10 Oct 1996 11:44:55 -0400 (EDT) 10 Oct 1996 11:44:38 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 11:39:53 -0400 From: Wojtek Sokolowski Subject: Re: Self-Moderation To: Arthur Wilke Arthur, IMHO, the attempts to "censor" some of the voices on the net have less to do with the perception of the content of the speech, but with the perception of the space where the act of speech is taking place. If the space is perceived as "public" -- people automatically turn their "filter mode" on and become very selective in what they even pay attention to. Two examples illustrate that. Venice Beach in Los Angeles is walkway filled by aspiring performers, peddlers, pan-handlers etc. Assuming that art, including commercial art, is a form of speech, most of what is being "said" by those characters is kitschy, if not obnoxious. Manhattan streets are also filled with speakers of different sorts -- from pan-handlers, to peddlers, to to people distributing commercial leaflets, to political speakers regularly featuring on the Times Square. What those two places have in common is that nobody seems to mind what is being said there. Since both the Venice Beach and Manhattan are public spaces par excellence, nobody wants to exclude or silence anyone. People simply pass by the "obnoxious" forms of speech, and pay attention only to those very selectively perceived as "worthy." For some reason, however, some people do not seem to perceive the net, or at least parts of it, as public space. Whether consciously or not, they tend to view discusion groups or chat rooms as semi-private spaces or virtual communities with its usual boundaries and rules of exclusion. This seems to be ubiqiutous on the net, although I am not sure why. This attenmpt to create a virtual community explains, in my view, the ubiquity of the debates on who should be excluded form the least, that appear to be endemic to most lists I subscribed to. People tend to view internet discussion groups not as communicative acts but as virtual communities or groups. Everyone can participate in a conversation, but what makes groups is boundaries. Not everyone is let in, some are excluded. The attempts to exclude some subscribers from the list has less to do with the content of what they have actually said, althought that may serve as the rationalization of the attempt, but with the simple fact that in order for a group, real or virtual, to maintain a distinct identity -- someone has to be excluded, otherwise the group will become an amorphous public gathering. Who is excluded is less important at this point --although it becomes the central issue of identity politics -- what really matters is that someone has to be. I am not quite sure at this point whether the ubiquity of this sort of behaviour is the testimony to the so-called "human nature", perhaps the tribal instincts embedded in it or, more along the Marxist and Durkheimian traditions -- a proof that the form of social organization determines the content of individual consciousness. The fact that our society is built on the inclusion/exclusion principle inscribes that principle, so to speak, in the minds of the individual members. So when they have an opportunity to what seems as acting on their own, they in fact reproduce the distinctions embedded in their consciousness by the form of their social organization. My own preference is, of course, for the second explanation, but who knows... wojtek sokolowski institute for policy studies johns hopkins university baltimore, md 21218 sokol@jhuvms.hcf.jhu.edu voice: (410) 516-4056 fax: (410) 516-8233 +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | When I hear the words 'family values,' I reach for my revolver. | | (no apologies to Hermann Goering) | +------------------------------------------------------------------------+