12.7.08

new McLuhan-L !



In honor of H. Marshall McLuhan, this is a site for dialogue (informed by an abiding sense of “relevance”), and for a project the late Donald F. Theall described as walking both beside and beyond McLuhan (PARA-McLuhan). “We shall not cease from exploration!”



http://groups.google.co.nz/group/McLuhan-L

5 comments:

quantum retrocausality said...

McLuhan-L has been cordoned off and a new series of draconian, legal,
forensic, and dialectical measures have been imposed. We are in a recession – a depression – so we have made cutbacks on
MAKING and personal expression. Only ONE thread will be permitted and it will be limited to MATCHING. The new semantic calculus will be the favoured mode. All deviations will be deleted immediately. Contributions of McLuhan articles and images are still welcome and encouraged.
Return to your homes, libraries, and books at 6 p.m. every night. Obsessive and compulsive MAKERS, those addicted to excessive pattern - recognition, cryptic personal expressions, and non-sense can continue to post, unabated and unfettered, to the old threads.

Signed:
the Administrators.

quantum retrocausality said...

Alex Kuskis wrote:

> I don't dislike you at all, Peter. I don't know you, although I wonder if
> the online
> personna you project is supportive of intellectual discussion, playful or
> otherwise.
> Liss Jeffrey is correct in asserting that the serious examination and
> discussion of
> McLuhan's work carries on elsewhere. This list fails to live up to what it
> could
> or should be. I'm not interested in "one-down's-manship" or its opposite; I
> was
> reacting to some of your recent comments that seem silly, as also noted by
> the inimitable Mr. Dobbs. The problem with play on the part of an online
> moderator is that others must want to play too.

I agree with your criticism of Peter's style, Alex, but it still
leaves us
with a problem in this medium. Peter has often suggested that he would
like to
see us do some "serious work" here. He has also mentioned the
ephemerality and
discontinuity of the chatline form. There appears to be a
contradiction there.

So how does Liss carry on serious examination and discussion
elsewhere? Is it
in a didactic form? Is it with those who see themselves as students?
Are we
too knowlegeable about MM on this list? Do we have to get censorious
about any
"personal" commentary or digressions? Are we playing up to the
anonymous
lurkers (the true ground?) here?

Is it silly to get as serious here as I hope my questions are
perceived?

I've often thought over the last 7 years on this list that George
Sanderson
hoped the list could be as you say Liss desires and has achieved
elsewhere,
and that he became irritated with the way Peter has moderated the list
since
George dropped off.

But maybe this list can only be as it has been. If so, then let's be
clear and
honest in our descriptions of our environment here.


Bob Dobbs

quantum retrocausality said...

Peter Montgomery wrote:

> So there's my agenda.

After years of paying attention to this and other lists, it is my
finding that
all one can have in this medium is an "agenda". Most posts come down
to that as
far as the main intention for participation goes (see Ms. Jeffrey's
bio in her
recent missive). I call this the Rumplestiltskin Syndrome ( or
Voluntary ESP),
the major extension, along with Menippean phatic communion, provided
by this
environment. Norman Mailer and his ADVERTISEMENTS FOR MYSELF was
prophetic, but
like all prophets, would be apalled and overwhelmed at how timid his
projection
was.
Perhaps, you missed this pattern in your study of list behaviours,
Peter.

I propose we accept this effect and work around it by not being upset
with its
inevitability and not try and "police or moderate" its intrusion, but
study its
effects on ourselves. Because that may have been your Catch-22, Peter,
as
moderator in the past - you believed in your bloomin' agenda!! But
now, happily
for all of us, familiarity with this and the other effects might break
the
beaver's dam.

So, as MM and Nevitt used to say, "communication of the new is a
miracle, but
not impossible" (p.142 of TAKE TODAY).


Bob Dobbs

quantum retrocausality said...

Peter Montgomery wrote:

> > From: purple [SMTP:purple@ingress.com]
> >
> > Peter Montgomery wrote:
> >
> > > I know this is skimming the surface of what Mac dove
> > > into quite deeply, but not many have followed and
> > > stuck with him to the core of the search.
> >
> > This is a silly statement. A few HAVE "stuck with him to the core of the
> > search" and then found new territory.
> [PM>] ===================================
> How nice for you. I know skimming is silly, but it
> has its challenges, just like walking on water.

The truest words Liss has said (to Peter) up to this point in her
life:

"It is unclear what purpose your snide, silly comments are designed to
serve, nor who actually has so much idle time as to actually read this
sort of thing, but your comments below capture much of what passes for
discussion on this list under your moderation."

Praise Ms. Jeffrey!!!!


Bob Dobbs

quantum retrocausality said...

Ken Armstrong wrote:

> Bob,
>
> Well, everyone sights a gnat in the crosshairs now and then and mistakes it
> for a duck; of such aim, if you don't mind an impersonal illustration with
> no invective quotient, is your "percept" below.
>
> When you write "it" can't be done, I've got to think that your "it" and my
> "it" aren't, to be Stahlmanesque, communally conversant. If you believe
> that "it" can't be done, what excuse could you have for being on this list?
>
> You can't have it both ways, no matter what medium you're in.

Not only can I have it both ways, but 5 ways, since the constituents
of this
Menippean medium are:

broadcasting,
broadcatching,
narrowcasting,
narrowcatching, and
voluntary ESP,

creating the Rumplestiltskin Syndrome of quadrophrenia as artform. See
chart
at:

http://www.posi-tone.com/BOB/bobwazochrt.gif

I think Arthur Kroker gets a glimpse of this situation with this quote
from
THE POSSESSED INDIVIDUAL (p.27):

"Here, power is only knowable, not as a form of coercion, nor as a
knowledge-vector, nor as a strategy of accumulation, but as a certain
form of
violent mobility, a logistics of fractals in which the hologram of the
whole
can be seen only in the indefinite miniaturization of the dispersed
subject."


Bob Dobbs