Re: [-empyre-] Size matters?

[Mathieu O'Neil <oneil@homemail.com.au>]

On 12/08/2004, at 5:47 AM, Eryk Salvaggio wrote:
> Indeed. I can't but help to feel the same way about mailing lists, 
> where
> nothing much ever gets done, and where otherwise very brilliant 
> individuals
> "catch each other" in forms of word-game jujitsu and that's what 
> constitutes
> a "good point" or "argument." For anyone who considers me guilty, I 
> agree,
> and that is part of why I hate, hate, hate, mailing lists. I am 
> bitter! Far
> from the golden utopia that was promised to me by the Next Five Minutes
> conferences ("A global art needs a global meeting place! Global 
> Activism
> needs Global Discussion!") what we have, really, is an anonymized forum
> where general insecurity about one's masculinity asserts itself even
> stronger because of what we are supposed to be doing, the 
> communication of
> ideas: Very girly stuff, so we turn it into war.
>
> I left the mailing lists and now I wear pink shoes. If that isn't a 
> thesis
> proof then I don't know what is.
>
> -eryk


I would venture that lists (like most forms of social activity) involve 
motivations that are both self-serving (point-scoring, 
having-the-last-wording, showing-offing etc) and altruistic 
(communicating, sharing, linking, bonding etc). While some lists may 
reflect "general insecurity about one's masculinity", I don't see the 
current discussion on empyre (for example) as an example of "war". It 
seems to me that a very efficient fail-safe mechanism is in place: 
anyone who demonstrated unreasonable "aggressivity" - in the form of 
point-scoring, having-the-last-wording, showing-offing etc - would 
automatically invalidate what they are saying in the eyes of the 
others, so the possible impulse in that direction is balanced by the 
desire to remain in the community. Perhaps this is because lists have 
grown up, or (if we espouse the view that males can't help being 
aggressive) because there is a strong female presence on empyre (the 
alternative is that any form of written intellectual exchange is 
inherently aggressive and that we should all shut up - I don't know 
about wearing pink shoes, though.)

Mathieu