Allwebco Web Templates · Build your own toolbar · Financial Data · Audio, Fonts, Clipart
powered by
bravenet.com
|
|
OML Archives-
Subject: Re: Response - Sat, 2 Mar 1996 14:49:00 -0500
Date: Sat, 2 Mar 1996 14:49:00 -0500
From: "Shawn P. Wilbur" <swilbur@bgsuvax.bgsu.edu>
Subject: Re: Response
To: orgonomy@jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU
Message-Id: <Pine.3.07.9603021354.A25038-d100000@bgsuvax.bgsu.edu>
Sender: owner-orgonomy@jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU
Folks, we have individually identified the downward spiral this list is in
on multiple occasions. Is there some possibility of us collectively
putting on the breaks before we crash and burn completely?
Allow me to review a few points of what appear to be unanimous agreement:
-objectivity, or at least the ability to respond to facts, is a Good Thing
-"freedom of speech" is desirable, but certain sorts of speech are undesirable
-none of us are very comfortable and/or consistent about what the criteria
ought to be
-orgonomy is multidisciplinary, hard as hell, and still a growing body of
knowledge
-the notion of an "emotional plague" is both consistent with, and perhaps
absolutely critical to, a broad reichian science - but it is also easily
misused and misunderstood (with participants using it as a precise,
more or less clinical diagnosis, or as a rough touchstone for
understanding human irrationality)
-most, if not all (and i suspect it is all) of us would probably
acknowledge that we are somethiig less than fully genital characters
-and, in different, not always compatible ways, Reich and his legacy is
important to us
Let me add too one observation:
-we are *all*, without exception, in over our heads in some part of this
whole business. this means, to the extent that we are willing to speak
about "Orgonomy" as a whole, or about the aspects of it in which we are not
expert, we are forced to go out on a limb. This is, of course, not a
problem local to reichian circles. All of us live and act beyond our
knowledge every day.
He who doesn't is free to throw the first stone with something like a
clear conscience. The rest of us have to situate ourselves more carefully,
i suspect.
If we acknowledge that we are sick, that this makes us something less than
rational, then we have to learn to live with our sickness, and to respect
the limitations of others. None of us have set particularly shining examples
of this lately. And the OML has suffered accordingly. We've lost a lot of
subscribers, which is sad both as a testament to the pain caused, and as a
gauge of our shrinking base of knowledge and expertise. And we haven't got
any closer to finding the means of interacting in a way which allows us to
talk across our different knowledges and through the haze of our sickness.
Take a deep breath, folks. Maybe take a look at the archive
(http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/~spoons/ or check out PORE)
and see if perhaps things look different on second glance, at a speed that
is not determined by the structures of online interaction. Print this
stuff out and read it outside under the sky. It makes a difference.
It looks to me like a story of love gone wrong. We all care too much, in
too many different ways, about too many different things that intersect
somewhere we call "orgonomy" or "Wilhelm Reich." Then we have a spat, a
pretty major one at that (Try telling your non-reichian friends that
you're involved in a conflict involving accusations of multiple wrongful
deaths by irresponsible weather control experiments. Laugh with them. Then
think about the completely uncontrolled "weather control experiments" mjor
polluters engage in every day. Perspective, too, is a Good thing.) Ina nay
event, the folks hurt most by the flak are the ones with most at stake,
and the ones who can't so easily distance themselves.
As i see it, DeMeo and jogg have both been placed in no-win situations by
this. And, at the risk of addressing character, neither has shown me any
intent to do anything but what they thought was right. Shall we begin to
cut our losses here? Can we either forget or confront squarely what has
happened so that we can begin to rebuild, hopefully with a more durable
foundation?
Allow me one more personal reading, a last clarification about why i,
personally, would have supported nipping in the bud the "investigation" or
"inquisition" (take your pick, niether does the events justice) of DeMeo's
research, specifically as a response to Carlinsky's accusations - and,
consequently, why i don't feel i can comment in this context any further
on cloudbusting:
For me, there is a fairly clearcut difference between the "right and
proper" questions that can be raised about interventions into weather
patterns and accusations of personal wrongdoing - and defects of
character; it is simply untrue that Demeo's character has not been
maligned - in the service of which these some of these questions are
raised. The former, it seems to me, are perfect fodder for an open,
nonexpert, unofficial forum, where we could chew the fat about atmospheric
therapy and it wouldn't matter much if we were right or wrong. We could
become complicit in the process of feeding each other faulty information.
We could simply not have the expertises necessary to address the problem
meaningfully. But we could also expect that all the participants could be
held responsible for any of their actions, should they decide to take
their knowledge or lack thereof to the backyard. Such a discussion could
start and stop depending on individual and group whims. but isn't the
current situation rather different? Where does our responsibility go when
it becomes the responsibility of a practitioner like DeMeo to satisfy us
that he is wholly responsible? On what grounds do we complain that 20
pages of response on what we all agree is an enormously complicated topic
is not enough. "Sorry, DeMeo, we have more questions." Of course we do. In
order to demand more, to demand the first explanation, we have to feel
ourselves authorized - by some personal stake and by the strength of the
*evidence* of wrongdoing. Personally, I was unconvinced by the evidence
presented. And apparently my understanding of science is sufficiently
different that i can't accept the dismissals of DeMeo's considerable
candor about the hazards and difficulties of cloudbusting that have been
posed on the ground of "bad science." I'm happy to (mostly quietly at this
point) disagree with folks like jogg about these sorts of questions. I
know that i am reaching the limits of my own expertises. In part, that's
because i know i am in no position, based on all of the evidence
presented by all parties, to demand an accounting.
I hope others who are making those demands are doing so on the basis of a
different sort of persuasion on the basis of facts.
More than that, i hope we can begin to turn our energies towards building,
rather than tearing down. The spark seems to be pretty faint right now.
The ratio of information to incrimination very low. The joys of
participating rather diminished. (As moderator, i am seldom spared the
expressions of fatigue and frustration, and the goodbyes. That's a mixed
blessing.)
But it's not up to me, or to any individual alone.
Where do we all go from here?
-shawn
--- from list orgonomy@lists.village.virginia.edu ---
Many thanks for Geocities providing this free space
Get your own Free Home Page
bravenet.com