Dear Useless Science Community,
We have instituted a new
posting permissions policy both to limit spam attacks and to encourage responsible, serious, and engaged participation.
New MembersWhat this means is that new members will not be able to post until they introduce themselves in the
Introduce Yourself forum. This introduction forum is now only visible to those who have registered and logged in. After you introduce yourself, I will have to manually activate your posting privileges (please give me a day or two to do so). If your posting privileges are not instituted after a couple days, please email me at matt@uselessscience.com.
Existing MembersExisting members who have posted recently have retained posting privileges and should experience no problems. Registered members who have never posted or who haven't posted for a long time may not have received posting privileges. These exclusions were made simply to save me some time (as I had to make adjustments on an individual basis). If you are returning to the forum after an extensive hiatus and find you are unable to post, please contact me and let me know so I can restore your posting privileges. I apologize for any inconvenience.
Further CommentsI have some mixed feelings about this policy change. In general, I don't like "un-democratic" and exclusive rules. Useless Science has always been devoted to remaining open to topics of discussion and points of view not usually welcomed in other Jungian venues. But, as it turns out, I am really the only one here who seems to care about this or regularly takes advantage of it. Still, my concept for Useless Science has always been "progressively Jungian" and has relied on the encouragement of more rigorous thought and on "dangerous questioning" of Jungian conventions and sacred cows.
I had wanted the site to attract more professional Jungians, scholars, and serious thinkers than it has. Although the forum remains open to those new to Jung, the level of discourse I am personally focused on is, although I regret the term, "elite". That is, there is an expectation (in the posts I write) that the readers are colleagues who have an extensive knowledge of Jung and Jungian literature and ideas. Without that background, there is very little chance that my arguments could be adequately contextualized.
Of course, scholarly expertise is not by any means a requirement for participation at Useless Science. Most import is the possession of a good and open mind and an interest in getting to the meat of things. The forum is geared more toward investigators and seekers/questioners than it is toward believers. I am myself an example of a non-expert who satisfies the necessary "lay criteria". I also belong to a professional Jungian scholarly society (the IAJS) where many members are not only certified Jungian analysts but also scholars in "Jungian Studies" whose knowledge vastly surpasses my own. Despite this, I manage to keep up just fine. Sometimes "professionalism" can even be a hindrance to creative and critical thought.
Recognizing this when I founded Useless Science, my hope was to make this forum a place where professionalism didn't have to be reigned in by ideology and where intuitive and "affect-driven" thoughts could collide with dogma and belief. The goal of Useless Science was to contain these collisions and alchemically cook them until they became productive.
Over the last four years, I have learned a great deal about Jungian thought, literature, and mentality. In this sense, Useless Science has been a successful experiment for me personally. I admit that I have been disappointed that our community has never been as interested in the construction of a progressive Jungianism as I have. But I realize that this is significantly due to the dearth of Jungians out there that are "like me".
I don't wish to make our membership into those "like me" or restrict it in that way. But I still feel something should be done in the name of improving the quality of participation here (as for the quantity, that is so low that I am not terribly concerned about affecting it one way or another).
In that vein, I have often found myself frustrated by the anonymity and distance from which many members (newer ones especially) participate. Ideally, I would like real names to be shared (at least real first names) . . . but I also realize that this could easily be faked and also that people should feel as safe as possible in what could be a very exposing public venue. The posting restrictions (and the limitation of some forums to participating members) are meant to make Useless Science a little bit safer for those who wish to post here.
But the sharing of real names is actually the less important issue in regard to anonymity. The much greater problem with anonymity is that it enables very irresponsible posting. People don't own their words, or they feel entitled (under the cloak of anonymity) to dump self-indulgent, self-promoting, inflated tripe here and then zip off into oblivion.
I own and run this website. When someone comes in here, posts such stuff and runs, it is like walking into a stranger's home just because the door was open, pissing on their rug, and then splitting for ever. To evoke the Dude's frustrations: man . . . that rug really tied the room together! Yes, I'm being sensitive, but I find this kind of participation disrespectful.
I understand that these drive-by postings are neurotic/narcissistic acts. Compulsions, habits . . . not consciously intended "assaults". But I would like to send a message that says: Useless Science is not a place where you piss on the rug and then run away. This is a place where you engage, participate, where you are expected to behave responsibly, maturely, and with consciousness and good etiquette.
I see the conventional usage of online anonymity as a major force in the perversion of healthy community participation. Thus, the new posting policy, which is meant to deter this style of participation.
The new policy does not require the use of real names (although they are always preferred). It
does require that one introduce oneself before participating. This introduction need not be intimate, of course. Members should just say a little bit about who they are, what they are interested in, and why they would like to participate at Useless Science.
The goal is for this community to feel like it is composed of real individuals interested in engaging with one another and with various Jungian and depth psychology topics. In "Jung-speak", I would like to improve the quality of the Eros in our participation. I only have the power to do that through restriction, regrettably (and through the quality of my own participation . . . but this hasn't been "contagious" enough, it seems). Defective Eros can poison the whole community. It sets the bar lower and lower and can lead to unconscious and inhuman mass-mindedness. That kind of unconsciousness and inhumanness is not welcome here.
There are some members who retain posting privileges who have not introduced themselves . . . and perhaps this is unfair. Still, they did participate more or less genuinely despite this, and I felt they shouldn't be punished. If anyone has not introduced themselves yet, please do so.
If anyone has questions, complaints or other feedback on this policy change or anything mentioned in this post, please post it here or send me a private message.
My Best,
Matt
Useless Science Management
