Re: <nettime> KaliFUD

[Wayne Myers <waz@easynet.co.uk>]

>> Suppose Kali Tal were just Sondheim playing.

> Well, if you can't beat 'em, occupy their subjectivity. (Wait...  
> wasn't that what started this conversation?)

Oh you win, of course, Kali. But /this/ conversation was started by you
bullying Alan Sondheim off nettime. That's pretty upsetting, probably to
more than one of us, whether you are a particular fan of his work or
not. I've been trying to work out why the hell I care. I haven't been
around nettime for years. I think it's the community thing.

Bullying Sondheim into silence is a great blow struck against male
oppression, of course, but may be upsetting for the community, to the
extent that there is such a thing here. Myself I left ages ago, quietly,
and out of boredom, so it's weird posting yet again, but by the
deafening silence of voices attempting to defend Alan I'm guessing this
isn't the community it used to be. That's natural too. Communities
change. Bullies and trolls come in and hound out the good people. Art is
replaced by criticism, ideas are replaced by censorship, debate by a
cacophony of 'me too, me too', which makes a hell of a racket when
everyone has to compete as to who can use the longest words in order to
express their complete agreement with a point already made. With
footnotes.

> In the glory days of Tech(No)Culture-L in the early 90s, in the  
> middle of a raging flame war about gender, George Landow decided I  
> couldn't possibly be a real person.

So it's happened before, has it.

Have you considered the possibility that the reason you personally find
it 'hard to inhabit the online space' is not because you are a woman but
rather due to what comes across to me as your rude manner and your
bullying nature? That doesn't tend to go down well in the online space,
I have noticed. Or any space.

To horribly mangle the words of Ali G about as far out of context and
place as possible, "Is it because I is a woman" won't cut it when it is
seems plain why it is that online spaces might appear hostile to you.
Your own hostility is being reflected right back at you, an entirely
gender neutral thing.

This is not of course in any way to denigrate the quality of your
argument: now that Sondheim is no longer posting to nettime, women
everywhere can feel the yoke of patriachy has loosened just that little
bit. A friend of mine in Hackney is having a party to celebrate; she
will no doubt send you an invite offlist.

One thing still puzzles me. If a man cannot write about a woman without
being some usurper of female subjectivity, how can a man write at all?
For if a man writes about a space in which there are no women at all,
that's surely even worse - a world in which women do not exist, are as
nothing, less than worthless.

Aren't you basically arguing that all the men in the world should just
shut the fuck up?

I fear that is one battle that you are less likely to win than your
battle against the raw naked oppression perpetuated by the Sondheims of
this world.


I'll shut up now.

Cheers,

Wayne

-- 
Wayne Myers
http://www.waz.easynet.co.uk/
http://www.conniptions.org/


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