cr> re: Barlow & Stahlman (selected)

1996-02-14

Richard Moore

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Date: Mon, 12 Feb 1996
Sender: Gordon Cook <•••@••.•••>
Subject: Re: How 'Bout Some Context, Please

Mark sez:

What was and is intended to replace (or more likely displace) the
nation-state is some form of "one-world" government.

Cook:  you mean like the global information infrastructure commission
sponsored by Diana Lady Duggan?

Those who haven't taken a trip to their web pages really should.
http://www.gii.org/giic/

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Date: Tue, 13 Feb 1996
Sender: John Whiting <•••@••.•••>
Subject: Barlow/Stahlman

The Barlow/Stahlman confrontation demonstrates that the most
powerful weapon on the Internet battlefield is still the ability
to write good prose. In McLuhan-speak, the Internet has
primarily functioned, not as a purveyor of primitive, bit-hungry
graphics, but as an extension of the printing press. What they
have in common is a total reliance on the human brain, first to
formulate, then to comprehend complex, culture-rich relationships
between words, as conveyed by the primitive resources of the
Semitic alphabet.

John Perry Barlow moves fluently in this cultural landscape. He
has an easy familiarity with his Romantic antecedents, beginning
with Rousseau, and his language demonstrates a kinship with his
immediate predecessors, Walt Whitman and Allen Ginsberg. His
metaphors are familiar but not utterly predictable. His posture
is theatrical but convincing, even moving.

Mark Stahlman's refutation relies, not on confronting Barlow's
logic or rhetoric, but on the techniques of muck-raking journalism,
attempting to demonstrate that his words and actions are intended
to further his career. This is an accusation which has been leveled
with equal justice against Virgil and Dante, but which has nothing
to do with either their passion or their poetry.

There are valid criticisms of Barlow's battle-cry, but they have not
been made here. The shrill tone of Stahlman's denunciation, together
with his impenetrable prose, reduce him to playing the role of a
Salieri to Barlow's Mozart.

John Whiting
Diatribal Press
London, England

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Date: Tue, 13 Feb 1996
Sender: James Love <•••@••.•••>
Subject: Re: How 'Bout Some Context, Please

On Mon, 12 Feb 1996, Mark Stahlman wrote:
> What was and is intended to replace (or more likely displace) the
> nation-state is some form of "one-world" government.  In practical terms,
> that government would be run by multi-nationals (and these in turn by an
> oligarchy) and administered by technocrats -- like Toffler.  '

   Sounds like the GATT.  jamie

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 Posted by Richard K. Moore  -  •••@••.•••  -  Wexford, Ireland
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