[PEN-L:11195] Re: On censorship

[Michael Eisenscher <meisenscher@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Ajit,

The question was addressed to the list, but I appreciate your response.  My
principle difference with you, I suppose, is an estimate about Karl's
willingness to be engaged.  As a union organizer, I encountered all sort of
folks in the course of a campaign.  They came to the workplace with all
their prejudices and stereotypes.  In order to create the basis of
solidarity that is fundamental to building a union, you have to start with
folks where they are when you meet them, using the experiences of the
organizing drive and struggle with the employer to draw lessons and suggest
alternative ways of viewing the world and their coworkers.  There comes a
time when a worker's prejudice and hatred may be so overwhelming and
divisive that it threatens the unity of the organization and its capacity to
act.  In those instances, you sometimes have to break off engagement in
order to keep from being paralyzed by division.  Later, under other
circumstances, it may be possible to reopen dialogue or rekindle relationships.

This list is not a workplace, however.  No ones job rides on the outcome of
the discussions here.  Yet we too can be paralyzed by division.  All the
engagement occurs in the interactions between participants.  We don't have
other ways of interacting with someone like Karl.  The choice boils down to
having to put up with his unending stream of abuse, responding to it in an
effort to change his view of the world, or putting him off the list.  The
problem with engagement in that case is that it freezes out all other topics
for discussion, since Karl seems to thrive on the attention he receives and
through his paranoid view of the world, he becomes even more self-important.
I cannot recall a single instance in which Karl indicated a willingness to
actually have a discussion over differences he had with others.  Invariably
he interpreted all criticism as a personal affront or evidence of a
conspiracy against him; in response, he merely escalated the level of his
abusiveness and arrogance.  That makes political discourse more than just
difficult.

In solidarity,
Michael



At 07:42 PM 7/7/97 -0700, Ajit Sinha wrote:
>At 01:40 PM 7/7/97 -0700, you wrote:
>  If, rather than
>>sexism, Karl had expressed equally damaging racism, would those who have
>>spoken in favor of allowing him to remain continue to be so inclined?  Karl
>>and others like him have many venues on the Internet to spew their hurtful
>>vituperation.  This list does not have to be one of them.
>>
>>
>>in solidarity,
>>Michael
>________________________
>
>If you are asking this question of me. My answer is most certainly I would
>have reacted the same way. Let me tell you a story. A few years ago at the
>URPE summer conference I attended a workshop on how to teach race and gender
>cources. A very good friend of mine (a white woman) narrated a story about a
>student in her class who was out and out and quite vocally racist. She had
>to throw this guy out of the class. I told the workshop then that she might
>have reacted that way because of being white. I would have never thrown that
>guy out of my class. You need to engage these people. Some of these people
>are loudly asking for help. They are asking for education in a
>psychologically abnormal manner. By the way, I'm a feminist. Cheers, ajit sinha
>
>