Date: Sun, 17 Mar 1996 12:22:08 -0500 (EST)
From: Louis N Proyect <lnp3-AT-columbia.edu>
To: marxism-AT-jefferson.village.virginia.edu
Subject: Stifling discussion?


I received private mail this morning that included the following:

"But my concern with the way you intervened - not to mention the aggravation
this must be for you (ie. the damage you are self-inflicting) - is that it
appears as if you wanted to stifle any debate at all, which is not initiated
by you. From following the list for a while, I *do* *know* that this is not
the case. But then I am a somewhat sane person :-)

If I may have a word of advice for you is this: follow your own advice of
taking some time to think before you reply to a stupid post and do not reply
by flaming/insulting people. From what I have seen, generally it simply
generates more stupidities and flames."

This refers to my perhaps heavy-handed attempt to try to prevent a flame 
war between the 10 Trotskyist party members who post here on a nearly 
daily basis and the group of PCP supporters who operate as a faction on 
this list.

Here is my concern. Last month when the flame war broke out, the fall-out 
was that we lost the following subscribers who were all disgusted by the 
tendency for this sort of squabble to take over the list:

1) Justin Schwartz- He has written an important new anthology on market 
socialism for Humanities Press. Even though I disagreed with Justin's 
ideas 99% of the time, I found him a stimulating and thought-provoking voice.

2) Peter Burns SJ- Another market socialist and a Jesuit to boot. If we 
are interested in recent trends in liberation theology, what better 
opportunity to engage with it than with a flesh-and-blood (well, 
cyberspace version anyhow) supporter.

3) Paul Cockshott- A Maoist himself, Paul must have gotten nauseated by 
the crudeness and stupidity of the exchanges. Paul is a stubborn defender 
of Mao, but somebody who I have *very close* agreement with on the 
subject of a feasible socialism. Paul, by the way, never signed off his 
posts with "Death to Revisionism".

4) Ralph Dumain- A serious if somewhat mentally unstable scholar of 
Marxist philosophy. (I can get away with describing Ralph this way, since 
he has always tried to provide psychological counseling to me offline. 
Sort of the case of the blind leading the blind.)

You get the picture? These people were real assets to the list. They were 
not simply recycling Trotskyist or Maoist dogma. They were not under any 
party discipline. They were not interested in smashing their opponents. 
They were not interested in recruiting anybody to their cause.

I am determined to prevent losing anybody more. I have no influence with 
Adolpho's faction and, frankly, would dread thinking that I do. I do have 
influence with the 57 varieties of Trotskyism on this list, and I will 
promise to ease up on you kids if you promise to behave yourself.


Uncle Lou


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