Was Fluxus democratic? From what I have read, and I really have not read much about any organizational meetings among the Fluxus artists, Fluxus was a very decentralized process, with people developing concerts, collections, books as they would, with out recourse to a higher governing body or submitting things to vote. Obviously Macinuas wanted to be charge, but he didn't own Fluxus, did not hold a copyright to the name Fluxus (as far as I know) nor was he in complete charge all Fluxus activities.
FluxList is not democratic. There is a listowner(s) who hold the password to control the membership and attributes of the list. Nowhere has a FluxList Constitution been set up to establish laws/rules to vote on anything. The ongoing evolution of the FluxList Box #2 is a case in point. It has not been a democratic process: it has been an open debate in which a general consensus will be arrived at sooner or later, like the first box. People will assume roles and functions as they want. Was there ever a vote about anything in the first box? I remember agreeing that such-and-such was a good idea or not, and certainly someone may tally up responses to the list, but that is not voting. Democracy, in any complex form, demands a set of Laws that structure how the democracy will function. We do not have those Laws in FluxList, besides what is decided by the listowner, and I do not think those Laws existed in Fluxus. Is this a bad thing? Should FluxList be a democracy? In my opinion, no. It's an email discussion group, and as such there should be a listowner with certain powers of control over the list. I've been on many lists over the past 11-12 years and this seems to be best way to run a list. I do not see anything wrong with how the few people who have been kicked off the list, given that they were at least warned by the listowner about why they were being expelled. -Josh Ronsen in Austin, Texas Need a new email address that people can remember Check out the new EudoraMail at http://www.eudoramail.com
