[Inquiry] Re: And Passing Away

[Jon Awbrey]

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APA.  Note 9

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GR = Gary Richmond
JA = Jon Awbrey

Re: APA 8.  http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2005-December/003331.html
In: APA.    http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2005-December/thread.html#3307

... and tomorrow ...

Gary, Peirce List,

I think it's pretty obvious that no significant dialogue,
much less any close reading of Peirce texts, and far much
less any sort of genuine inquiry can take place under the
currect conditions of shackletude.  I know that many people
still labor under the illusion that one person's shackles do
not actually apply to them, but it takes a while to see that.
I will hang about for a little while longer because there are
a few people whom I still have enjoyable discussions with, but
you know where to find me if you want to pursue anything fully.

Residual comments interspersed below.

JA: Maybe we should cast an eye or two or three to the self-fullfilling policy
    that says that disciplines cannot be developed through in depth discussions
    in public view, and ask who polices that policy, and why, no matter what gnu
    fangled gee-gaws come down the pike.  Is it not more like that oo deferral of
    responsibility, that same old gambit that renders all questing purely academic?

GR: In consideration of the Peirce forum, for example, one might reflect on this at:

    http://members.door.net/arisbe/menu/people/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm

JA: I've read it.  It seems a little outdated, but that is not my concern.

GR: Well, perhaps it ought to be your concern, either to critique
    it (update it, etc.) or to see if you can play by reasonable
    and democratic principles of list discussion (I would think
    that it would help if everyone here discussed more and did
    less of other things, e.g., judge, pontificate, deliver
    monologues, etc.)

I guess the word "concern" has many meanings.

I just meant that it's obviously not my business to correct it,
critique it, update it, etc.  I think this is probably one of
those "no use critiquing what you have no conrol over" types
of issues that Peirce often mentions.

As far as democratic and reasonable principles go, I think that the recent
actions of the "Owner/Manager" (O/M) have probably corrected your illusions
about that, but just in case actions do not really speak as articulately as
words, however loudly, let me just give you my present reading of the matter.

The internet address and associated computational facility commonly known
as the "Peirce Forum" (PF) is not some kind of democratic community with
the the O/M as it is elective leader.

The PF is a piece of property with the O/M as its Owner/Manager.

If you think back through the history of the Internet/Web (I/W),
you'll realize that there is nothing very accidental about this.
The I/W was originally conceived and designed largely in the
"military-industrial complex" (MIC) think tanks of the U.S.
and Swiss, the world's champions of capitalist philosophy.
The fact that it was incubated in and around universities
probably still gives it some residue of intellectual cachet --
recall what happened to the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) --
but this is just the ordinary way that the MIC capitalizes on
a lot of discretionary spirit and comparatively cheap labor in
the otherwise prohibitively expensive start-up phases of any new
and risky enterprise.  If you look around, though, you'll notice
that everything is proceeding down the usual paths of incremental
commercialization and centralized control, which is not a shok if
only you grok that the usual dynamics are calling the shots/slots.

Okay, not important, nothing new, not really our business, anyway.

Back on the Old Arisbe Home Front, though, it means that the PF is
a piece of property that remains the property of the O/M, until such
time as the O/M transfers O-ship or M-ment to another person or concern.
Legally speaking, the PF is on a par with a burger franchise, a billboard
on a farmer's property, or a private country club.

The O/M is under no obliagation to make the PF "democratic", "rational",
or anything else not required by applicable statutes.  The O/M, depending
on the status of the PF with regard to using public monies or federal funds,
can impose a dress code, restrict membership to people of a particular faith,
etc., etc. etc.

Some may be distressed that the ardent professions of O/M Philosophy
that are posted at the PF web site are discrepant in a host of ways
too numerous to mention with the actual practices of the O/M, but
these professions of Philosophy have nothing that approaches the
status of contractual provisions or even advertising claims, and
the O/M is under no obligation to reconcile their divergences
from practice with the practices thereof.  They are a form
of Free Speech, analogous to other amusing or horrorfying
fictions, government-bought news reports, or what the
business concerns that lease the billboard from the
farmer may post thereon, limited only by community
standards of decency of the most minimal nature.

I hope that this helps to dispense with a number of illusions
that might otherwise obstruct our capacity to inquire further
into the generic problems that we have been trying to address.

But, as you know, I weary quickly, and must break off for now.

Jon Awbrey

GR: You continued.

> In my life I have discovered, always the hard way, that it's pointless
> to argue with certain categories of people.  I will not divert you with
> an up-to-date list, but merely give you the list as it stood when I went
> off to college:
>
>    1.  Infants
>    2.  Parents
>    3.  School Principals
>    4.  Persons Acting 'In Loco Parentis'
>    5.  Members of the Texas Highway Patrol

Well, most of us on the list seem to be out of high school now and play 
by adult rules--pragmatists would like to suggest that WE even make the 
rules, that the principles (a better word than rules in this matter) are 
REASONABLE as WE see it, etc. But for some ANY rules, even OUR rules, 
are anathema. Democracy sucks, anarchy rules, OUR will means nothing, MY 
will is everything, etc. Now that really is adolescent (although some 
noble poetic souls like Nietzsche would seem to argue for this kind of 
non-policy, non-democracy, non-dialogic, non-collaboration, etc., while 
I've have shown my clear preference for Walt Whitman and the like, not 
to say that I wasn't under Nietzsche's spell for several years. . .). 
You wrote:

> The same order of experience has taught me that discussion
> of a list's policy on that list involves people in several
> types of Rustler's Paradoxes, and so I have no plans to go
> down that road at any speed.  We cannot spend all our time
> in meta*discussions, and I would not be spending this much
> if several more productive avenues of inquiry had not been
> barricaded of late by the Texas Information Highway Patrol.

This sort of "meta-discussion" is not at all inappropriate when certain 
tensions suggest that there is a need for the consideration of these 
matters at that "meta-level." It seems to have come to that.

> JA: In my experience, the manager of any discussion forum, and
>     I say this quite generally with respect to the sample that
>     I have known so far, never participates in that forum on a
>     par with the other participants, and never as anything but
>     the manager.  All statements of the manager have the force
>     of directives, not items up for discussion, and pretending
>     otherwise is just pretending.  I guess it's fun to pretend.

It is not absolutely true in my experience that "the manager of [a] 
discussion forum. . . never participates in that forum on a par with
the other participants." For prime example, John Sowa is a regular 
participant on a par with the others at the CG forum. You continued:

> All statements of the manager have the force
> of directives, not items up for discussion, and pretending
> otherwise is just pretending.  I guess it's fun to pretend.

I would maintain that this is not so, and that if the will of this forum were to,
for example (and as opposed to the statement regarding this matter in principle
on the Peirce-l page at Arisbe) to decide that it was important to, say, limit
the number of messages any participant might post on any given day (hypothetically,
perhaps, because the list had suddenly swollen from several hundred to a thousand --
now THAT's dreaming!) that the list manager would be moved by the reasonableness
of their suggestion to modify his policy.  That seems to me in line with the
general tendency of pragmatism. You concluded:

> That is the last that I will say on that, as my real point,
> and my long-term concern, is really much broader than that,
> but I see that I'll have to make more effort to sharpen it.

Well, it may be the last time that you expect to express yourself on 
this matter Jon, but the last word has not been said by US.  In the 
meanwhile, I would think that "more effort to sharpen" anything being 
said on this list would be well worth the effort by anyone here.

Best,

Gary

Jon Awbrey wrote:
>
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>
>APA.  Note 8
>
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>
>GR = Gary Richmond
>JA = Jon Awbrey
>
>Re: APA 7.  http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2005-December/003330.html
>In: APA.    http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2005-December/thread.html#3307
>
>JA: Maybe we should cast an eye or two or three to the self-fullfilling policy
>    that says that disciplines cannot be developed through in depth discussions
>    in public view, and ask who polices that policy, and why, no matter what gnu
>    fangled gee-gaws come down the pike.  Is it not more like that oo deferral of
>    responsibility, that same old gambit that renders all questing purely academic?
>
>GR: In consideration of the Peirce forum, for example, one might reflect on this at:
>    http://members.door.net/arisbe/menu/people/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm:
>
>Gary,
>
>I've read it.  It seems a little outdated, but that is not my concern.
>In my life I have discovered, always the hard way, that it's pointless
>to argue with certain categories of people.  I will not divert you with
>an up-to-date list, but merely give you the list as it stood when I went
>off to college:
>
>   1.  Infants
>   2.  Parents
>   3.  School Principals
>   4.  Persons Acting 'In Loco Parentis'
>   5.  Members of the Texas Highway Patrol
>
>The same order of experience has taught me that discussion
>of a list's policy on that list involves people in several
>types of Rustler's Paradoxes, and so I have no plans to go
>down that road at any speed.  We cannot spend all our time
>in meta*discussions, and I would not be spending this much
>if several more productive avenues of inquiry had not been
>barricaded of late by the Texas Information Highway Patrol.
>
>In my experience, the manager of any discussion forum, and
>I say this quite generally with respect to the sample that
>I have known so far, never participates in that forum on a
>par with the other participants, and never as anything but
>the manager.  All statements of the manager have the force
>of directives, not items up for discussion, and pretending
>otherwise is just pretending.  I guess it's fun to pretend.
>
>That is the last that I will say on that, as my real point,
>and my long-term concern, is really much broader than that,
>but I see that I'll have to make more effort to sharpen it.
>
>But tomorrow ...
>
>Jon Awbrey

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inquiry e-lab: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/
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