Dear Listers,

I have sometimes used the metaphor of a well to account for what goes on with a list. That is, we gather around a well and discuss common needs, ideas etc. and we sometimes come to new and different understandings. Look up: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_WELL> for an account of the history of this metaphor that precedes the Internet.

The advantages of such an open structure are known to us all or else we wouldn't persist with this kind of activity.

The disadvantages are also known to us. When we join the list, we are also entering the list (or lists - see the etymology below for LIST). That is, we potentially are entering a place of combat and/or controversy. The rules for such combat are generally understood, in the context of this list, to be those of academic debate. When the combat violates those rules, then discussion is, as one member has commented (off list) ugly.

Generally we are a self-modifying and correcting community. We pay attention and respond in ways that keep the conversations going. From time-to-time there are disruptions that exceed the bounds of common curtesy and/or the tolerances for reasonable debate. Personally I don't mind what anyone says about me, but professionally I care when standards of academic rigour are treated as of no account.

But, the well exceeds us all. It was there before we came to it and it will be there after we are gone. So, we tolerate, as best we can, the heckling and mud slinging in the hope that we might be part of a rich and dynamic culture.

Which gets us to CRANKS (see etymology below). Crank ideas are part of all academic communities of any size and significance. It maybe perverse and even repugnant (fight again and fight again) for contributors to the list to raise ideas for testing by the list and then retreat and/or obfuscate when such ideas are shown to be cranky or deficient in some way. A better use, by far, of the list, would be to take benefit from the testing of the list and to help construct new knowledge or at least confirm existing best accounts.

I am here reminded of my recent experience with the dreaded New Zealand sand flies. They didn't seem to understand that I would kill everyone one of them that I could; they just persisted in their bloody sport much to my discomfort and exasperation.

Which gets us to Socrates as a gadfly. Socrates was  a logical monster and his process was to sting people, as a stingray, into a torpor. In this torpor, people became insensible to his arguments. Plato, on the other hand, attempted to construct hypothetical justifications for his arguments such that the logical impasses were usefully if not entirely logically passed. Here began pragmatism which one can argue is the basis of modern science.

Socrates never came to such a practice. Indeed he died in defence of his right to logically annoy.

The list must stay open to its own Socratic nuisances but one hopes for Plato to emerge to our benefit.

keith

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http://www.thefreedictionary.com/list
list 2  (lst)
n.
1.
a. A narrow strip, especially of wood.
b. Architecture See listel.
c. A border or selvage of cloth.
2. A stripe or band of color.
3.
a. An arena for jousting tournaments or other contests. Often used in the plural.
b. A place of combat.
c. An area of controversy.
4. A ridge thrown up between two furrows by a lister in plowing.
5. Obsolete A boundary; a border.
tr.v. list·ed, list·ing, lists
1. To cover, line, or edge with list.
2. To cut a thin strip from the edge of.
3. To furrow or plant (land) with a lister.

[Middle English, from Old English late.]

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http://www.thefreedictionary.com/crank
crank 1  (krngk)
n.
1. A device for transmitting rotary motion, consisting of a handle or arm attached at right angles to a shaft.
2. A clever turn of speech; a verbal conceit: quips and cranks.
3. A peculiar or eccentric idea or action.
4. Informal
a. A grouchy person.
b. An eccentric person, especially one who is unduly zealous.
5. Slang Methamphetamine.
v. cranked, crank·ing, cranks
v.tr.
1.
a. To start or operate (an engine, for example) by or as if by turning a handle.
b. To move or operate (a window, for example) by or as if by turning a handle.
2. To make into the shape of a crank; bend.
3. To provide with a handle that is used in turning.
v.intr.
1. To turn a handle.
2. To wind in a zigzagging course.
adj.
Of, being, or produced by an eccentric person: a crank letter; a crank phone call.
Phrasal Verbs:
crank out
To produce, especially mechanically and rapidly: cranks out memo after memo.
crank up
1. To cause to start or get started as if by turning a crank: cranked up a massive publicity campaign.
2. To cause to intensify, as in volume or force: cranks up the sound on the stereo.
[Middle English, from Old English cranc- (as in crancstæf, weaving implement).]


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