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Re: SpamAssassin and OHA (was: [ox-en] SpamAssassin (was: OHA/ODA in English))

On 23 Dec 2003, Rich Walker wrote:



Graham Seaman wrote:

On Mon, 15 Dec 2003, Martin Hardie wrote:


On Monday 15 December 2003 15:33, Graham Seaman wrote:

In other words, you would replace censorship with self-censorship and
external discipline with internal discipline...


sounds like Foucault/ Deleuze: from societies of discipline to societies of 
control


I never read anything by Deleuze, and the only relevant thing from
Foucault I've read is Discipline and Punish - but going by that, the
impression I have is that they associate this kind of internal control
with capitalism. To me it seems that internal control in 'normal'
capitalism (as opposed to fascist dictatorships, or ex 'really existing
socialism') is not that successful


There is a continuum of visibility of power and control. The tricks that
occur in political control are to remove the need for the direct
application of force. So, for example, when I do not cross a police line
because I know that my friends are crippled with long-term injuries as a
result of crossing a policeman, and I do not wish this, then I am a
subject of control.

There is a fascinating discussion to be had about the origin of
hierarchy from the activities of people who should be having S&M sex,
but being frustrated in their sexuality go into politics, and end up in
Control.

The "internal control" is, I think, very successful. We are mostly not
capable of breaching these domains of control. Elias Canetti's "crowds
and power" covers a lot of this in the attempt to discover how fascism
worked - so does the "Third Wave" article that is in the "Next Whole
Earth Catalog"


OK, but you've moved from giving an example in a democratic regime (the
police line) to fascism, as if there were no difference, and the internal
control were there to the same degree in each case. There's a big
difference between not crossing a police line in case you get your head
kicked in, and not making any comments in public or private about what you
believe in in case your family get tortured. I have trouble seeing this as
any kind of continuum. 

This is an old, old argument[1]. In the end I think what it comes down to
is I'm saying that 'bourgeois' freedoms are real, and that any future 
society will only be an improvement if it expands on them. Historically 
people who dismiss them as meaningless have also not expanded on them.
So I'm going to stick with the 'rhetoric of freedom' that Martin dislikes
so much.


Graham

[1] eg. 1944 version from Arthur Koestler, from about the same 
anti-Foucault viewpoint:
'Only those who have shared the life of the ordinary native in Nazi 
Germany or Stalinite Russia for at least a year know that disintegration
of the human substance which befalls people deprived of our basic 
liberties. But how many of us are capable of drawing comparisons? The 
English dockyard worker has not experienced the difference between risking 
for the same negligence , a cut in pay or death as a saboteur. The English
journalist does not know the difference between a limited freeedom of
expression and the status of a human teleprinter...' etc.
 

cheers, Rich.








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