Toward the end of The Poetics of Space, Gaston Bachelard offers a textual-critical view of Balzac's revision of a passage in Louis Lambert. Bachelard explains that what Balzac seems to intend is a definition of "determined opposition in the face of affronted space":
This text is all the more interesting in that Balzac felt obliged to correct it.
In an early version of Louis Lambert, we read: "When he used his entire strength, he grew unaware, as it were, of his physical life, and only existed through the all-powerful play of his interior organs, the range of which he constantly maintained and, according to his own admirable expression, he made space withdraw before his advance."
In the final version, we read simply: "He left space, as he said, behind him."Bachelard notices a "decline of power" between the earlier version and its revision, a compression that loses depth and impact. Yet this is what Balzac chose to publish.
In our listserv conversations, we tend to self-edit and compress in much the same way. Out of consideration for others' time, out of natural reserve, out of fear of being discovered "incorrect," we edit first thoughts, we mistake a thread's surface for its depth-charge relevance. Bachelard explores and criticizes Balzac's decision to edit language in a way that devalues the true subject: opposition in the face of affronted space.
How do we choose to occupy the space(s) between, under, above, listserv threads? Do we appropriate? Do we affront? Do we oppose? How do we engage the true subjects in our virtual discourse communities?
Can we reverse Balzac's misstep and expand what we have so carefully compressed? Can we restore the power to our discourse, lay claim to the affronted space?
This metaconversation, a multivocal report on listserv conversations as they converge and mesh, attempts that sort of restoration. I tracked threads across the waves of dozens of listservs, and common questions and concerns emerged from these threads. A ripple in one pool does find its larger splash in another. Several colleagues agreed to respond to those questions; the resultant metacommunication, a microstate of practice, follows.