nettime:Beyond Netiquette

[diana@dial.isys.hu (Diana McCarty)]

Beyond Netiquette
- interreligious dialogue and the making of a global ethic through
the Net -

The first-but-still-the-best Hungarian Musical, "Egy szerelem h‡rom
Žjszak‡ja" (Three Nights of a Love),  contains  a  "Song about Etiquette".
According to this unique song (sung amidst the ugliest period of the
dirtiest war in Budapest's history),  etiquette teaches us that we should
kiss the hand of a lady and which pair of shoes to wear for which
occasions, but the very same etiquette fails to tell us how to behave with
ladies, people whose shops have gone under , and also fails to tell us
which pair of shoes you should choose when both your feet are lost.
The conclusion of the song is the following: only the dead know proper
behavior.

Our Latin-based Western tradition of thinking: "Inter arma silent musae"
(Among weapons muses are silent), is especially true for what we call
etiquette, a codex of rules which works fairly well "within" a community,
the validity of which, however, ends in a conflict between two, or more,
different communities. Briefly speaking: it doesn't work with war.

Cyberworld's netiquette (with an 'n') is different, however. Its validity
is based on the fact that the community of cyberspace is one and indivisible