Re: <nettime> the silence on the rising fascism

[paul van der walt via nettime-l <nettime-l@lists.nettime.org>]

Hey Christian,

On 2023-12-22 at 12:03 +01, quoth Christian Swertz via nettime-l <nettime-l@lists.nettime.org>:
> Am 21.12.23 um 20:03 schrieb Ted Byfield via nettime-l:
>> So, again: when someone laments the "silence on" some subject, one way to understand that gesture — just one way, not the only ways — is that it assumes a traditional, even nostalgic model of discourse, and on that basis diagnoses a collective failure.
>
> Silence is defined as a traditional model of discourse? I have to admit that this seems not intuitive to me. I tried to translate it to German - but the result does not make sense in relation to the definition. Maybe you can help me with a hint on the  other ways to define "silence"?

The way i understand it, Ted is remarking that in our situation, (some number of) people are participating in a discussion on a mailing list, and some (many more, by definition almost, given the subscriber count) are lurking / listening / thinking their thoughts / sending everything to spam, but not replying in public to the postings.  He's saying that the gesture of labelling this phenomenon as an (my words) "active / deliberate silence" is firstly a specific framing (one of many, as he argues), and secondly a nostalgic one, in that it stands in comparison to collective manifestations out in the streets, with people shouting, as an example (among many).  I think the claim is that instead of choosing this one framing, of labelling this state of affairs as "silence", we are invited to reflect on how else to respond to our contemporary context.

Apologies Ted if i'm flat-footing your (eloquent, IMHO) framing and argument.

For what it's worth i can see where Ted is coming from, and to me it does make sense.  I'll remain neutral on the substance of it as well as the implications that has for our various (potentially deontological) roles in discourse.

Cheers,
p.
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