[Upd-discuss] Re: Article: A cyberspace Lenin: why not? By Slavoj Zizek

[Zapopan Martin Muela-Meza]

Lars Aronsson says:

> Lenin was a mass murderer, just like his follower Stalin. These 
> people have nothing in common with anything this list is about.

What Lars is doing is known as logical fallacies of expression, in this
case a fallacy of distraction to deviate the sustance of the argument with
other nonsensical things, like attacking persons (argumentum ad hominem),
Lenin, Stalin and me as a suppossedly "follower" of them, instead of
"attacking" the arguments being discussed. And he is doing so to change
the subject, that is, he changes my topic or argument with his personal 
anti-communistic, anti-leninist, and anti-stalinist views or political
ideologies.

Take a look at the mission of the UPD:
Mission
Union for the Public Domain (UPD) is a non-profit citizens group. Our
mission is to protect and enhance the public domain in matters concerning
intellectual property. We are a membership organization, acting as an
independent voice on intellectual property issues.

So, as you can see, I sent an article written by Zizek, and I particularly
excerpted two paragraphs, which Lars is not mentioning. Zizek, the whole
article and particularly my excerpts "act as an independent voice on
intellectual property issues." Yes, Zizek is making a comparison of the
Lenin's ideas with the free access (public domain) to the Internet. He is
also arguing about the antagonisms capitalism itself has created and its
impacts of who owns human intellect expressions, manifestations and
transformations... to that point that he warns that part of human genoma
may be already copyrighted by "intellectual property" enforcers. Thus, the
article is not a brain-wash to join marxism, or communism, or socialism,
or Leninism or Stalinism as Lars wrongly suggests; the article hast to do
with the mission of this list. If Lars' ideology is that of a brave anti
Lenin's and Stalin's ideas, views, and whatever, okay, that's fine, even
twins have different points of views. But he should debate regarding the
topics, and arguments, not shooting down people. And if some critics, such
as Zizek bring to his theoretical framework the thought of Lenin, well,
Zizek-Lenin's ideas should then be debated. Lars and other members of the
UPD and its list should, guarantee the freedom of expression each member
may have, and debate on each other's views, instead of trying to exclude
other members' arguments or the members themselves by attacking the
members  (argumentum ad hominem). 

And returning to the arguments of Zizek.

As I informed you before, I published recently, in Spanish, in the Mexican
journal Razón y Palabra. La Primera Revista Electrónica en América Latina
sobre Tópicos de Communicación (Reason and Word. The First Electronic
Journal in Latin America on Topics of Communications), the article  "The
age of the corporate state versus the informational and cognitive public
domain." See:
http://www.cem.itesm.mx/dacs/publicaciones/logos/
http://www.razonypalabra.org.mx/actual/zmuela.html
See also for an English abstract:
http://eprints.rclis.org/archive/00003658/

The whole issue (No.) was a special one devoted to disscuss "the right to
information into the knowledge society: an institutional approach."

Here I assessed some publications by Zizek and I found him very critical
and analytical in line with my main argument which was to critisise the
advent of the state as a corporate state against the public domain of
information and knowledge, in part affecting libraries and other
repositories of public knowledge which is main subject of the PhD I am
doing in England.

In this article I cited a Spanish article published in Argentina by Zizek
which is extracted from his book The Ticklish Subject: The Absent Centre
of Political
Ontology<http://www.versobooks.com/books/tuvwxyz/xyz-titles/zizek_subject.shtml>.

Here Zizek --theoretically and philosophically speaking-- calls for a
politization of the economy in this way:

"An extra indicator of the need of some kind of politization of the
economy is the perspective overtly "irrational" of the concentration cuasi
monopoliistic of political power in the hand of a lone individual or
corporation, such is the case of Rupert Murdoch or of Bill Gates. If the
next decade produces the unification of multiple communication media into
a single apparatus that combines all the characteristics of an interactive
computer, a TV, a video and audio equipment and if Microsoft really
achieves to become the owner cuasi monopolistic of that new universal
medium, controlling not only the language being employed, but also the
conditions of its application, then it is obvious that we will confront
the absurd situation where a single agent, free of all public control,
will domain all the basic communicational structure of our lives and
he/she will be, therefore, more powerful than any government." (Zizek,
2000).

My whole article deals with the restoration of the public domain, as
explained by Marquand (Marquand, D. (2004). Decline of the public: The
hollowing-out of citizenship. Cambridge, UK: Polity.), where citizens
submit under the public domain (or interests, or sphere) all the social
issues that matters to the public. The takeover of corporations of the
States, governments, public and social institutions is something that my
article critisises, and Zizek's arguments are, among others' such as
Frederick Engels --on the explanation of the State origins--, Herbert
Schiller, Brian Martin, Ruth Rikowsky, Marquand, Dominique Wolton,
Dyer-Witheford, Juan Domingo Arugueyes, and others, just according to my
lines of research.

Due to all of this I found very interesting to share with you some of the
Zizek's ideas I have already been acquainted with, only for theoretical
and debatible purposes. And if he or other critics, researchers or
activists happen to make their arguments comparing whatever with Lenin,
Stalin, Hussein, Bush or any other political figure, okay, be so, let us
then debate the ideas, arguments, and so on, but not to try to divert and
distract the attention due to the personal ideologies, or political
phobias.

I resend you what I send you in case you want to probe it fits with the
UPD mission.

Regards,

Zapopan Muela, librarian
PhD candidate
Information Studies
University of Sheffield, UK
---------------------------
p.s. and if  Lenin was a mass murderer, just like his follower Stalin.
Okay, we have read you, but I am not discussing about mass murderers or
angelical samaritans. 
Zizek, Slavoj (2002). "A cyberspace Lenin: why not?" International
Socialism Journal. 95.
http://pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk/isj95/zizek.htm

Issue 95 of INTERNATIONAL SOCIALISM JOURNAL Published Summer 2002
Copyright © International Socialism
A cyberspace Lenin: why not?
SLAVOJ ZIZEK
http://pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk/isj95/zizek.htm

Excerpts:

...
However, does capitalism really provide the 'natural' frame of the
relations of production for the digital universe? Is there not also an
explosive potential for capitalism itself in the world wide web? Is not
the lesson of the Microsoft monopoly precisely the Leninist one: instead
of fighting its monopoly through the state apparatus (recall the
court-ordered split of the Microsoft corporation), would it not be more
'logical' just to socialise it, rendering it freely accessible? Today one
is thus tempted to paraphrase Lenin's well-known motto, 'Socialism =
electrification + the power of the soviets': 'Socialism = free access to
internet + the power of the soviets.'

...
The key antagonism of the so called new (digital) industries is thus: how
to maintain the form of (private) property, within which only the logic of
profit can be maintained (see also the Napster problem, the free
circulation of music)? And do the legal complications in biogenetics not
point in the same direction? The key element of the new international
trade agreements is the 'protection of intellectual property'--whenever,
in a merger, a big Western company takes over a Third World company, the
first thing they do is close down the research department. Phenomena
emerge here which involve the notion of property in extraordinary
dialectical paradoxes: in India, local communities suddenly discover that
medical practices and materials they have been using for centuries are now
owned by American companies, so they should be bought from them; with the
biogenetic companies patenting genes, we are all discovering that parts of
ourselves, our genetic components, are already copyrighted, owned by
others.

Full text:
Zizek, Slavoj (2002). "A cyberspace Lenin: why not?" International
Socialism Journal. 95.
http://pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk/isj95/zizek.htm

Vorwärts

--- Lars Aronsson <lars@aronsson.se> wrote:
> Zapopan Martin Muela-Meza wrote:
> > Zizek, Slavoj (2002). "A cyberspace Lenin: why not?" International
> > Socialism Journal. 95.
> 
> Lenin was a mass murderer, just like his follower Stalin. These 
> people have nothing in common with anything this list is about.
> 
> 
> -- 
>   Lars Aronsson (lars@aronsson.se)
>   Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se
> 

--------------------------- v ---------------------------
"Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of humankind. Our schoolbooks glorify war and hide its horrors. They inculcate hatred in the veins of children.” 
--------------------------- v --------------------------- 
"El nacionalismo es una enfermedad infantil. Es el sarampion de la humanidad. Nuestros libros escolares glorifican la guerra y esconden sus horrores. Ellos inculcan odio en las venas de los niños."

-- Albert Einstein. In: Sagan, Carl (1980). Broca's Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science: El cerebro de Broca: Reflexiones sobre el romance de la ciencia. New York: Ballantine Books, p. 37.


		
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