Re: Re: Speaking of volatility (Jones)

[Doyle Saylor <djsaylor@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Greetings Economists,
    Tom Walker writes,
Tom
What strikes me is that Doug, Michael, Yoshie and Mark offered no response
to my _programmatic_ reply to Doug. I could be utterly wrong, in which case
I would welcome the criticism. But I don't think I'm vague or obtuse. Doug
wrote (in a subsequent message) that the left "has no analytical vocabulary
for talking about 'good' times." My position is that the left "has" the
vocabulary but doesn't use it -- stubbornly refuses to use it, refuses to
even see that it is refusing to use it. I talked about how one might talk
about good times and Doug, Michael, Yoshie and Mark didn't respond. I talked
about the capitalism fun stuff -- leftism hair shirt dialectic and why that
is so. No reply. I hinted that maybe secretly leftists prefer the drama of
struggling against insurmountable odds, which basically is where I share
Doug's view. No answer.

Doyle
While what Tom wrote above is true to the point that people did not offer
answers, I think Tom is not really pointing at a failure by any of the
people above, but instead is indicating a vast area where a listserv is not
functioning.  Really Tom is indicating to what extent one can expect people
to collaborate on work toward a common project.  So if somebody doesn't
reply to one's points then that is just the way lists work, but as Tom says
one could reasonably ask why not take seriously what he has to say and in
some kind of framework come up with a programmatic reply.

Afterwards Yoshie replied she agreed with Tom and she felt it went without
saying, which I think is acknowledging how listservs function.  So I would
reply to Tom from a different perspective that the real issue Tom raises is
not so much that in this case people are not responding properly, as much as
this brings out how listservs don't function within the parameters of what
social constructing a left requires.

I don't mean to mystify this.  To me at my job the common issue of working
together jointly on projects through the web is about looking at groupware
functions.  Where instant messaging, polling, knowing when people are on
line, chat pages, white boards, audio lines, video lines, shared aps like
excel spreadsheets are all a part of the process that Tom is calling for.

To my mind if something is really neglected in left thought in these
discussions it is how to think about working together in a productive
fashion.  Thinking about how collaboration could be done.  Thinking about
how to combine intelligent individual voices into a whole.  What that
requires in actual physical practice.

In that sense the left does not stubbornly refuse to do anything, because we
don't know what the left could do with these tools.  But Tom's point is
really about working together and thinking about that seriously.  I think
when people realize that a great deal can be done beyond what is
accomplished so far on list servs they might get pretty excited about the
possibilities.  For example, since things are archival how does one get to
people who need the information "any time any place" that information?
There are many ways in which once collaboration into groups processes
through IT (information technology) is the main theme it is going to be
possible to address anew many vexing problems the left faces.  So what Tom
raises here is a great deal more than his points adressed to the individuals
he lists.  It is about how groups of people function in a collective
fashion.  The engineering issues of how electronic communications can effect
our common interests.
thanks,
Doyle Saylor