Re: SpamAssassin and OHA (was: [ox-en] SpamAssassin (was: OHA/ODA in English))
- From: Casimir Purzelbaum <quasi utopix.net>
- Date: Tue, 16 Dec 2003 10:33:48 +0100
* Ref.: »Re: SpamAssassin and OHA (was: [ox-en] SpamAssassin (was: OHA/ODA in English))«
* Graham Seaman (2003-12-15 18:11)
Internal discipline is based upon 'rules' as well as external
discipline is based on 'laws'. And I was going for a "fantasy"
;-) against rules here. How would you call, for instance, an
instinct? Is this internal discipline? I'm not trying to say,
that people should forget about thinking'n all and follow their
so-called instincts instead. What I'm trying to say here, is
that reason and feeling could evolve generally to a degree, where
they work without rules, discipline, punishment or control.
Along with the conditions of life that are the basis for this or
that way of interaction in society and reflections about it.
This sounds dangerously close to wanting a 'new man', on the model of the
Critique of the Gotha Program (and Soviet and related history).
One of the appeals of free software itself is exactly that it doesn't need
a 'new man'; people can do it for their own human/selfish reasons.
The problem with the older approach is that either you wait for the
new man to evolve in this society - which won't happen, because the
society is wrong for it - or you create e temporary rule-bound society
'just for the time being' where you wait for the new man to evolve.
But the 'time being' ends up being permanent.
I don't know how to deal with the contradiction in what you are
saying here: free software is appealing... because it does not
need a 'new man', but what is the positive aspect of being
appealing? (there are lots of other things that are not
appealing even though they do not need a 'new man' either). And
then you say, nothing new could evolve within this society...
(reminds me of one of the eternal arguments about the new-ness of
the free-software-phenomenon: there was nothing new in it, they
say, because scientists and artists had it all the time etc.)
Though I wasn't talking of the 'new man' concept, I don't reject
it. But always on the assumption that a 'new man' can neither be
*made* nor *waited for*. In the same way, that fs-people do
neither make nor wait for the conditions of making free-software,
for the conditions of a new¹ mode of cooperation. They just do
it.
¹) at least for them ;-)
You would also need to remove one of the most obvious
features of free-software-like groups: membership of
multiple overlapping groups (I'm trying to avoid
'community' - too many unrelated 19th century
gemeinschaftlich associations). Because if I'm a member of
both software using groups and a virus-writing group, how
do I avoid alienating myself from 'the group'?
Depends on your understanding of group. I did choose
"community" because it can be understood on a small and on a
large scale. And the "ultimate" community I meant in the
above, is human society as a whole. Whatever we call it, it
seems to be clear to me that at all levels in our current
situation this community is alienated from itself -- and so
are it's members (of all levels).
What I was trying to do by using 'group' instead of 'community'
was too emphasize that conflicts of interest may not only be
between individual and one group, but individual and different
groups - and so between groups. I don't see how you avoid
conflicts of interest between groups by evolving humans...
ok. The way I see it is: society is split into groups and
individuals. It is *split*, not merely structured or the like.
And this is why it is not a community. That individuals are
being part of several groups does not remedy this split, on the
contrary, it leads to the formal internalisation of conflicts and
to the concepts of "deconstruction", doubting that there was such
a thing as the individual in the first place: they analyze the
individual down to it's different roles along the lines of its
relationships to different groups of society. Those roles are as
contradicting each other as the interests of the groups are. If
there was no community, but only groups, then there was no
"individual as such" at all. What we see as an individual would
merely be the incarnation of (more or less) contradicting roles.
I cannot say that this view was wrong. It might even be
increasingly true ;-( But I do think that it is very limited.
The formal internalisation of conflicts is just the first step.
(It is comparable with the formal subsumption of labour by
capital.) But it already indicates that human society does
develop towards being *a* community rather than representing the
mostly unrelated "co"-existence of communities. Hence, formal
internalisation is a prerequisite for "real internalisation" of
conflicts, which does not split, but structure.
... A simple example: I live under a flight-path for the
airport. I would love to see planes banned from using this airport. But
many people in this area work in the airport, or they use it to go on
holiday, etc; they would like to see the number of planes increased. Some
people are in the first group (under the flightpath) some in the second
(use the airport), and some in both. The conflict is structural, and not
due to human nature. People in both groups have the conflict internally,
too.
This is a good example for what I'm trying to say.
The conflict cannot be solved ceteris paribus ("all other things
remaining equal"). Therefor there can only be a formal
internalisation of this (and every) particular conflict. The key
aspect is the particular character of the conflict.
The whole of all such particular conflicts does develop as a
bundle of contradictions that, in the end, put under threat the
existence of society as such. Hence, they will have to be
"solved". The formal internalisation is a prerequisite, the
real internalisation is the realisation of the reconciliation of
those contradictions (of which the conflicts are only the
surface, the appearance).
<OT>
(I suspect, that even though there is no better translation,
"alienation" and "Entfremdung" are not really adequate... I
suspect that the "alienation" (=Entfremdung) that I meant is
somewhat more "intrinsic" than the common understanding of
"alienation" in English ;-)
Could be, but I can't read your mind :-( It has a lot of
possible shades of meaning in english, too.
Well, yes. This is exactly the problem ;-) As with many words
in English, they tend to have *more* shades of meaning than they
do e.g. in German. Which is why I'm never sure of expressing
what I want to express when philosophising in English... It's
difficult enough in one's own language to have a feeling for the
likelihood of being understood this way or that ;-)
</OT>
But to answer the question ;-) : You can only avoid
alienating yourself (or being alienated) from a group when
they feel fine with your "other" activities. And why should
they not? (Again, I'm not talking about todays conflicts,
but about the question whether they are "generally"
"necessary" or not...)
This sounds very similar to the arguments between late 19th
century anarchists and William Morris, the most sympathetic to
the anarchists of the english communists; for example
http://www.marxists.org.uk/archive/morris/works/1890/nowhere/nowhere.htm#chap-14
(the section on how to decide whether to build a bridge, and
whether it is possible to avoid 'the tyranny of society').
Yes, it does indeed sound similar :-) Thanks for the link.
However, I suspect that I don't like the strong presence of the
concept of "wealthy freemen" and their "democratic model": the
»human nature of wealthy freemen« is a concept based on the
"égalité" ideal (or assumption) of the bourgeois revolution.
This is in itself an ideological construction needed to motivate
the required change of "rules" (from feudal to bourgeois
society). And this concept is meant to be a rule in itself
(which must be protetected/enforced by means of law and authority
because it is not really realistic in any given situation, and
even less so in an absolute sense). The same is true for the
suggestion that »every man should be quite independent...«. But
this only shows, how necessary the capitalist absolute
generalisation of "independence" and "equality" is in order to
move towards a less rule-prone interaction-"model".
(The ideal he states, »the complete equality *of condition* for
all people« can be understood in a more abstract way than he does
in this essay. But still, I think, this is an unfortunate
wording because it is _very_ open to interpretation, and in it's
most abstract sense, it does not seem to say a lot anymore.)
or following Stefan Mn's Kantian theme:
http://www.marxists.org.uk/archive/morris/works/1889/sa/sa.htm
'if freedom from authority means the assertion of the
advisability or possibility of an individual man doing what he
pleases always and under all circumstances, this is an absolute
negation of society, and makes Communism as the highest
expression of society impossible; ...
No, it's not an absolute negation of society -- it is a negation
of society if there is a possibility (!) of the individual man
pleasing to do something harmful to society / to other groups /
individuals/roles. In other words, if there are incentives for
that, or conditions that produce *purely particular* interests,
which, in turn, result in the infinity of particular conflicts as
observed today.
This is not true for what I (ostentatively ;-) call "community".
-- Because there is groups and individuals and roles with
conflicting interests regarding the airport, there is no such
thing as a "community" between the people that are related to the
airport in one way or other.
...but when you begin to qualify this assertion of the right to
do as you please by adding "as long as you don't interfere with
other people's rights to do the same," the exercise of some
kind of authority becomes necessary.
Yes. The proclamation of _rights_ already reflects that there
are unreconcileable conflicts that can only formally be
internalised -- on the level of the rule- or law-making society
(which therefor cannot qualify as a community).
If individuals are not to coerce others, there must somewhere
be an authority which is prepared to coerce them not to coerce;
and that authority must clearly be collective....
How does this work in free software? Or in a bowling club or
what-have-you? -- Yes, you do have all cases, I know. But among
others there already are (and I dare say, always have been)
relations without the need of a formal authority, where the
community just *is* the community and by harming it you simply
leave it -- you leave it as a matter of fact, not of coercion or
authority or rule.
This means, you only coerce, if you have an interest to do that,
if you have an interest in alienating yourself from that
community. If, however, for example, your life depends on that
community, you have no interest in leaving it and you will not do
it -- regardless of whether there are "rules" or not.
Rules and/or authority are only needed, if society is inherently
unstable. If it does itself permanently (re-)produce incentives
of de-stabilisation, rules and/or authority are needed as a
counter-weight. Rules are an instrument of stabilisation of
society. Communism, on the other hand, can only be an
*inherently* stable society -- where rules had nothing to
"counter-weigh", because conflicts would be "really", not
"formally" internalised.
Any
community conceivable will sometimes determine on collective
action which, without being in itself immoral or oppressive,
would give pain to some of its members; and what is to be done
then if it happens to be a piece of business which must be
either done or left alone? would the small minority have to
give way or the large majority?'
Basically, your 'why should they not' has an infinite number of
possible answers, ...
and each one of them represents one of those 'particular
conflicts' that cannot be solved under the conditions of the
formal "communitalisation" of social life (or under *splitting
up* society into "groups", groups into "individuals", individuals
into "roles" etc.).
... and I don't see how it could not unless life had stopped.
Why?
Regards,
Casimir.
_______________________
http://www.oekonux.org/