"Tired of seeing Pynchon-L used" (was "But the world isn't like that")

[pynchonoid]

Again, I'm happy to leave the anti-war work to other
venues, if the warmongers will keep their propaganda
out of Pynchon-L.  But, as long as they want to use
Pynchon-L to push the Bush agenda, those of us who
oppose that have the same right to counter with facts
and alternative views.

On the Pynchon-related tip, given the political
content of his work, where do would you draw the line,
David?  Pynchon brings "politics, geopolitics,
war"  into his novels -- it's one of the things that
attracts many of the hundreds of P-list subscribers,
I'd say, based on those that I've gotten to know
(yourself included), as well as other Pynchon readers
I've had a chance to get to know over the years.  

I haven't been here quite as long as you have, but
Pynchon-L has also, during the six years I've been
around, been a forum for the discussion of many topics
that have only been tangentially related to any
particular Pynchon text.  And, there have always been
voices calling for this or that discussion thread to
cease because it's not Pynchon-related, or not
Pynchon-related-enough.

Any email discussion group, if it survives long
enough, will gradually take on some of the trappings
of a "community", a place where people meet to discuss
the topic that initially draws them there, but also
spilling over to other concerns.  This is a reality
not only on Pynchon-L but in every other Internet
discussion group I've been part of or heard about. 
Each group has people who lurk and people who post a
lot, people who have carrried on feuds so long that
nobody remembers why they started in the first place
people who like to get to know each other personally
offlist, etc.

Again, where would you draw the line, and why? 


One solution that's been proposed before is to make
Pynchon-L a moderated discussion, a suggestion I
supported back then and still support.

-Doug


-- davemarc <davemarc at panix.com> wrote:

> Here's a solution, folks:  Take the discussion
> somewhere else, where it's
> even more on-topic!
> 
> Hundreds of people apparently subscribed to this
> list for Pynchon-related
> discussions.  There are many other arenas for an
> intelligent, probing
> discussion of similarly involving subjects, such as
> politics, geopolitics,
> war, etc.  I think the subscribers here can be
> trusted to care about
> political issues and seek out forums to discuss them
> without having them
> shoved down our throats on a daily or hourly basis
> here.  Same thing with
> all those flames that just don't seem to go burn
> themselves out.  Enough
> already!  Stop it.  Please.  I'd really like hate to
> see this mailing list
> wind up like that Beat mailing list and a whole lot
> of newsgroups.
> 
> d.
> 
> 


=====
<http://www.pynchonoid.blogspot.com/>

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