RE: rules proposal

From: Bill Barowy (wbarowy@mail.lesley.edu)
Date: Fri Feb 25 2000 - 11:03:05 PST


At 11:22 AM 2/25/00 -0500, Eugene Matusov wrote:
>I'm joining Mary to say that self-reflection is very beneficial on xmca.

Agreed. However, Eugene, at this point in time, I do disagree that is
sufficient. We are neither able to insist that all participants be
self-reflective, nor to hear this plea.

Rules are not necessarily oppressive: when they are developed by the
collective who will refer to them, the participants have ownership over the
rules, and may amend them. Ah! Friere.

I think of 'our rules' as mediational, and shared on a web site, they are
available for reference in times of need, and do not require a central
authority. Mike's off the hook. For example, you might write to me with
this: "Bill, I think you are being very sarcastic and we agreed to keep
that to a minimum". And if my memory needed to be jogged, you could refer
to the website. Speaking personally, I would be compelled to comply,
apologize, or at least to explain if I had agreed to such a set.

But one does not necessarily need to think of these as rules by which we
will oppress ourselves, but something also to liberate ourselves. We can
frame the context out much differently -- a charter that explains our
purposes, guidelines for interaction, our principles and priviledges.
"Mind as distributed" being among the first.

Here is a list of a "Bill of rights" (Acckkkk! NO pun intended)suggested
only as a stepping stone to something more multi-authored and
comprehensive. I'd like to think of them as applying not only to
center-stage interactions, but in response to one of Nate's posts, to the
private interactions among xmca'ers.

We have the right: to say stupid things, to ask dumb questions, to explore
genres of writing and interaction including poetry and fantastic prose, to
protest when our sensibilities are violated, to post field notes, to
violate the rules of punctuation, to mispell, to grammatically be
incorrect, to inject humor, to express sadness, to be respected for what we
know, to be aided in what we do not know, to care for each other and write
in an other's behalf, to be free of ad hominem -- interpreted widely to
include one's work achievements and field of study as well as one's person,
not to be manipulated, to be women and men and all things in between and
outside these two categories, to be teased and to tease in an
alphanumeric-appropriate way ;-) (TBD), to be able to express our beliefs,
to explore and re-present our multiculturalism, to express theories that
compete with the prominant ones, to write half-baked notes, to post in
multiple languages, to trust in each other, to be silent, to be students of
theory and apprentices at writing and reading together...



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