[lbo-talk] On filtering

[Carrol Cox]

Julio Huato wrote:
> 
> For as long as I remember, Carrol has only replied directly to my
> posts twice.  Never in the last four years or so.  He may comment on
> what I post, but only by reference to replies by others (see the
> recent one via Ted Winslow's reply).  I believe this is supposed to
> signal that he dismisses my ideas so much that he's taken the trouble
> of configuring his email account to filter out my posts -- or that
> somehow he skips all my posts.  Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't believe
> this to be really the case.  My conjecture is that it's just pretense
> -- which (if true) is funny and sad at once.  I mean, obviously we all
> pick and choose the material we read from the lists on the basis of
> our tastes and interests.  But I'd think that when we find someone's
> ideas thought-provoking or informative (even if we strongly disagree
> with them), we tend to follow her/his posts.  Am I wrong?

On Sat, 26 Jul 2008 11:33:46 Julio Huato wrote:

shag wrote:  what's at stake in that debate [clip] is "minds changing
minds"? 

Believing that we cannot, or need not, make a conscious effort to change
individual minds is tantamount to believing that we cannot, or need not,
change society consciously. 

=====

That position was argued at extreme length on both 'sides.'  Neither
side moved from their initial positions, though the thread was still an
invaluable one in achieving clarity on certain questions, whether
anyone's mind was changed or not. Here, early in the thread, was the
decisive statement rejecting your arguement. On Fri, 25 Jul 2008
19:47:48 Miles Jackson wrote:

"I've been in enough "diversity training" in my college gigs to know
that persuasion is an ineffective strategy for social transformation.
The more time people spend trying to change individual minds, the less
time they have to engage in effective political action that leads to
social transformations that eventually lead to changes in popular
opinion.  So it's a strategic concern: let's focus on political
strategies that work rather than waste our time trying to change
individual attitudes. Miles"

Many in the thread wanted to split the difference, to claim that _both_
persuasion and action were needed, but that is not the case. Persuasion
(on the major issues) plays no role whatever in successful social
movements. (Participants are continually "changing their minds" on
tactical matters and debate there makes sense.)

Positions were fully clarified in that hefty thread, and it is clear
that you and I do not share sufficient basic principles to make direct
debate between us fruitful. You represent for me, as I said in a
preceding post, a tactical problem that must be continually resolved and
re-resolved in practice, but you have nothing to say that it is useful
for me to argue against directly.

Incidentally, later, in the same threadd (Dustup  revisitedx) shag was
moved to write: ""the spittle directed carrol's way, kinda green. see if
you can't get antibiotics for that or something." That did not bother
me, but it did reflectd the pointlessness of further debate around
positions you expressed.

Carrol