I am responding to Paul's message to Bill, and I notice a kind of funny
( as in strange funny, posssibly ironic "yikes"" funny") reversal in the
claim that only 4- 6 people contributed about 90% of the recent
discussion.. I need only sort my "in box " in the last few months on
this list to see how few voices have dominated the xcma-list - prior to
the 'reflexive" break and call for in house retrospection on modes of
address and respect.
So, I am curious at how or why such a shift would be deemed not
productive.
or if Paul is correct in his taxonomy of speaking subjects, has there been
a shift in the round up of "usual suspects" and, if so, why this
specific turn taking on the meta- ethics of xcma particpation is (perhaps)
being constructed as "social control, boring, or overly concerned with
rules of conduct.... is that code for "politically correct" - is that
still a bad thing in academe, apart from folks like E.D. Hirsch and the
like.
Paul Dillon wrote:
I did notice that someone opined that things weren't all that bad and I
guess I agree with that assessment. Personally I think we'll all be fine
just moving along with what brought us to subscribe to xmca to begin with.
I don't think xmca is broken and so the old adage about when to fix things
seems appropriate to me.
I don't think that xcma is broken, hardly, quite the reverse.
However, I did believe that there was a restricted mode for my
involvement as a speaker and participant. I personally have enjoyed the
range of different voices, the tentative and creative responses have been
very inspiring, I loved the poetry, the translating contributions of
Tatiania, Eugene's lovely discourse strands on dummies, and I've noticed a
kind of slowing down of the pace. more savouring I'd call it, and time to
muse, post more in"progress" work.
Now, not having access to prior nostalgia periods in the XCMA history, I
can't speak to Dale's concern that there is not as give and take, half
baked as before, but from my perspective, I'd say we are beginning to
craft some approach to the idealised mode, and I have faith that the list
will soon begin to gather its former discursive "speed"
or is that what the concern is, I hope I have interpreted this correctly.
Dale cyphert wrote:
I'll admit to long term lurking...and liberal use of my delete key...as
this conversation about tone has morphed into a call for rules...and now
a concern that not enough people are participating in the rule making
activity?
and I think there is a spirit a foot here to renew that mode of conduct
- but if folks are using the 'delete key, then that again is an
interesting comment on what xcma is supposed to be - producing..
I think that if there is some patience that this current exploration might
"yield" some riches, - after all - what is the "hurry" - and if we
deconstruct the "time is money/ talk is money" what is the actual product
of this community other than the dialogic engagement on some mutual
concerns.
Just heard over the radio - CBC - Vancouver Canada, that the official
Victoria "blossom count" nearly topped over 3.9 billion. So in the first
leap year of the millenium people are counting flowers on the West Coast -
anticipating spring - now I call that a good waste of time.
cheers
Kathryn Alexander
>I don't have much of an opinion about the discussion. It seemed
>to me that about 4-6 people contributed about 90% of that discussion. I
>really used my delete button a lot when I got back from my trip so I didn't
>read much of it.
>
>I did see that there were a number of different proposals and
>given that the number of people participating in the discussion represented
>at best 5 percent of the people subscribed to xmca, I didn't really
>take any single proposal as very representative. I admit to not having read
>completely: was there some consensus? How many consensed?
>
>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Mar 07 2000 - 17:54:14 PST