I discovered Phil-List 15 years ago, when list-serve formats was new to
me. I lurked, fly on the wall, and listened to the Literati discusse
Important Things. I learned...more than I could have imagined. I
eventually dared to ask a question here, state an opinion there, and became
comfortable in my alleged anonymity. I only look at FB rarely, although
my discipline does not extend to sms format — such instaneous gratification
we assume will be there!
I have always, and will always be, grateful for this. It keeps me less
cynical than I would have been otherwise.
On Tue, Mar 26, 2019 at 7:22 PM John McCreery <john.mccreery@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Torgeir,Julie Campbell 573-881-6889
With all due respect, our problem has less to do with medium that (1)
topic and (2) participants.
TOPIC: there has been no discussion here of recent philosophy.
Wittgenstein was born in 1929, Paul Grice in 1913, Pierre Bourdieu in 1930,
Heidegger in 1889. All four might still have something significant to say
to us, but with no consideration of how our world differs from theirs and
endless repetition of old talking points, the conversation is, to me at
least, tedious.
PARTICIPANTS: Our numbers shrink. Our members age. How do we recruit new
members? What do we say to them that makes joining our club attractive?
In a private conversation with Omar via Facebook Messenger, I described my
interest in parallel developments in several fields, where thoughtful
scholars are exploring ways to move beyond what A.N. Whitehead called the
“bifurcation of the world” into True and False, Essential and Superficial,
Reason and Emotion, mathematical substance and epiphenomenal fluff. I
think of the work of Chicago sociologist Andrew Abbott, French
anthropologist Dominique Desjeux, physicists turned management consultants,
Jean Boulton, et al, cognitive linguist George Lakoff, Belgian philosopher
of science Isabel Stenger. I am also interested in some serious thinking
going on in Sinology, Francois Jullien’s *Propensity of Things, *and
Michael Pruett’s *The Way, *which discusses Classical Chinese thinkers as
offering diverse approaches to dealing with urgent issues in 21st century
life.
There’s a lot going on. Here I feel stuck in a dinosaur’s footprint with
fossilization well under way. Sentiment says, stay with these old friends.
Curiosity says, are you mad?
John
Sent from my iPad
On Mar 27, 2019, at 7:40, Lawrence Helm <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Yeah, the alternative to Lit-Ideas was Theoria. I was initially there
rather than on Lit-Ideas, but found it less pleasant than I expected and so
moved over to Lit-Ideas. I used to get in a lot of arguments with Andreas
Ramos on Phil-Lit, but at about the time I transferred from Theoria to
Lit-Ideas he had backed out as an active participant.
There was a medical doctor from Israel, I can’t recall her name, but she
went to Theoria at the same time all of the rest of us did. She and I used
to be on the same side of most arguments. When I moved over to Lit-Ideas
she hoped I would come back to Theoria, but I told her that I found Kramer
too dictatorial for my taste and suggested that she move over to Lit-Ideas
but she said she had been so offended by Andreas that she would never join
a listserv that had his name on it. Alas.
Lawrence
*From:* lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [
mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx ;<lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>] *On
Behalf Of *Torgeir Fjeld
*Sent:* Tuesday, March 26, 2019 3:11 PM
*To:* lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
*Subject:* [lit-ideas] Re: The value of lit-ideas
Dear all,
Phil-lit, the precursor to lit-ideas, was a mailing list started to
maintain supplementary, running debate on the side of the journal
Philosophy and Literature back in the 90s. It was a novel attempt at
bringing technology and philosophy together in scholarly thought and
practice. When the person with administrator privileges after heated debate
decided to close the list down two successor lists emerged. According to
reports, one of these lists were short-lived, while the other, lit-ideas,
has continued to host lively discussions for 15 years.
Has the mailing-list format reached the end? It is possible that other
kinds of electronic communication has overtaken what was once a novel
technology, and that it is time to move a companion form of communication
to social media. However, there is no reason not to continue lit-ideas as a
mailing list. The view from here is that any introduction of our forum into
social media should include a reference to the mailing list and its
history. We should also explore the possibility of posting to social media
from e-mail, such as is possible with blogs, so that those without a
subscription to these platform can continue to post. (A similar option
would be to establish some kind of feed of the mailing list on the group
page.)
While it is debatable which of the formats is supplementary, it seems that
a modest and realistic approach to any move into social media would adhere
to the rule of acknowledging our precursors.
Mvh. / Yours sincerely,
Torgeir Fjeld
https://torgeirfjeld.com/
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On Tue, 26 Mar 2019 at 14:00, John McCreery <john.mccreery@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Me, too. Torgeir started this revival. Time he spoke up.
John
Sent from my iPad
On Mar 26, 2019, at 21:59, Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
By the way, where is Torgeir, I would like to hear what he thinks about
this ?
On Tue, Mar 26, 2019 at 11:43 AM Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
About the group settings, I think closed would be best. We can invite
those whom we want to invite without having to deal with random visitors
(or family members for that matter).
On Tue, Mar 26, 2019 at 10:43 AM John McCreery <john.mccreery@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Excellent idea.
John
Sent from my iPad
On Mar 26, 2019, at 18:42, Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
We will not close this group or anything. I think Lawrence does not have
FB and we don't want to lose his poetry. Besides, we can use this group as
a sort of meta for the group on FB.
On Tue, Mar 26, 2019 at 10:35 AM Carol Kirschenbaum <carolkir@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Ok, John. I'm convinced. I have no objections. If I had the patience to
figure out how to upload photos I'd probably have more patience for
facebook. Usually, though, I wind up feeling sadly excluded from all the
travel, the festivities. More distanced, emotionally. Common reaction, I
hear, and actually painful when I see the rare photo of my own
grandchildren. (My age is more disabling than I expected it to be, due to
50 years of rheumatoid arthritis. Travel is no longer on my agenda.)
I guess we're moving!
Regards,
Carol
Sent via the Samsung Galaxy S® 4 mini ™, an AT&T 4G LTE smartphone
-------- Original message --------
From: John McCreery <john.mccreery@xxxxxxxxx>
Date:03/26/2019 1:07 AM (GMT-08:00)
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Cc:
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: The value of lit-ideas
Carol,
I am not keen on FB. I am tied via FB to all sorts of people in multiple
networks around the world. Can’t expect them to move on my whim. Also, as I
pointed out, FB does have several advantages. For me the ease of uploading
images or video and the ability to edit or delete previous posts or
comments make FB more congenial than our current email format.
Privacy is not a big concern. I am old (turning 75 in August). I am not
worried about people knowing or posting scandalous things that might impact
my career. If II write foolish things, it is no big deal.
Besides, Facebook already allows the creation of closed groups, in which
only members can see what is posted.
John
Sent from my iPad
On Mar 26, 2019, at 16:44, carol kirschenbaum <carolkir@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Mar 25, 2019, at 10:56 PM, Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Would anyone here be interested in moving lit-ideas to Facebook?
Hi John, Omar & All,
I’m not keen on FB. Will go along with whatever lit-id does. Hate to lose
this email format, though. And isn’t FB about to launch something like what
we already have here, in the name of privacy?
Carol K.
--
