[Marxism] Re: Marxmail history

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

malgosia askanas wrote:

> Lou, I came across your "Marxmail history" page
> (http://www.columbia.edu/~lnp3/Marxmail_history.htm).  In it, you say:
>
> "Marxmail is descended from the first Marxism mailing list on the Internet,
> which was launched by the Spoons Collective in June or July of 1994, according
> to Professor Jon Beasley-Murray. Jon, Hans Ehrbar (of the U. of Utah economics
> department whose server we reside on presently) and Malgosia Askanas were 3
> members of a collective who, with the exception of Hans as far as I can
> remember, were oriented primarily to cultural studies rather than Marxism.
> They had already created a number of mailing lists for the study of Lyotard,
> Deleuze-Guattari, Foucault, etc. and thought that it would make sense to add
> one for Marx since his name came up so often in discussions."
>
> This is not really an accurate account, you know.  First of all, Hans Ehrbar
> was nowhere near the Spoon Collective in 1994; he only joined Spoon
> at the end of March 1996, when the "marxism2" list was created.

I guess I made this assumption because I really never thought much about
the composition of the Spoons Collective until major problems began to
crop up on the Marxism list. Hans was a more visible figure because he
was more closely identified with classical Marxism than the other
members of the collective.

> Secondly, we had not "created a number of mailing lists" at the time when we
> created the Marxism list; in fact the Marxism list was either the first, or
> one of the first two or three, lists we _created_; the other early Spoon lists
> -- deleuze, avant-garde, film-theory, and technology -- had predated
> the Spoon Collective, and were taken over by Spoon (which, at the time,
> consisted of Michael Current and myself).  Jon Besley-Murray, Flannon Jackson
> and Seamus Malone joined Spoon explicitly for the purpose of creating
> a Marxism list.  I also doubt that it can truthfully be said that any of the
> early Spoons were "oriented to cultural studies".

Thanks for the correction. I was under the distinct impression that all
the other lists (Foucault, Deleuze, etc.) predated the Marxism list but
I guess I was wrong. As far as the orientation of the Spoons Collective
is concerned, I had enough trouble figuring out why you chose the name
Spoons let alone trying to figure out whether you were more into Marx
rather than Nietzsche.

> I am enclosing a message I found (which went to you, among other people) 
> from
> Jan 1996, from Jon, in which he went over a bit of that history.
>
>
> -m

This is interesting even though I might have a different view on
motivations, etc. I will create a link to it from my Marxism list history.

> -------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Date: Mon, 15 Jan 1996 16:45:57 -0500 (EST)
> From: Jon Beasley-Murray <jpb8@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: "Chris, London" <100423.2040@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Cc: Bryan Alexander <bnalexan@xxxxxxxxx>, Malgosia Askanas <ma@xxxxxxxxx>,
>     Tom Condit <tomcondit@xxxxxxxxxxx>, Jerry Levy <glevy@xxxxxxxxx>,
>     Gary MacLennan <g.maclennan@xxxxxxxxxx>,
>     Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxxxxx>,
>     Lisa Rogers <eqwq.lrogers@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
>     Howie Chodos <howie@xxxxxxxx>,
>     spoon-ad <spoon-administration@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: History of marxism (co)moderation
>
> I have finally caught back up with all that's been said over the past few
> days.
>
> As often, my own way of dealing with these things will be slowly.  As I
> have said, and still think, I think that a cautious approach is
> especially appropriate for an acrimonious situation such as this one.
>
> Now, I remain (as do most of the other members of the spoon collective)
> wary of the idea of hierarchical arbitration-giving assemblies and and
> constitutions, and thus of the very notion of an "appeal."  However, I
> feel I should offer some counter-model of spoon decision making processes
> as I see them.  Essentially I think we've worked along two lines: passion
> and narrative.  Spoons has unfolded, not always neatly, often enough in
> fact acrimoniously, but certainly not according to any model, plan or
> legislation.  In that sense we've been both reactive and creative
> according to the obstacles and possibilities offered to us.  I don't
> think we've always done the right things, either individually or
> collectively, but I think we've done damn well, and pretty much done what
> we've done actively opposing the kind of positions or assumptions of
> authority we're called upon to exercise here.
>
> By passion and narrative I mean i. that we tend to follow our desires if
> sufficiently strongly expressed (according to a roughly weighted passion
> index) and ii. that when challenged we often point to our now mythic
> history or sense of history to justify ourselves.
>
> Let me now do the latter, and offer a brief-ish history of the marxism
> list and the business of its (non/co)moderation.
>
> Let this history be my attempt to provide context and sense to the
> current disputes.
>
> I was on the deleuze-guattari list, not then run by spoons (as spoons
> didn't exist).  I mentioned to the then moderator of that list, Michael
> Current, that it seemed crazy to me that one could discuss Deleuze and
> Guattari, Lacan, Derrida, Star Trek, mountain biking, feminism, anal sex,
> psychedelic drugs etc. etc. on the internet, but *not* marxism.  I
> suggested setting up a list to do this.
>
> Sometime later, when the spoons collective was formed, essentially by the
> deleuze-guattari and a couple of other lists breaking away from their
> previous homes--precisely on the issue of authoritarianism, and in
> reaction to an overbearing list owner--Michael got in touch with myself
> and with two other people (Flannon Jackson and Seamus Malone) as all
> three of us had suggested a marxism list.  Michael said that the newly
> constituted spoons now had the capability of forming lists, and that we
> should give a marxism list a go.
>
> Flannon, Seamus and I started discussing the concept of a marxism list,
> then I wrote up an info sheet (which remains remarkably unmodified to
> this date) and we were on our way.  The rest is in the archives.
>
> Now, even if we ever thought the list would be under any sort of
> "control," it soon proved that it wouldn't be.  For example, I had
> expected it to be mainly made up of people doing cultural studies who
> wanted to read a bit of Marx and the marxist tradition (ie. I expected it
> to be populated by people like me!), but in fact very few such people
> turned up and the idea of conducting a group reading of a marxist text
> soon died a sad little death.
>
> But who would be in control anyhow?  Note that from the outset there were
> always co-moderators.  The marxism list has never had a single
> moderator.  Now, it is true that neither Flannon nor Seamus were
> particularly active (this is probably a vast understatement) and I was
> the de facto moderator, but I always found this a great advantage,
> psychologically at least, that I could always sign myself merely the
> *co*moderator and therefore absolve myself from complete blame or
> responsiblity.  I felt this need all the more so as the people on the
> list turned out to be so different from myself, and for the most part so
> much more proficient and knowledgeable in Marx, the marxist tradition
> and, for that matter (and increasingly) in various parts of the working
> class movement.
>
> Although people don't too often post personal information to the list, it
> soon became clear-ish where most other people were and are coming from,
> and I felt and still feel very junior to people such as Louis, Jerry,
> Chris (to name people who'll be receiving this message) but also just
> about everyone else on the list.  However, I generally refuse to be very
> intimidated, tend not to think that anyone else has any automatic right
> to truth, and had helped to start the list to learn as much as anything
> else.  So I regarded the list as the great resource that it still is.
>
> Incidentally, Louis (who was also the list's very first trouble-maker; I
> remember feeling anguished about the arguments he was starting at
> precisely the time that I was moving down from Milwaukee to Durham, ie.
> in August of last year) also has been one of those to pick up most upon
> this feeling of junior-ness.  Our various sparrings on that (and my
> feeling that I could call him an out of touch old fart if the need
> arose), plus more recently our shared taste in fine whisky (though as I
> mentioned to Chris once, I swear that Louis actually doesn't know his
> whisky all that well) have been part of the basis of our particular
> cyber-friendship, and grounds on which I've felt able to "moderate" him,
> as it were.
>
> So both being part of a team (even if the actual team-likeness was a
> little ficticious) and feeling somewhat overwhelmed helped me survive the
> whole idea and practice of being a list moderator, whatever on earth I
> thought that meant.
>
> When Ralph turned up, however, and also following the big argument on
> marxist-feminism, which all went horribly wrong, I once more felt
> absolutely out of my element, and super-responsible for what seemed to me
> the way in which things were going downhill.  I argued with Ralph for
> some time (though *not* as a moderator--as me), but found this
> essentially exacerbated him, and was at something of my wits end,
> especially with regard to his anti-feminism.  Plus I was worried
> generally about the male, even macho, atmosphere of the list.  This was
> also fed in large part by real life conversations with feminist friends
> of mine about cyber-culture's sexism and what could be done about it.
>
> So I decided that I could do nothing about it myself, but that I would
> try and recruit a woman co-moderator.  I sent an appeal out to the list,
> to which Howie Chodos replied (and incidentally I'm a little concerned
> that he's been left out of all this--though I'm not entirely sure what
> he's up to**), and also was in touch with various other people.  One of
> these was Chris, who suggested that I ask Lisa, who'd been on Hans
> Ehrbar's _Capital_ reading list, if she'd like to be a co-moderator.  I
> have to say I was a little skeptical at the time, but wrote to her and
> suggested she lurked on the marxism list for a while, and then decide if
> she'd want to do this.
>
> [**sudden thought: I guess I've generally felt that once a moderator
> always a moderator, however inactive or apparently uninvested.  this is
> why I kept thinking of Flannon and Seamus as moderators, and still think
> of Howie as one, even though I haven't heard from him for months]
>
> Now, the innovation here was that I said to Howie and Lisa that they
> needn't worry about the technical stuff of the list at all, unless they
> wanted to.  Previously all moderators of any spoon list had automatically
> (and this was practially a rule) to be members of the collective itself,
> and thus involved technically as well as in general collective decision
> making.  But it seemed to me that the marxism list was sufficiently heavy
> traffic that it'd simply be asking too much of anyone both to read
> through all of that *and* to worry about subscriptions, technical
> problems, the archive, let alone dealing with Malgosia.  So I offered to
> do all that, to allow Howie and Lisa more time (time that I felt I no
> longer had enough of) to watch the list a little more intensely.  On the
> other hand, I didn't want to prevent them from learning the technical
> side, didn't want to give the impression that I would continue to hold
> the technical keys to power, and they were always welcome to ask
> questions or to join in on spoon discussions.
>
> But here a new concept of moderation had been (somewhat accidentally)
> invented.  Howie and Lisa were "only" to be concerned for list dynamics,
> and be prepared to complain, worry, swap mutual congratulations, argue or
> whatever with me about how the list was going--essentially to spread the
> feeling of always frustrated responsibility that goes with the practical
> lack of influence that is moderation.
>
> I'm going to break off here, as I have almost no space left on my system,
> and I'm not even sure it will let me send this stuff out.  I am going to
> try to clean some stuff up, and then later resume this narrative, and
> follow up with some more thoughts (perhaps this will be my passion
> quotient) on the current situation.
>
> Anyhow, there've been enough super-long messages.  I hope not to add too
> many from me, and to space them out a little.
>
> Take care
>
> Jon
>
> Jon Beasley-Murray
> Literature Program
> Duke University
> jpb8@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/~spoons
>
> .

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