[From the diaries by susanhu.]
People who write online in a sustained way…as many of us here, including myself, have done…are engaged in a project that dates back a ways.
You could say that our work represents the latest flourish of the “small press” movement that presaged the Enlightment in Europe. I have no doubt in my mind that if Denis Diderot, Voltaire and Mary Wollstonecraft were alive today, they would be bloggers. In so many ways, they already were.
You could also take our work further back to the free speech democratic traditions that anticipated what we call the ‘invention of democracy’ in Athens 2500 years ago. What is scoop, after all, other than a Socratic dialogue?….(If there is one figure who might stand in for the spirit of the blogs, our real blog father, wouldn’t it be Socrates?)…What is blogging more than conversation in writing…like those of the Vedic and Talmudic Scholars…or the work of the Chinese writers Lao Tzu or Confucius and their historical collaborators?
We’ve seen, in the last weeks, some bad news for our corner of the blogs.
Soj is folding “Flogging the Simian” after having her identity probed by a nosy colleague…Arthur Silber folded “the Light of Reason” because he could not make more than $200 a month on it and received so little appreciation from the “A-list” blogs…Marisacat was banned from dailykos…which for those of you weren’t there in the early days would be like Booman announcing, one year from now, that he had banned Susanhu…for a single comment that, in my opinion, might have been handled in a much different way. (From what I’ve read on LSF…and there could be more to the story, I don’t know…she was pushed out on the basis of a comment inquiring about someone’s offline identity, ie. something that is not cool…but with…as I’ve noted before is the case at dailykos…little due process or public accountability for the decision.)
Blogging, like all open source, democratic forms of speech is prone to burn out and flame out. Like the poison hemlock that his fellow citizens forced down Socrates throat…there are those who would poison our discourse, poison the well, and poison the spirit of free speech.
We need to understand that about this medium. And, if we are to make online writing a sustained source of information and opinion in our public discourse, we will have to evolve traditions that help us make sure that while:
- yes, burnout and bitterness happen
- yes, some people will want to maintain anonymity and they should be respected
- yes, some people will come and go, including voices we value and love
the conversation we are having should not end. It is part of the life blood of the longstanding project of democracy itself….as messy and inconsequential as it is the MAJORITY of the time.
Am I happy with the factionalization of the blogs? Not in the least, though I understand it. Factionalization can be a sign of intellectual freedom. It can also be a sign of clubbishness and close-mindedness that locks sides of the debate into petty and closed-loop discourse.
That happened with the left in New York in the 30s and 40s and 50s, with Parisian intellectual life in the 80s and Italian politics for the better part of this century. Good things can come of this state of affairs, these bitter inter-nicene battles…Dante’s work, for one, would not have existed without it…or, in the present day, the work of Michel Foucault, Susan Sontag and Edward Said.
But if we are to flourish in the midst of these conflicts and sustain this experiment in online democracy we need to understand the ground we stand on and have the maturity to seek balance.
I’ve been open about my real name, Paul Delehanty, and identity, I’m a photographer, in part, because, as a small businessman, I know that the vulnerabilty and openess of having my information out there for the world comes with both a price…and with benefits.
Others may not feel the same way about that trade off. Since secrecy and a private life seems to drive so many bloggers, we need to be able to navigate that situation. You see, the privacy that so many online writers crave is also the source of so much of the bad behaviour others exhibit. It’s easier to “throw bombs” when you are wearing a mask.
Further, I think we need to understand that writers like Arthur Silber….major voices who worked diligently to provide content for their readers…need to be nurtured in this medium in some way.
We need our Billmon’s and our Digby’s…and our Soj’s and Marisacat’s. We also need our “big wigs” and our “A listers” (what a heinous term…please, friends, don’t use it to refer to yourself!)…to show more appreciation of the collective efforts of the many….both readers and fellow bloggers.
Simply put: I know, speaking as ‘kid oakland,’ that my work would dry up in a vacuum. I need readers and fellow writers to do what I do. No blogger should pretend that this isn’t true That any of us, somehow, sits above the scrum. We don’t. None of us does. That is the beauty of the blogs. Those are its Socratic roots. The readers are the most important part of blogging. We forget this at our peril. It is the first rule of online writing.
Bloggers need to understand that we are all participants in public intellectual life. Whether in newspapers or magazines or in books, that intellectual life is a part of our shared human history. It’s not going away. We need to build sustainability and mutual respect into our dialogues.
The marches yesterday taught us that, on some level, there really is no difference between us….Bootribbers or Kossacks or LSF’ers or MyLeftWingers and on and on…other than our T-shirts.
Collegiality and respect should be part of our mode of operation. We should take this to heart. There are reasons we have separate blogs. There is no reason we should not have open debate and discourse between them. I’ve tried to do this, and will continue to do so.
In my view, here, on BooMan Tribune, we should strive to continue to innovate ways to make tolerance and sustaining voices a signature part of the culture here. This a fresh place, founded, like the United States of America, on the principle that dissent and free speech and tolerance make us STRONGER not weaker….that living with differences and criticism is a virtue, is, indeed, a rallying cry.
At the end of the day, Socrates, a public figure, the source of so much of our philosophical heritage….including the right to ask questions, was poisoned by his fellow Athenians. They voted to kill him and watched him die.
None of us here is Socrates…but all of us know the flavor of the poison that brought him low. We’ve seen it in action on the blogs. Democracy and free speech have a price. For none of us, however, in the 21st Century, should that price be more than the need to “take a break” or “moments of frustration with our peers.”
Bitterness and dead-ends get us nowhere..and we should not needlessly lose voices that we cannot afford to lose.
One of the best things the blogs could learn would be something that every five-year-old knows. All of us, at different times, needs a time out. That being said, mob-rule and the self-righteous majority, or even the lone spiteful blogger, can often be merely the bearers of hemlock, poisoning our debates.
All of us who would be participants in this public discourse…should look on blogging, or whatever version free speech takes down the road…as something we’ll do into a ripe old age. And while some of us, like Lao Tzu himself, will hand off our testament to a border guard and ride off into a quiet retirement…others will walk down to the Athenian agora one more time to debate in the midst of the crowds.
I know that’s my plan.
You see, had Lao Tzu lived today….he might have had taken a laptop to his rural retreat and just, you know…
come up with a new user name.
Well, what can one say in response to a perfect essay? Except… Bravo, KO.
Here’s an appropriate verse for the situation, and the master that is soj:
The Masters get the job done
Without moving a muscle
And get their point across
Without saying a word.
When things around them fall apart,
they stay cool.
They don’t own much,
but they use whatever’s at hand
They do the work without expecting any favors.
When they’re done,
They move on to the next job.
That’s why their work is so damn good.
(Modern translation of #2 by Ron Hogan. Worth checking out at
http://www.beatrice.com/TAO.html)
Well, at best, you’re right, but sometimes only hard, hot and direct words will suffice.
Bannings take place b/c a group of people want to control the flow of debate, whatever reason they give for it. Sometimes this can be good, as in pushing out an abusive troll, but lately it is often used to limit debate, especially on blogs that are becoming more party organ than marketplace of ideas. Remember that it was the other learned men who called for Socrates death.
I think the worse thing that a writer can do is consider his/her readers, at least when deciding what to write. The best writers will push their readers’ boundaries, make them a little uncomfortable. The only part of “consideration” I would agree with is choice of venue/style/writing level, but NOT content.
All of those older writers that you mention are great, but I think of blogging as more in the vein of the pampleteers, comic writers, iconoclastic philosophers and polemicists. My touchstones are Thomas Paine, Frank Miller, Nietzsche and Mark Twain. All of them were attacked for their tone, their subject matter, for being crude.
There is far too much comity and respect in America today. Yes, I know that it isn’t true of talk radio and some pop culture, but politically the harsh words only come from one side. These are times for all out verbal and intellectual combat.
Right on: and some other touchstones – Lenny Bruce, George Carlin, Chuck D, Jello Biafra, Gil Scott-Heron, and too many more to mention.
The difference in tone and tactics between folks on the left remind me of the difference between MLK, Jr. and Malcolm X. It might not be an “either/or” but a “both/and.” I know that the differences between those leaders of the civil rights struggle were mostly about the use of force vs non-violence, but I still think it is at least somewhat instructive. I am not a very learned historian, but my understanding is that the combination of their efforts got the job done (or at least started). I do know that no matter whether I agree with ALL of what everyone says, I continue to learn from people with very different approaches to the issues of tone and tactics.
exactly!
Those of us who use a more confrontational take on things move the debate. We are necessary. Malcolm himself pointed out that he scared whites into siding w/ King, for fear of a stronger, more “fringe”, movement.
I also think that Malcolm (and we should probably add the Black Panthers here) “fired up the base” of complacent African Americans to stand up and DEMAND change.
While MLK, Jr. gave a place for those to go who were scared of Malcolm. Without that, they might have just been polarized by Malcolm.
I think we still need all of these tactics if we are ever going to be successful in getting the american people to wake up and make some changes.
I agree that a strong, direct and radical approach is often called for. Too much clubbiness and mutual masturbation tends to dilute the imperatives.
Having said that, I think many of us tend to think that if we demonstrate respect for those with opposing views or if we refuse to attack at every opportunity that such behavior signifies weakness in and of itself; that if we seek to remain well mannered that this is a form of homogenization, a dilution of whatever message or point we’re trying to get across. (When I say “respect” here, I don’t mean to show respect to someone when they’re lying or otherwise trying to deceive. People who do this should be called on it every time.)
Frankly, I don’t see it this way. Sure the idiotic, back-slapping collegiality of the jerks in Congress is as awesome a display of embarrassing hypocrisy as there ever was, but most of these charlatans are serial liars anyway, so their clubbiness doesn’t really change that one way or the other. Even when they do insult each other openly it’s not terribly effective, because in the end, political cowardice and self-interest drive the agenda in congress, and no amount of staged “my esteemed colleague” shit is going to change that fundamental calculus.
We need cooler heads who can engage in deep and substantial debate without losing their composure too easily, and we need the radical voices to remind us, to return us to ground, to reconnect us viscerally with those things that are truly important. We need the voice of people like Michael Moore to remind us of the gravity of things, and we need the voices of reason and substance who can debate in detail the substance of the issues of the day and make a case for where we need to go without resorting to ad hominem attacks or the sort of stridency too often successfully ridiculed by the wingnut propaganda machine. We need both the voice that tells us that Rush Limbaugh is a lying shitbag and the voice that can calmly refute each and every one of his lies.
We need both these kinds of voices, because each has strengths that compliments the other. And by recognizing the value of both these kinds of voices and using them together we collectively advance the debate far better than if we allow only one kind of voice to carry the tune. We need the radical left to keep us honest and to keep us from becoming liberal academics, a plight I’m afraid to say has severely crippled our liberal cause over the last few decades. Progressive philosophy is not a textbook scheme, not an experiment in social engineering; it’s a living thing. The DLC doesn’t get this, and our putative Democratic leaders in congress don’t get it either. but if we’re going to be able to educate them, we need both to yell at them for beng cowards, and offer them reasoned argument why they need to change their ways or be dumped as the new party evolves to take hold of the issues of the day.
when I come out of the other side of this bankruptcy, may I commission you to make me a cabinet??
These past two weeks you posts have just made me pump my fists in the air!
Unaccustomed as I am to such praise, I thank you for your kind words. I always enjoy your posts too. We seem to have a certain synchronicity in our perspective.
And certainly, if the logistics work, I’d be immensely pleased to make something for you. Just let me know when the time comes.
My favorite orator is cicero, along with so many of you who make my day,daily.You know who you are.
Oh yeah– and beautifully said KO- your eloquence amazes me.
I agree pretty much with all you say.
Your note about Socrates’s right to ask questions reminds me of a point made by Milan Kundera (I think in Immortality) that the 10 commendments do not include “you shall not lie” because that would imply the obligation to respond. In not including this in the commandments, continues Kundera, God acknowledged our right to remain silent and to not answer questions. I take that this also means that anonymity is okay to Kundera’s God.
Let’s take what each of us has to bring. If we lack the context or background, we should note it and take what is written with whatever grain of salt we feel is necessary. If the background, identity, etc is there, we should take it as a gift and, in some cases, as relevant information on how to interpret what we say.
In my case, my identity is easy enough to find, but I do not wish pictures or me or my family to be published on the blogs. To each his/her areas of privacy.
This is off topic, but do you remember the name of a story by Kundera having to do with what he referred to as the “Don Juans” vs. the “Collectors”. It was a terrific tale describing the difference between those who live life and those who simply accumulate the trappings of life.
I find the shades of Socrates, Lao Tzu and Voltaire frequently on these wonderful blogs. These guys must still be alive, reminding us constantly of what’s important and helping us discover how to discern these things for ourselves,
It’s the magic of community, a community with a shared desire to help make things better for all, and a genuine desire to discover the truth and use it effectively rather than simply finding ways to prove the rightness of our beliefs.
I’ve never seen any advantage to being gratuitously rude or combative, or to be simply dismissive of someone else’s perspective just because I don’t agree with it. The fact that there are many on the blogs who do behave with disrespect toward each other for no legitimate reason is unfortunate, but to be expected. I just choose not to engage in such idiotic combat. I’ll challenge a liar everytime, and I’m always willing to question the veracity of anything someone might say. But showing disrespect to someone who’s being sincere and honest is not something I want to be engaged in.
Kid Oakland mentions the annonyminity thing. I have no compelling reason to be annonymous. I’m not a government employee, nor an important personage who would suffer retaliation if my blog comments were revealed as coming from me.
SBJ is short for Stephen Jones, (pronounced Stefan). I’m a cabinetmaker in his 50’s, recently partially disabled by a huge heart attack. I’m alive, now poor, but grateful to be back from the dead, grateful to know who I am, and grateful to have found not only this marvelous blog here at Boo Trib, but to have found the other blogs that helped guide me here.
In line with the philosophical tone of Kid Oakland’s diary here, I’ve long thought that our modern age these last 4-5 decades has suffered tremendously because of the diminishment of the idea of philosophers playing a major role in the development and advancement of society. We’ve seen what used to be a philosophical influence being subsumed into a religion-centric arena where arbitrary authority and dogma define what’s right and wrong, rather than such definitions being explored by vigorous and thoughtful debate. We’ve suffered mightily as a culture because of this absence of philosophy as a central, independent pillar of our social development. And I think the blogosphere, warts and all, is evolving to fill that void, whether intentionally or not.
With all this in mind I hope I’m around a good long time to experience the thrill of it all.
like all the above. And proof, once again, of the power possible in the discussions here. That was all so very well put:
and this…
Well put, we’re all grateful back.
And one that the majority of we less eloquent writers can use as a model to emulate, especially in terms of staying on topic and use of historical context but all-around, you are usually right on. (Some of Kos’ remarks and actions seem, as I get more acquainted with the goings-on, a bit arrogant and over-the-top… I hope he doesn’t suffer defections due to this: the liberal blogging movement would greatly suffer. so, I beg of you, if you have his ear, implore for some humility… a bone or 2 getting thrown never hurts anyone… i don’t think he should have banned Marisaca, “his Susan Hu.” Some actions since have had that erratic flair as well (calling hippies names, the mass bannings due to percieved anti-semitic remarks)… that said, he has a way of saying things, like you, that gets right to the core of things.
I am an English major and writing on blogs has literally helped me in several ways: as a means of venting instead of holding in frustrations due to social injustice and such (and not just from Republicans, but plenty of complicit Dems as well).
I came into blogging with my liberal collegues with a naive hail of rhetorical bullets flying around me, mostly because I was pissed about Dem losses in the last few elections due to the abortion albatross. (I have come around since then to understand that women’s rights supercedes the albatross effect, but nevertheless, the bad tactics of certain single-issue organizations are FAIR GAME for critique.)
The outing crap is just that: crap. I was banned a couple of times for my “crimes” and wrote on. I say the same to these folks as I said to georgia10 (of whose situation I know even less than the above):
Get back in line and fire at the enemy and stop whining. Jobs come and go but the rape and pillaging of the multinational goons must be stopped AND WE ARE IT… we can’t depend on Washington politicians of either party to do it. Dems are the best chance but only after a MAJOR housecleaning will I trust them again. Repubs are traitors to America (job outsourcing, drug war, oil wars/ economic market manipulation) and must be stopped or mankind is doomed — it’s just that simple. (Ok I have a flair for the emo writing but fuck it, I believe what I say…)
It’s funny I took a break from blogging for about a month. One of the reasons was that I needed to focus on some different things in my life. But another was my tendency to feel too relaxed sharing all my thoughts (as I am doing now? lol). I think taking a step back can be a good thing, to think about how one engages with the community and to checking our motivations for our online actions.
People often seem not to want to admit it, but blogging does have a social aspect. People build relationships through sharing their thoughts, and I think people want recognition for their ideas. So for me, I felt as if I needed to be more conscious how I interacted with diaries.
Privacy is another concern. I remain somewhat anonymous, at least I hope, but it seems like where there is a will there is a way to find out details about people, unfortunately. For me, privacy concerns also revolve around the fact that all our comments and diaries are saved. I’d rather not feel as if everything I write is etched in stone, even though I do admire the pay-off of being able to access older articles, etc.
Re: Banning at Dailykos.
I believe this is the comment KO is referring to. Hunter, who is one of the people who replied to it, is a FPP.
stack of lies, the comments from those two.
I am one of those who does not find harsh, repetitive attacks to be highly worthwhile, particularly when they are aimed at members of our own community. As I’ve said this before, I won’t go into my reasoning again, except to say that they create animosity instead of building trust. Although I like argument much more than anyone here knows, I don’t think it needs to slide into invective and personal attacks. I think we need to work on building trust and respect even when we disagree very strongly.
As to Marisacat’s banning, I found it quite upsetting. As is the case when I’m angry, I found myself wanting to find some twenty or so brave souls to post comments in response to a Hunter diary the next time he writes – if, indeed, he is in part responsible for her banning. Otherwise, post to a Kos front page story. And we would make a series of comments: “By the way, are you a staffer in the office of____. . .
and fill in the blanks with as far-fetched a list of names as we could think of. Of course, this might lead to our banning.
I did not think Marisacat’s comments were worthy of banning, and a little ridicule seems appropriate to that action.
Now, I don’t have a set of 20 folks at the ready to take on such a small act of protest, and I’m usually better at thinking about things like this than at actually doing them.
s o j. r i p.
I watch the ashes and hope a phoenix rises, and we hear the song again, though not recognize the bird.