There is already a number of groups called Philosophy so perhaps Literature
and Ideas would be all right, although we do not really discuss literature
that often so it could possibly be misleading.
On Tue, Mar 26, 2019 at 6:46 AM Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
We do not necessarily have to move it to Facebook - that is, we can keep
the email contact - but we can make a group on Facebook. Most of us have
each other in friends (although John unfriended me after some exchange when
I had a few to drink) so this can easily be done. Then we can also invite
other people rather more conveniently than it is to invite them here. This
sounds like a good idea actually, who wants to create a group and what
shall we call it ?
O.K.
On Tue, Mar 26, 2019 at 12:55 AM John McCreery <john.mccreery@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Omar explains his use of Facebook by saying, “ the reason that I am now
having such philosophical discussions as I am having on Facebook is not
that it is a better medium for this but that there are more people.” I
would suggest that in some respects Facebook is a better medium. If what
you are looking for is a quiet bar with congenial regulars, lit-ideas did,
for many years, provide that kind of space. Facebook is not a bar. Facebook
is a town, a city, a world.
I agree with Omar that more people is part of that. When I post on the
Ethnographers Facebook page, my posts reach around 700 people. When I post
on the Open Anthropology Cooperative Facebook page, they could be reaching
as many a 12,000. More than quantity, however, I value the diversity of
those who read my posts and care enough to give me “likes” or, far more
rarely, unfortunately write back in response. I now have readers in India,
Pakistan, and Africa, Japan, China, and Taiwan as well as Europe and North
America. When I cast my bread upon the waters (messages in bottles tossed
into the Ocean might be a better metaphor), I know that my words travel far
and wide and are not swallowed up in the archives of what appears to be a
small and shrinking e-mail group. For me, that is a plus.
The diversity I like is more than geographical. I use Facebook to post
things that I hope will be taken seriously. I also post food porn and
recipes, photographs documenting my travels and the people I have met. I
note that philosophy and food porn are not mutually exclusive. My networks
overlap where some people I correspond with seem interested in both.
Philosophy is, how shall I say it, part of life, not cut off and isolated
from it. (Here I also see a reason why David’s chickens and Lawrence’s
poetry keep me returning to lit-ideas.)
On the technical side of the medium, I like it that Facebook makes it
simple to post photographs and links. I would like it to become a rule of
academic discussion that when someone points to an academic source, they
provide a link to it and that when a book or journal is mentioned an image
of the cover is provided. In a world of increasingly fragmented knowledge,
the assumption that our readers know what we are talking about is
increasingly dubious. The teacherly assumption that telling people to read
X and assuming that they have access to a library and will search and find
it for themselves is demonstrably absurd.
I also like it very much that Facebook allows me to edit my posts and
comments. Typos and other infelicities always creep in when I write in
stream of consciousness mode. It is nice to be able to make corrections
without having to resend an email.
Would anyone here be interested in moving lit-ideas to Facebook?
John
Sent from my iPad
On Mar 26, 2019, at 7:34, Torgeir Fjeld <t.fjeld1@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Right, well if you like to have those sorts of exchanges on Facebook,
that's within your realm of decisionality. However, were lit-ideas to
maintain a civilised form it may just be that some who prefer the type of
speech we find in dusty books and long-gone literary genres would be
enticed to post.
Mvh. / Yours sincerely,
Torgeir Fjeld
https://torgeirfjeld.com/
Download the Introduction to my latest book -- rock philosophy:
meditations on art and desire -- for free from https://bit.ly/2vMGwVs.
Get a 24% discount by using code CFC159723D56 on checkout at the
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On Mon, 25 Mar 2019 at 23:14, Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Well, the reason that I am now having such philosophical discussions as
I am having on Facebook is not that it is a better medium for this but that
there are more people. A bar that has a lot of people coming in has even
more people coming in because of that. The debates on Facebook are not
typically more productive or more polite than those we have been having
here, if anything the opposite. I have already opened the day on FB by
telling someone to shut the fuck up and suggesting that they have brain
cancer, while he also called me a few names. And this is on a quiet day.
O.K.
On Mon, Mar 25, 2019 at 10:59 PM Torgeir Fjeld <t.fjeld1@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Dear all,
On Saturday, John wrote:
Then a now familiar process unfolded, which appears to be independent of
the
form (email-list, blog, SMS....) of the electronic forum in which the
discussion occurs. A group is formed. During the opening phase, when
people are
just getting to know each other, conversation is lively. Positions are
staked
out. Then, over time, the range of topics shrinks. An handful of regulars
put
on the same Punch and Judy shows. Others slip away.
At present, I sometimes enjoy reading David’s livestock tales and
Lawrence’s
poetry. Of Grice and Wittgenstein I’ve had enough. The occasional
sputters of
epistemological fury leave me cold.
Some debate ensued. In retrospeact it is clear that John was right. He
shouldn't have been, but he was. Coversation set out as lively, positions
were staked out, then the topics shrunk, a few regulars punched each other,
ending in "sputters of [more or less] epistemological fury."
When it comes to particular topics and personal likes and dislikes, the
above preferences are John's; however, the inability to let go of a grudge
can weigh down on a fragile conversation forum, such as this. The reason so
many previous posters now prefer algorithm-fuelled social media is that the
wind blows better there. After the storm, there's still lots of diversions
in their feed, and even if the topics are less philosophical, at least the
tone is not generally hostile.
This poster cherishes all those who post here. Everyone on this list
has a particular value, and that value is not reducable to their
contributions here. In other words, we have a value in our selves: by our
mere being there is something of worth cherishing. There is no necessary
correllation between sophisticated speech and elevated intellectual
content; however, there seems to be a greater attraction to exercise our
reason in an environment that invites people of culture. Let's try to make
an effort to remain cultivated in the face of adversity in our mutual
relations. It really is in our own best interest.
Mvh. / Yours sincerely,
Torgeir Fjeld
https://torgeirfjeld.com/
Download the Introduction to my latest book -- rock philosophy:
meditations on art and desire -- for free from https://bit.ly/2vMGwVs.
Get a 24% discount by using code CFC159723D56 on checkout at the publisher
https://vernonpress.com/book/494. It is also available from Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Rock-Philosophy-Meditations-Art-Desire/dp/1622734416/
