I think the case of Barkley Rosser demonstrates that the secrecy
of the ope-l archives is not just bad in principle, but also an
obstacle to scholarship and academic freedom in a quite concrete,
immediate sense. Let us use this as an opportunity to correct
the situation by opening the archives to the public at large!
This appeal is, a fortiori, a vote for full access to the
archives for Barkley. On the other hand, Barkley has
specifically stated that he does not want to join the list --
"Learned long ago not to try too hard to get in where I am not
welcome ..." -- and I hope we will respect that.
Conditions placed on use of archives have not been established,
and we need to establish them. If quotation or citing of
specific individuals is deemed objectionable, it still seems to
me quite proper to allow people to characterize discussions and
cite the relevant post numbers and/or dates.
I don't think fretting about how to save the list will help.
Either people will post or they won't. Many times in the past,
people have called for focus on new topics. Sometimes a bit of
discussion ensued and then died out; other times it didn't happen
at all. This should tell us something.
I do not understand Alfredo's (ope-l 82) plea to "move on."
Discussion of new topics has not been impeded in the least by the
debate over the internal consistency of Marx's own value theory:
(1) No one is forcing anyone to read anything.
(2) Listmembers have always been free to post *whatever* they
wish, and indeed several different threads have often been
discussed at the same time.
(3) The issue of Marx's internal consistency has scarcely been
discussed on this list for months, so, if this debate were
somehow a hindrance to the discussion of new threads, they
certainly should have emerged in this period. But they haven't,
not in any sustained manner.
In any case, though I'm well aware that so-called "differences of
opinion" will continue to exist, my purpose has never been to get
people to agree with me, so I see no reason to move on.
Andrew ("Drewk") Kliman Home:
Dept. of Social Sciences 60 W. 76th St., #4E
Pace University New York, NY 10023
Pleasantville, NY 10570
(914) 773-3951 Andrew_Kliman@msn.com
"... the *practice* of philosophy is itself *theoretical.* It is
the *critique* that measures the individual existence by the
essence, the
particular reality by the Idea." -- K.M.