> I heard a rumor that a member of this list was recently complaining
> elsewhere that it isn't "Marxist." Guilty as charged.
Adorno talked a lot about the politics of naming things; nominalism, the laeling process by which society classifies things, is shot through with the reifying logic of that society. Even the most innocent attempt to name something runs head-on into the reality of corporate logos, brand-names, icons, and the vast, dripping machinery of the consumer culture.
One of the interesting things about the Web culture is the astonishing plethora of e-names out there; every time I punch up Planet Quake there's another set of punning handles, a few of which are surely the same person under a different nom de telecharge. It kinda makes sense: turn the text-mutation against the total system. Where everything is supposedly known, anonymity is revolutionary.
-- The E-Critter Formerly Known as Dennis