Re: [ox-en] Re: SpamAssassin and OHA
- From: Graham Seaman <graham seul.org>
- Date: Mon, 29 Dec 2003 10:51:13 -0500 (EST)
Hi Rich
On Mon, 29 Dec 2003, Rich Walker wrote:
Graham Seaman <graham seul.org> writes:
On 23 Dec 2003, Rich Walker wrote:
What I am pointing out is that the spectrum of tools available for
control has a wide range - everything from Chomsky's points about
"vigorous discourse in a limited domain" through to, as you say, the
direct application of torture.
There's a big
difference between not crossing a police line in case you get your head
kicked in, and not making any comments in public or private about what you
believe in in case your family get tortured. I have trouble seeing this as
any kind of continuum.
Then the tricks have been successfully played on you.
The point I am making is that, in some sense, fascism is a *failure* of
control - force is being applied directly.
I don't think this is true, at least not in general. From what I know of
fascism there need be relatively little force applied directly. Just the
existence of the torturers and the concentration camps - which need only
directly affect a small proportion of the population - is enough to cause
internal control to kick in. And the internal control this generates can
be life-long - it can last even after the fascism has been removed for
many years (I've seen the effects, though I haven't personally lived
through it).
I continue to think no trick has been played on me; and that saying that
a lot of people on the left see a continuum between democratic and fascist
states is not to create a straw-man, as you have just demonstrated.
I forget how we got here from free software though... ;-(
This is an old, old argument[1]. In the end I think what it comes down to
is I'm saying that 'bourgeois' freedoms are real, and that any future
society will only be an improvement if it expands on them.
I don't think any of us would disagree with this.
It's not necessessarily so straightforward:
a. I have certainly met people in the past who feel that bourgeois
freedoms are so fake and meaningless that abandoning them is no loss at
all. For example, freedom of contract, which is so tilted in favour of
the employer it seems to be no freedom at all ('just sign this paper which
gives the company ownership of all your ideas...'. 'No? So you're choosing
to stay unemployed?').
b. Directly generalizing some features of free software would mean
abolishing some of these freedoms. The right to vote, for example - voting
in the context of developing software is pretty meaningless. So can this
carry over directly? Is decision by trusted, known, replaceable experts a
reasonable substitute? All the constitutions I know of (debian, hipatia,
etc) for organizations related to but not directly producing software in
themselves assume not, and that voting is necessary. But it isn't
immediately obvious that it is.... There must be other cases where the
question hasn't even come up yet. What about freedom of trade? In drugs?
In human organs?
Cheers
Graham
_______________________
http://www.oekonux.org/