ichael . benson on Sat, 19 Jun 1999 23:02:57 +0000 |
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Re: Syndicate: moral responsibility |
> your constant unfounded sarcasms betray your lust for confirmation of what > you already hold to be the truth. Lust? Now there's an idea. It is Saturday night, after all -- what the hell am I doing here? Certainly not feeling anything close to lust. But seriously, the given idea, as I understand it, of a mailing list such as this one is that it encourages an exchange of views -- contrary views, comparable views, divergent ones, etc. While I understand why, obviously, these discussions, or I should maybe say, *this* discussion, might give rise to some heat, given the circumstances, personally I think it serves some kind of purpose. I certainly don't *mean* to be overly sarcastic (though I make no apologies), and I don't mean -- I really don't mean -- to offend anyone. In fact, I would apologize if I have offended anyone. Neither myself, nor as far as I understand it Fred, has been living in a war zone. But I don't apologize for writing my "take." I would go further about these kinds of dicussions and say they are valuable because they are exactly the antithesis of war, or rather one of the few realistic antitheses of war. In the sense that, a high volume of high-level discussion and comparison of views, including disagreements that are dealt with by talking (not blasting guns, correctly loaded or not, at each other), may in fact be the only *non-utopian* (i.e., realistic) thing pointing to the possibility of a 21st Century better than this one. In the face of a lot of -- really, a lot; too many -- indicators to the contrary. Including, I'm afraid, some of what I detect (rightly? wrongly?) in Fred's implicit answer. The entirety of which I still haven't been able to really get out of him. And he would no doubt say the same about me, and use me as evidence that more conflict may lie ahead, what with my regressive attitudes, etc. The difference is he says he completely understands and knows my view. Still, again maybe that's the silver lining in the war cloud. Maybe the fact that this war, the first in human history conducted while various opinions and points and contrary ideas, and shouts of outrage and put-downs and all the rest -- and for example "insomnia" disappearing, & Bruce Sterling firing opinions from Texas, where among other things he scribbles about high-tech war -- maybe the fact that this war was hiding such a high-volume of communication inside the black smoke points to the way out, or rather *a* possible way out, of the cycle of tragedy. But on second thought, I don't really believe it. I'm curious what people might think, though. Why are there so few Bosniaks on syndicate and nettime? Is it because they don't really have any enthusiasm left to communicate with a Europe, or a world, that let them down? Or am I wrong -- are there a lot on Syndicate? As for the Kosovar Albanians, their POV has been entirely absent, this entire time, on these lists -- simply because they were on the run. And even if the Kosovars had been more of an on-line presence, had been completely wired, in the years before this fight broke out into the open, I wonder if there would have been a dialogue between them and Belgrade. I doubt it. Still, maybe there's something to the above idea anyway. Curious if anyone agrees... (bowing obsequeously, cringing in fact, like in that old Goya etching called "Two Gentlemen, Each Convinced the Other is of Higher Rank"... Crab-walking sideways to the exit... The black moon flashing darkly above). Cordially, Michael Benson <michael.benson@pristop.si> <http://www.ljudmila.org/kinetikon/> ------Syndicate mailinglist-------------------- Syndicate network for media culture and media art information and archive: http://www.v2.nl/syndicate to unsubscribe, write to <syndicate-request@aec.at> in the body of the msg: unsubscribe your@email.adress