I acquired a copy of Lyotard's _The Differend_ and have to make apology for
any flippant comments made in the past regarding Lyotard. The text is relevant
to the process of dialogue via an e-mail media such as BP.

The very first statement is, "As distinguished from a litigation, a differend
would be a case of conflict, between (at least) two parties, that cannot be
equitably resolved for lack of a rule of judgement applicable to both
arguments. One side's legitimacy does not imply the other's lack of
legitimacy."

The text goes on further to explore this statement.

One variant of the "rule of judgement" is a social group accepting a shared
set of beliefs (the Secretary of Interior standards for preservation, the
Venice Charter etc.). Without a shared set of beliefs it is difficult to have
dialogue. We will continue to missunderstand each other.

G&E on PL created a conflict, lacking any rule of judgement (there being no
code of conduct for PL other than pragmatic usage), it would neither be
absolutely correct, or incorrect to continue posting G&E on PL. Resolution of
the conflict in part resulted in creation of BP. The question of G&E was not
one of my having created a fiction in a professional world, but a conflict
between perceiving the world as a humorous absurdity, or perceiving it as a
serious and censorious reality. I reject the censorious, accept the serious,
and embrace the humorous absurdity as closer to reality.

My vote is for the freedom to make fools of ourselves, to see what happens,
and to learn from the experiment.

In responding to the e-mail on BP I often take note that something I meant to
communicate was received in a manner that I had not anticipated, which causes
me to feel a pressure to be more rigorous in choice of words. Or, causes me to
encourage the preservationeers to be generous with their interpretations,
therefore allowing all of us room to relax in our choice of words, or the
nature of the thoughts, and emotions, that we are attempting to express. I
believe that working with words through the media of BP is a political act in
that if preservationists can improve upon their tool kits of language
communication... that the philosophy of preservation can be more effectively
communicated to the world-at-large.

A problem that I see with the preservation movement, regardless if we are
talking caves, cathedrals, or outhouses, is that the world-at-large does not
perceive preservation as an activity of mainstream importance... such as the
discussion of snowmobiles, landfills, space exploration, global warming, the
president's pets, world peace, or the latest models of cars or swimsuits.
Making a change in public perception will not occur by bumping people over the
head, but may be slowly effected by verbal persuasion and the networking of
preservationeers.

I believe this is all relevant to a discussion of Lyotard's work.

][<en Follett