Re: <eyebeam><blast> Other

[Brian Holmes <106271.223@compuserve.com>]

Jason Edward Kaufmann asked some tough rhetorical questions:

"Are we not individuals before we are political beings? Is not the
sanctity of our individuality the very foundation of what is best of our
'western' way of life? Shall we shape the new medium by committee vote?
'De-westernize' the medium  by injecting 'otherness'?"

The great thing about this medium, and the truly liberating thing about
so-called globalization, is that such assertions cloaked as questions
can simply be laughed off. There are so many voices, points of view,
dispositions. Those who consider themselves political beings before
being individuals, who have sanctified no foundations, who have made the
open encounter something central in their lives, here need fill out no
identity form. Names are discretionary - a user's decision. Proposals on
all subjects can be tossed out in the air. Tout peut y etre dit, pour
voir qui repond. La libertad de decir lo que tu quieres, de entender lo
que quieres o lo que puedes. Consciousness can become poetic or
political or remain just prosaic, depending on the echoes it raises.

Not to assume or prejudge the "we" has for me been an experience of
freedom in all its limitations, the very limitations that make
friendship, love, community, social relations and political struggles
the most important things in some people's lives.

Domination, inside and outside this medium, is as evident to me as a
brick wall, one which goes on for miles and yet can also be scaled or
taken apart, and which sometimes includes a doorway. Recently the
conversation here seems to have been full of doorways.

Later I will also speak of the bricks of possessive individualism.


Brian Holmes

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