Date: Tue, 8 Aug 1995 18:53:31 -0400 (EDT)
From: Spoon Collective <spoons-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU>
Subject: About the L*stserv (fwd)


---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 08 Aug 95 17:44:00 CDT
From: Hastings, Waller <hastingw-AT-wolf.northern.edu>
To: owner-postcolonial-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU
Subject: About the L*stserv

Rhonda Frederick says:
> YOU make the l*stserv!!!  If something is not on it, it's because YOU 
> haven't posted it!!  If you're all MOO'd out, post something else.  If 
> you're tired of hearing from Robert or John or whoever else, say so and 
> INTRODUCE ANOTHER TOPIC!!!!!

     One problem is that I am willing to confess great ignorance (this 
is a Gethenian boast, but an academic faux pas) so that I am not sure 
just what I want to ask - I am looking to be educated a bit more on the
kinds of things people here are interested in first.
     The other problem is that I have, in a sense, introduced another 
topic - or rather I tried to pick up on a topic raised by the South
African post-er to whom I was originally responding.  That is, to what
extent does infatuation with the Internet and the supposedly (and I 
must stress that SUPPOSEDLY) democratic potential of the Net obscure a
kind of self-indulgence that lets people ignore real issues of empowerment 
or lack thereof, as well as North American cultural imperialism.  Most 
subscribers to any list come from the "developed" world, and frame their
questions in regard to issues they see as important - without particular
regard to the priorities of other parts of the world.
     This is not a concept that originates with me.  In some regards, it
is a summary/reinterpretation of comments made by Lester Faigley at the 
Wyoming English Conference in June.  However, I had already been somewhat 
concerned by a kind of blithe ignoring of the vast potential for 
disenfranchisement that the communications revolution portends.  I live in a 
state where many people lack access to telephones, let alone computers.
     It's not that you automatically have to concern yourself with issues
like who has access to computers and who doesn't.  But if you are going to
position yourselves as particularly cognoscent of "postcolonial" issues, it
might perhaps be more seemly to at least acknowledge that MOO-ing, etc., 
are communciations modalities accessible only to various elites.  And that 
might well be something that "postcolonial theory," however that will be
defined, ought to address.

wally hastings
hastingw-AT-wolf.northern.edu




     --- from list postcolonial-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---

     ------------------