Conversation and Community
Date: Tue, 12 Apr 1994 11:31:00 EDT
From: "Gerald M. Phillips, Ph.D."
Subject: Re: struggling
To: Multiple recipients of list QC-L
In-Reply-To: danf_cm AT WUGCRC.WUSTL.EDU -- Tue, 12 Apr 1994 09:23:43 -0500
Hmmm. That's why I subscribe to USA TODAY. No pretense.
Reframing is an old critic's trick. We have done it, I think, by
becoming a community. We are diverse enough so that we disagree and
we are bound by affection sufficiently to prevent mayhem.
I am normally angry, but I curb it with this group.
I normally sequester my ideas. I put copyrights on them and use them
in subsequent publications. But I share them with this group.
It is a very odd phenomenon. I am convinced that it is not happening
elsewhere.
I discussed it with Howard
Rheingold. He was amazed that we had not
met in person. I suggested that it was not necessary. I suggested that
the group had assumed an unique identity and it played some kind of role
in each of our lives. I do not know that any of us can explain. It is
not a substitute for anything. I do not get the sense that this is a
group of "loners" or troubled souls.
It is something extra. It would be wonderful to explain how it works.
_________________________________________________________________________
Date: Tue, 12 Apr 1994 13:28:00 EDT
From: "Gerald M. Phillips, Ph.D."
Subject: Re: Struggling
To: Multiple recipients of list QC-L
In-Reply-To: SVBARNG AT VCCSCENT.BITNET -- Tue, 12 Apr 1994 12:00:06 EST
>Gerry, I will give a great deal of thought to expanding my previous post.
>However, the title was choosen to suggest thast I am not at all sure what
>is going on, yet. I am not even sure that I can characterize what I mean
>in coherent terms. Surely, (don't call me surely) Dan's observations
>are a significant part of what I was getting at. But, just as surely,
>that is not the whole of it. I'll cogitate on it...TGP.
Richard McKeon noted that rhetoric is architectonic. (Frank, where are you
when we need you?) Essentially, that means we create our worlds out of
the words that surround us. Our understanding of all information is mediated
by some sort of symbols. In the Second Voyage of Gulliver, Swift brings
Gulliver into contact with the Laputans, a tribe of philosophers who sought
precision in communication and to make their talk precise carried around on
their backs the things they were mostly likely to talk about, so they could
share them with precision.
The work of Hans Vaihinger, which was fundamental both to Einstein and
Freud, argued that we life in a world of "as if." Humans live in a state
of conjecture. They act "as if" they were teleologically driven, but often
they do not know the goal. When they stumble across satisfaction or,
as Aristotle put it, "happiness," they accept it, and do not evaluate
any further.
Aristotle defined his happiness as a state of contemplation leading to
understanding. Freud defined pleasure as an absence of pain. In this
environment, I suggest, when we care to, we can live in a world of symbols
where, in our way, we can contemplate as we choose. There are no social
conventions to meet and we can disregard and move away when our interest
flags. We remain interested in the people who produce the words. They become
important to us and we endow them with identities. Whether the identities
are accurate is also irrelevant. We are architectonic. We create the
reality out of the words. Sometimes it is jarring to meet the actual
humans. Often, it is very interesting because we adjust and make them
into what we want them to be, regardless of what they are.
In fact, what they are never becomes an issue. There is remarkably little
labeling in this group. Each person has selected a persona and projects
it and we respong to TGP, Blind Lemon, The Cat, Blue Max, Ghost Dance,
and identity sufficient unto the day.
I departed C@M because I allowed myself to react in ways that bothered me.
I felt that I was being received with acid and I spewed acid in response.
I do not wish to be forced into that position again. I have nothing at
stake on these lists. I am not selling a product or a position. I want
a response from those who care to respond. I have pledged to myself that
I will not evangelize (I have nothing to evangelize for), and apparently
no one else is evangelizing either. People will say whether they agree
or disagree and they will DESCRIBE what they think rather than ARGUE
that other people MUST think their way.
This is what makes us a community, and those who participate are clearly
members of a community. When we had our "virtual basketball team," people
chimed in and played along. No one argued that it was not "appropriate"
to the list. There may have been some who were totally silent, perhaps
gone nomail, but there were no complaints. They let the players have their
game and used their discard key as they chose.
It is rare that this kind of goodwill appears, and whatever you folks
decide, I will cherish it. I have dropped in on C@M and eavesdropped.
In fact, I posted a note this morning. Oddly, it was ignored. There
were two notes posted saying the same thing I did.
Which points out the salient feature of most lists. The people on them
write because they want to talk. The participants in this group seem to
want to know what other people think and therefore we are confident, I think,
that what we write is thoughtfully received and our personhood respected.
Just for the hell of it, I am slapping a copyright on this one.
Gerald M. Phillips, Ret. ||||| Oh, don't the day seem lank and long
Dealer in magic & spells. \/ When all goes right,
'0.0' And nothing goes wrong?
Everybody should get ( v ) /
exactly what they deserve. \*/ / And wouldn't life seem exceedingly
/ \ / flat.
REAL HARD!!! / |=| With nothing whatever to grumble at?
| |
--GMP _| |_ Princess Ida, Act II
The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802.
(I get my mail at the above address. In no way do I represent them.)
Copyright USA 1994 Gerald M. Phillips All Rights Reserved
_________________________________________________________________________
Date: Mon, 29 Aug 94 18:13 EDT
From: "Gerald M. Phillips, Ph.D."
Subject: EDUPAGE 8/28/94
To: EMARAT@HARVARDA.BITNET
- - The original note follows - -
SHRINK-WRAPPED E-MAIL
Psychiatrist and sex therapist Avodah Offit, author of the current novel,
"Virtual Love," describes e-mail as "a form of communication that magnifies
the power and the immediacy of the written word. In the novel, e-mail is
like a virtual couch, a way to try to tell everything in the Joycean sense."
She says that some of her patients "have been dropped from e-mail
relationships and they are more depressed than they could possibly imagine."
(New York Times 8/28/94 Sec.3, p.7)
I am working on the article now. I would say the following.....
1. Friendships are made on the internet.
2. They have consequences.
3. They have outcomes.
The internet is conducive to friendships because it permits
1. Disclosure at will.
2. Voluntary connection.
3. Mutual consent.
4. Modulated process.
5. Dissembling through calculated and edited replies.
6. Concealment of defects.
I could go farther, but the rest of this stuff is copyrighted.
I think a great many people cleave to C@M because
1. It is where we met.
2. We had a good time and we are nostalgic for it.
3. The system was fresh and new and we felt like pioneers.
4. We were united in a cause.
The cards were stacked to create friendships out of a common interest and
shared enterprise.
Things got sticky for me when...
1. We got a couple of evangelists on both the left and the right who would
not stop haranguing.
2. I lost my cool a couple of times and said things that embarrassed me
in front of my friends. I figured, in real life I would avoid assholes
because of their appearance and smell. It was then I got the picture
of the voluntary nature of this medium.
This list has been under strain lately, because...
1. Many of us made the mistake of expecting too much from our real life
meeting.
2. Some of the regulars are preoccupied with other tasks.
3. Real life contacts have subverted virtual contacts for some.
4. We are getting repetitious.
5. We are a little xenophobic about newcomers and do not make them feel
welcome.
6. We no longer have a shared enterprise.
I don't know whether I would stick my neck out on the Joseph Campbell notion.
I do not think we are quite tribal. But we do have a shared mythology.
gmp
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