Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 14, No. 644.
Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
<http://www.princeton.edu/~mccarty/humanist/>
<http://www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/>
[1] From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com> (18)
Subject: Re: 14.0641 e-bouncer vs e-dictator
[2] From: "Osher Doctorow" <osher@ix.netcom.com> (55)
Subject: Civilization as a Two Edged Sword Conjecture -
Doctorow
--[1]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 05 Feb 2001 20:17:26 +0000
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>
Subject: Re: 14.0641 e-bouncer vs e-dictator
Rather than Dibbell's article, his book My Tiny Life indicates the com-
plexities of online behavior and politics. But I think the reason that
flames and so forth have lowered in intensity is based largely on demo-
graphics and applications.
The demographics of the Net have changed radically in the last few years;
it's no longer dominated by young males on college computers. And chat
applications for example are more protected than open IRC; it's harder to
span/easer to ban on them.
Flaming still goes on wildly on IRC and some lists such as 7-11 which is
organized around net.artists.
I moderate a number of lists and it's not really a question of filtering
(although Pine at least in the past two builds has had that) or delete;
it's the changing quality of life on the screen.
Alan
Internet Text at http://www.anu.edu.au/english/internet_txt
Partial at http://lists.village.virginia.edu/~spoons/internet_txt.html
Trace Projects at http://trace.ntu.ac.uk/writers/sondheim/index.htm
CDROM of collected work 1994-2000/1 available: write sondheim@panix.com
--[2]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 05 Feb 2001 20:19:21 +0000
From: "Osher Doctorow" <osher@ix.netcom.com>
Subject: Civilization as a Two Edged Sword Conjecture - Doctorow
From: Osher Doctorow, Ph.D. osher@ix.netcom.com, Fri. Feb. 2, 2001, 5:34PM
I am more in favor of the British and Dutch monarchies than of British and
Dutch civilization in general, and yet I consider the Cambridge, Oxford, and
London are the world's three best universities for mathematics and physics
and that British civilization is often far better than U.S.A. civilization.
What may explain this is a Two-Edged Sword Conjecture on Civilization, which
in its current form says that what is noble and ethical and creative and
inventive about civilization could not occur as easily outside civilization
(with some exceptions), but that it occurs more as a rebellion against
civilization from within civilization than as a triumph of civilization or a
triumph of barbarism against civilization. As evidence, I cite Beethoven
above all, but also Mozart, Chopin, Nobel laureates Paul Dirac and Steven
Weinberg, Socrates, Shakespeare, etc. I also cite the enormous plagues and
syphilis devastations of the middle Ages and Renaissance Europe, the role of
the Catholic Church in facilitating the Renaissance against the brutality of
political/social leaders and the stupidity of the "civilized" public, the
British and French ages of chivalry, etc.
As for the USA and Germanic civilizations, people like Weinberg and Dirac
found greater receptivity in remoter universities than in Harvard/MIT and
the other "Great Names" (this is not to minimize the contributions of
Eastern USA universities, which are incomparable greater than Far Western
USA universities usually), while Germanic civilization except for Kepler
(who was as often outside Germany as inside) came to its
mathematical/physics maturity far later than Italy, France, Great Britain,
Netherlands/Holland, etc. Their musical maturity, which was earlier in
classical and baroque music, was in my opinion and based on a fair amount of
evidence more of a rebellion against Germanic civilization than a triumph of
that civilization. Even in Einstein's theory, his Chairman Minkowski
(Polish) played as important a role as Einstein in facilitating and creating
the theory, not to mention his borrowing from the British (Fitzgerald), the
Italians (Levi-Civita and Ricci), the Dutch, etc., who did the mathematical
pioneering almost to the last step. Except for Erwin Schroedinger, Germanic
civilization was and has been too narrow-focused and detail oriented and
precision-oriented rather than global-oriented and big-picture oriented. It
is something like not seeing the forest for the trees. It is great for
making big cars and ovens and V2 rockets, but as Hitler's Chief Scientist
Werner Heisenberg (who did NOT discover quantum theory - Schroedinger and
Einstein and Max Planck did) found out, in the long run big pictures and
global orientation especially in logic and reality often win.
This does not mean that the older the civilization, the worse it is. If all
else were constant, then the older the university, the better it is - and
this is why British universities are so far superior to eastern USA
universities and the latter are so far superior to far western USA
universities many of which were founded in the 20th century. But
civilization takes ape-like creatures from the Planet of the Apes and
transfers them to a Shakespear-like stage where they are constrained from
jumping on each other by more rules and roles and education and training,
but where most of them still resemble apes in their behavior. A few
Creative Geniuses rebel against this, but they are far more common than one
in a million - I think that every person has the potential to touch the
receiving end of the sword and survive, to be burned in fire and be nailed
to the cross or star or crescent and rise again. I hope that humanist and
scientist computing will provide us with the opportunity to feel more than
to be felt, to see more than be seen, to search more than to be sought, and
to beat our swords into plowshares.
Osher Doctorow
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