Gee Nate, I don't know if xmca will pursue only one object, whether it be multivoicedness, chat or anything else. In this system among systems, with people coming and going, a distribution of labor that dynamically shifts among participants with the progression of messages, rules being continuously negotiated, what is a contradiction one moment is not the next. Why must we stick to one object?
(Eva, is thinking "there he goes again..." )
Perhaps it is an arbitrary constraint on the theory, an artifact (excuse me) of history. It's not necessarily anarchy, but perhaps a critical point in theory building -- where and when, as your apt quoting of Yrjö points out, something new will emerge.
Another way to think about this, is to go back to the time the xlists, in their diversity, were conjoined. Before grand unification, each could be considered with a unique object. After the unification, roughly assuming the same population of folks that constituted the initial collection of xlists, everyone was 'suddenly' communicating on one channel. Did the objects suddenly unify also?
I DO have the distinct impression that the multivoicedness of xmca will be an element re-presented in the new theory applied to this medium. And so will CHAT. Perhaps even dialectics. As for the contradiction between multivoicedness and monism, IMHO that is only a limitation of how we presently know things. Someone may well resolve the problem, with the ripple effect that we'll have some other cool problems to think about.
Cheers!
Bill Barowy, Associate Professor
Lesley College, 29 Everett Street, Cambridge, MA 02138-2790
Phone: 617-349-8168 / Fax: 617-349-8169
http://www.lesley.edu/faculty/wbarowy/Barowy.html
_______________________
"One of life's quiet excitements is to stand somewhat apart from yourself
and watch yourself softly become the author of something beautiful."
[Norman Maclean in "A river runs through it."]
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