This message was submitted by tuckerpf@sprynet.com to list
sixties-l@jefferson.village.virginia.edu. If you forward it back to the lis=
t,
it will be distributed without the paragraphs above the dashed line. You ma=
y
edit the Subject: line and the text of the message before forwarding it bac=
k.
If you edit the messages you receive into a digest, you will need to remove
these paragraphs and the dashed line before mailing the result to the list.
Finally, if you need more information from the author of this message, you
should be able to do so by simply replying to this note.
----------------------- Message requiring your approval -------------------=
--- Sender: tuckerpf@sprynet.com Subject: Cyberrhetoric/Sex, Drugs, R&R
<---- Begin Forwarded Message ----> From: tuckerpf@sprynet.com Subject: Cyberrhetoric/Sex, Drugs, R&R To: "Marc J. Gilbert" <MGILBERT@nugget.ngc.peachnet.edu>
On Mon, 13 May 1996, "Marc J. Gilbert" <MGILBERT@nugget.ngc.peachnet.edu> w= rote:
>My point was that Betty Friedan and Norman O. Brown were not young,=20 >and that "Free Love" as a means of changing the world was but a part >of the pop culture of the day (I would say that suburban swinging=20 >was more important in the everyday lives of most Americans then, and=20 >it had little to do with the philosophy of anyone on the Left).=20 [snip] > Jeff asserts his own experience of the '60s and makes a=20 >stab at mine. No offense taken, but political views do not=20 >necessarily reflect activism.=20 [snip] =20 >I AM a distant cousin of=20 >Senator Barry Goldwater. So? We are in the business of ideas here,=20 >and if experience has a connection, people will make it clear enough=20 >when they have a mind to do so.
I agree that =93we are in the business of ideas here=94, and that the mediu= m we are=20 using--text floating in cyberspace--*ought* to lend itself to pure concept= =20 unfettered by assumptions, baggage, etc. Unfortunately (and perhaps this i= s=20 just one of those darned vestigial habits we have retained from our=20 non-cyberspace pasts), it is hard not to read into postings things that mig= ht=20 not be there. In =93real life=94, we are accustomed to taking lots of verb= al and =20 behavioral cues into account, sizing a up an argument only in part on its o= wn=20 terms, but also in terms of broader constellations of values and opinions= =20 implied by such cues.
I point this out only because dealing strictly with ideas is difficult. Th= e=20 mind reaches instinctively for the cues. Case in point from Marc himself: = his=20 eentsy-bit-suspicious notion in his first posting that I might be a=20 =93wolf-in-sheep=92s-clothing=94, an assumption which was I think unwarrant= ed from my=20 posting, since the term implies an element of guile. Granted, Marc discoun= ted=20 his suspicion somewhat (=93Wolf-in-Sheeps-Clothing aside [and with apologie= s for=20 even the suggestion . . ]), but the point is made that perhaps I am just di= shing=20 out NeoCon tripe, David Horowitz in disguise. =20
Similarly, when I pointed to the relevance of my experience to my posting, = I=20 suggested that Marc=92s experience =93perhaps, as a progressive and activi= st=94,=20 might be relevant to his point of view. I can see now that I was doing the= same=20 thing Marc was doing--making an assumption (or at least testing a tentative= =20 hypothesis) about the =93person=94 I was corresponding with. My point here= is that=20 both of our rhetorical ploys are quite human. Cyberspace is indeed ideally= =20 suited to a discussion of =93ideas=94--it=92s just that it=92s probably ine= vitable that=20 our human side will show through from time to time as we search for cues ab= out=20 context. =20
Excuse my going on, but this digression into the pros and cons of cyberrhet= oric=20 is relevant to the ongoing discussion between Marc and me. I cannot help b= ut=20 think that Marc continues to view my statements as attempts to undermine th= e=20 =93Left=94 by criticizing =93sexual liberation=94. Marc says =93I would sa= y that suburban=20 swinging was more important in the everyday lives of most Americans then, a= nd it=20 had little to do with the philosophy of anyone on the Left.=94 But I=92v= e been=20 asking for the phenomenon to be examined in its own terms, and not with=20 reference to a =93Left=94 that it was only tangentially related to.
And on the issue of the phenomenon in itself, I am at a loss to figure out= =20 exactly what point Marc is making. He says Norman O. Brown was not =93youn= g=94 and=20 not a sixties figure. Also that sexual experimentation has a long history = and=20 is not strictly speaking a sixties thing. Well, drug use and radical polit= ics=20 also have lineages going back a ways. Understanding that these lineages ex= ist=20 does not invalidate the notion that for all three areas--drugs, radical pol= itics=20 and sex--the sixties represented a time of notable change. =20
Unless Marc is saying that, unlike drugs and radical politics, sexual=20 experimentation along the lines of Elizabeth=92s posting were somehow=20 fundamentally unimportant, a position he seems to take when he states =93it= is the=20 use of Free Love as a philosophical underpinning for the sixties that I obj= ect=20 to=94. He goes on: =93I would ask if was anyone on this list movtivated by= Norman=20 O. Brown=94. Well, what about Elizabeth? People in the Haight did not hav= e to=20 study Brown in college for linkages to be made between behavior and intelle= ctual=20 activity in a given era. Ideas have consequences. One does not have to fin= d the=20 idea in its undistilled form to conclude that its presence has been felt.
Jeff Apfel
<---- End Forwarded Message ---->