason for having a closed list, which
is a question of content more than form.  One invites people on this list
that one thinks will have a substantive intellectual contribution to make,
and filter out some of the cranks, dogmatists, and other sterile influences
that just take us round in circles.  Experience has shown that Stalinists,
Trotskyists, the Red Orange wankers from Syracuse, and others, have a
deleterious effect on these lists regardless of the presence or absence of
nasty words or invective, because of what they have to say, not just how
they say it.  The marxism-and-sciences list was the worst, a complete
disgrace to Lisa's memory.  Hence participants to this closed list should be
prejudicially screened for content as well as form.  Juan can flame me all
he likes, and I may radically disagree with him on the issue of Marx and
philosophy, but I do believe his contribution can be productive, in a way
that Chatterjee, Rodwell, Godena, and certain other alien life forms cannot.

As for me, I'll try to be a good boy.  After all, I'm even nastier to my
friends than to my enemies, as Justin, Hans, Rakesh and many others can
attest.  But I still have death and thaxis, so I'll save my teasing of
Justin for thaxis posts (knowing I can't hurt his feelings, because he's an
analytical philosopher).  Just remember, if socialism means I have to start
being nice to people, you can keep your revolution.