[iDC] Post-mortem continued

[Dean, Jodi]

Matt,

With respect to my remark about pragamatism and theory, I was responding to a couple of things from the wrap up discussion:

--what I perceived as criticism of Christian Fuch's appeal to communism as too idealistic or impractical; my response is that appeals to pragmatism here are pro status quo and counter revolutionary

--student remarks about too much theory and their appeals to the everyday; my response is that part of what makes it difficult to assess, internalize, express the multiplicity of inputs from the conference
is the lack of large concepts, clear reference points; this lack is one of the things that makes the area of inquiry exciting and important: our debates and discussion are helping shape how networked communications
are understood (for example, we've come away from the old frontier rhetoric of information wants to be free, from the Gore rhetoric of information superhighway, and even from the supposition of a separate
virtual world).

At any rate, the target of my point was not 'building and trying' but presuming the continuation of neoliberal capitalism.

Jodi


________________________________________
From: idc-bounces at mailman.thing.net [idc-bounces at mailman.thing.net] On Behalf Of Matt Cooperrider [mattcooperrider at gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, November 16, 2009 10:48 AM
To: idc at mailman.thing.net
Subject: [iDC] Post-mortem continued

Hello Playborers,

I had a wonderful and inspiring time at the conference.  I thought the final plenary discussion was very constructive, with participants working hard to craft thoughtful statements.  And thanks to the fellow who identified it as a "classic post-mortem". I thought that was dead on.

The format of the session, however, forced us to make Twitter-like versions of our points.  I'd like to invite folks to expand on those here.

For me, I want to hear more from Jodi Dean, and what exactly she means by being "against pragmatism" and how that relates to our lack of concepts.  In my experience, building things and trying them out is a means of refining and testing concepts.

Matt Cooperrider

--
Matt Cooperrider, Consultant
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