Greetings Economists,
Louis Proyect responds,
Lou,
Questions like how colonialism got started are baits of the
type that another PEN-L'er is fond of. They are not posed to generate a
serious response, but make the interrogated party look like an apostate
from Marxism. If I were to answer these sorts of questions like "How did
colonialism get started" or "Why has GDP gone up if capitalism is an
immiserating system" in the depth and breadth they deserve, I'd have no
time for anything else. Besides, the people posing the question should
answer it themself if they know the answer. And no quote-mongering from
Marx allowed. Kautsky maybe.
Doyle
I see various strains in your response which I have responded to in a more
general way recently (Collaborative work on e-lists, Thursday, June 14,
2001). But for example where you observe yourself being baited I have a
different view of what you are driving at. I see this list as any other
e-list where knowledge production is happening. And critical to that
process is shared attention. Your remark is about how attention is being
given you in a manner that feels un-comfortable and un-acceptable in a
serious knowledge production manner. So anyone could say they don't want to
feel baited and we are moving away from personalizing this to Yoshie.
I think you under theorize what knowledge production is. The exchange with
Yoshie who is really a prolific thinker is primarily about how two prolific
thinkers motivate the other to more knowledge production. In part to show
which one of you is saying something that the audience reading your replies
to each other could also begin to share over the other point of view.
One way this is under theorized in your commentaries is some conception of
the collaborative requirements of knowledge production. For example you
complain you can't answer Yoshie adequately, because you would be working
full time at just that task. So it is not so much that you are being baited
by Yoshie but you are admitting to limits of the medium. I would observe
that if you teamed up with Mark Jones to jointly produce a common work you
could increase your productive output on a paper and meet certain kinds of
demands. In other words your remark does not acknowledge increasing your
output through some kind of collaborative mechanism so that Yoshie's demands
could be met. You simply indicate they are impossible for you to meet.
So taking that a step further, I think you pose your remarks above upon the
level of what sort of knowledge production you expect, but in posing that
remark you give Yoshie or anybody no adequate explanation of how to increase
knowledge production Primarily what spurs you is your evident frustration
with people who don't share your views. You are motivated by your intense
feelings to do what you do. But you have a very confused understanding of
what exactly it is that needs to be done from the frustration you feel.
To describe this list and other similar functioning lists such as your own,
the moderator is the person who is really responsible for effective control
of the emotional climate. So that baiting or other impediments to discourse
is dealt with as the moderator sees fit. But your remarks go beyond what is
generally the function of the moderator to demand a level of production of
knowledge that can't be met by the voluntary labor involved in these lists.
You demand what I think is not in your intellectual grasp but is where the
technology is headed. Knowledge production to increase has to be more
explicitly organized around how the participants feel, gesture, and
especially collaborate. You don't acknowledge these as important issues in
your complex objections to Yoshie, so you individualize Yoshie as
responsible for more than she can accomplish. You don't seem to look at
this as a labor process to be de-personalized and made material, you instead
want other people to do more than what most people can really produce. That
is extra levels of attention.
I would see the collaborative aspects of knowledge production as where
agreement can begin to produce more and more stable output. You and Yoshie
disagree, so it would not make sense for the two of you to collaborate. Yet
is also true that Yoshie's contribution is to help you raise your emotional
motivation resulting in more output to a higher level able to surmount
whatever thoughts she can throw at you. And that is a not inconsiderable
contribution to your work. I would though wonder why your process of
intellectual production reflects so little collaborative process in your
postings. That is you seldom have a byline that indicates a team effort. A
socialistic grasp of the communal character of knowledge production. Of
course many of us have little in the way of social networks to utilize in
regard to my point about a team response to Yoshie so I want this taken as
not a personal remark directed at you, Louis Proyect, as much as an
observation about the limitations of e-mail lists.
thanks,
Doyle Saylor
