jbml thln_003 (Jonathan) Here are two mistakes ...


HERE
ARE TWO MISTAKES
I've made,
one about e-mail in particular and one about the Internet:
First, some years ago (as early as the late 1980s, I think) when, through our friend Ari Davidow who moderated the first "Jewish discussion group" on the WELL, one of the first "electronic bulletin boards," I first became acquainted with both e-mail & online discussion groups, I was briefly excited at the possibility that here was a genuinely new medium for participatory democracy.

IT STRUCK ME THAT ONE OF THE MAJOR PROBLEMS WITH EXISTING DEMOCRATIC STRUCTURES IS THAT THEY ARE RARELY DESIGNED SO THAT IMPORTANT DECISIONS ARE MADE BY THAT SET OF PEOPLE WHOM THEY AFFECT
(as opposed, for example, to those formally authorized to take part in whatever deliberate decision-making occurs at the level of a state, with regard to whatever matters have historically come within the purview of that state).

It wouldn't, I thought, have meant that everyone would have to be involved in every decision, but rather that flexible enough discussion groups could be created so that decisions (let's say, with respect to sustainable ocean harvests) could be made by "bodies" of electronic correspondents with an interest in the outcome of those sets of decisions. Why I would denigrate this now as an out-and-out "mistake" is, first, that the vision assumes a collective rather than selfish interest on the part of every (or at least a sufficient plurality) of participants, and that it assumes a distribution of power, that is of the means of coercion, commensurate with the distribution of the means of articulation. But perhaps here is a germ of a vision (of course I don't suppose I'm the only one who's had it) to respond to your challenge that we think differently than "the cozy habits of hegemony that deny the unbalanced symmetry inherent in relationship."

Second, at a time I can no longer specify, at the Center for Studies of Social Change at the New School, in response to a question after some guest lecture I gave, I denied that the Internet was a place of significant formation of personal identities. Perhaps I was thinking of the pseudonymous "tags" of some Internet correspondents, and thinking of them as merely epiphenomenal; more likely, I suppose, I was intent on defending face-to-face encounters as the place where "true" identities are created and sustained.
[!]
Mor
kreeg ZíJN
'avatar'/tag 'Mordechai'
na aangekomen te zijn uit Elji/Petra
in Rabath Ammon/Philadelphia i/h begin v/d Zesdaagse oor-
log in de tweede week van juni '67 met 'n grote Mercedes geflankeerd door twee besnorde pistolero's vanaf Ma'an:
Um Kalthum kei-luid gedurende de hele tocht door de woestijn met nog wat soortgelijke warsongs about Urduniya die me nooit
meer ontschoten zijn ~ 't zal dus wel een diepe indruk hebben gemaakt op dat nl-'dienstweigenaartje' zoals de Drenten 't noemden:
24 maanden 'kamp' om blad te harken tegen de wind in & stencils te tikken voor bijzondere jeugdzorg in Holland!
Vier maanden Israël hadden me nogal nieuwsgierig gemaakt naar 'de andere kant van de grens':
ik probeerde zelfs via De'era @ Syria & Iraq naar Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan & India te liften
nog helemaal niet vermoedend dat ik in '68/'69 nogmaals naar India zou gaan
& zelfs door naar Nippon & Birobeidjan met op 'n stationnetje middenin
Siberia á la Hulshorst Yiddische kranten wegens
Stalins ideaal van 'n
joodse thuisstaat
aldaar.

Rare tijden
~~~~~
OK!
03 mrt 2013 - bewerkt op 04 mrt 2013 - meld ongepast verhaal
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