This is brilliant. Consider this a second to any motion it may call for.
David Baptiste Chirot wrote:
> First--
>
> In joining any list, one is made aware of the rules and guidelines of the
> list. One enters into a contract with these in joining.
> Of course, with time and experience, one may find oneself disagreeing with
> the tenor and tenets of the list. This often happens. An interesting
> question would then be, how to work for a positive, constructive change, if
> one cares enough about the issues and events of the list--how to effect
> this--without resorting to "flaming" or to simply leaving and beginning a
> new list, which may incorporate those changes one sees fit and inviting
> others to join this.
>
> The bottom line is that one is aware from the outset of the guidelines,
> rules--and has entered into a contract of one's own volition.
>
> (Unless of course coerced by say, having to join it for a class or peer
> pressure etc)
>
> That said, the issue of the censored person--any question of censorship is
> disturbing. Two other lists I am on have had to deal with this--one
> decisively, according to its tenets, the other indecisevely, and the problem
> drags on. In that way, the flamer (as in "flaming asshole", often--: "he's
> a real flamer"--meaning this)--the flamer has accomplished her/his goal and
> made buffoons of the others. Eventually, this too leads to censorship, but
> in more hypocritical fashion.
>
> There is a Zen parable relating to this idea of "beating a dead horse":
>
> A master and his pupil are on a journey through mountainous and deeply
> forested country to an isolated temple.
> On the way, they encounter a a dangerous, rushing stream.
>
> A beautiful young woman stands at the edge of one side, with a heavy sack.
> She is afraid to cross, though she must.
>
> The master puts her atop his shoulders and carries her across. They part
> ways, she taking another path.
>
> Many miles and hours later, the pupil says to the master--"why did you pick
> up that woman? Isn't it against our vows?"
>
> The master replies: "I put the woman down at the edge of the stream. You
> have been carrying her ever since".
>
> As a child I often noticed the strange fact that very intelligent people
> often yearned to demonstrate their intelligence--whether it was of their own
> conception and self-proclamation or bolstered by "proofs" in the way of
> tests, grades, degrees and so on--
> they yearned to prove this by argumentation. Rapidly, the principles and
> questions of the arguments were abandoned, and it became a clash of
> personalities. Victory would somehow prove not only intelligence but a
> certain kind of might. "Might makes right"--"the squeaky wheel gets the
> grease"--
> And so one received one's first lessons in sophistry and rhetoric.
>
> Thinking of this question of "putting principles before personalities",
> came across an interesting quote from Kierkegaard, cited by the Surrealist
> painter Andre Masson in an essay called "Painting is a Wager" (written in
> 1941 and included in THEORIES OF MODERN ART Edited by Herschel Chipp.
> Berkeley: U Cal Press, 1968; 436-40. The Kierkegaard quote is appended as a
> note by Masson, p. 440).
>
> I think it applies well to the kind of arguments and such that employ mere
> power plays connected with personalities rather than an essay in the action
> of a generative questioning and understanding of actions, events, questions,
> examples--and lead to more thought and work rather than the excruciating
> noise of ever louder amplifiers, leading to demogogery and the like.
> (Demi-god-ery for example.)
>
> Kierkegaard:
>
> We must not take the word contradiction in the mistaken sense in
> which
> Hegel used it and which he made others and contradiction
> itself believe
> that it had a creative power.
>
> Though personally I often enjoy the "witz" as Bertrand calls them (jokes)
> and participate in them, I also, like Bertrand, joined the list hoping to
> find a continual learning and opening up of questions which are involved
> with the history and events and ideas and objects of Fluxus, and their
> relations with other art/performance questions.
> Also, one hopes to contribute to this--
>
> The agreement or disagreement is not so important as what one may find--and
> be able to make use of!
>
> Which raises the old question of the artist/maker as thief--
> or--speaking of wagers as Masson and someone on the list did--that
> famous
> wagerer Pascal's proposition that "it is not the elements that are new, but
> the order of their arrangement".
>
> Which bears on the question raised on the list of the constancy or not such
> of nature--the question entropy/negentropy.
>
> (Two good books on this are: ART AND ENTROPY by Rudolf Arnheim (U
> Cal P I forget the year, also the title I may have reversed--it
> may be
> "Entropy and Art"), and ORDER OUT OF CHAOS by Ilya
> Prigogine and
> Isabelle Stengers (New York: Bantam, 1984)
>
> Perhaps this is all by way of analogy, but hope maybe it opens some areas
> for further questioning and research and making works--
>
> --dave baptiste chirot
>
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