Our “About Us” section says, “Pull up a pew, grab a beer (or three) and join in the conversation.” Helen wrote that, and I’ve always found it very evocative. I see our blog as reminiscent of the discussions I used to have with friends at uni, frequently over a cup of coffee or a bottle of red wine. We all had different political points of view, but most of the time, we managed to engage in frank and respectful discussion.
In that vein, have a look at this beautiful piece on blogging and journalism by Andrew Sullivan.
To blog is therefore to let go of your writing in a way, to hold it at arm’s length, open it to scrutiny, allow it to float in the ether for a while, and to let others, as Montaigne did, pivot you toward relative truth. A blogger will notice this almost immediately upon starting. Some e-mailers, unsurprisingly, know more about a subject than the blogger does. They will send links, stories, and facts, challenging the blogger’s view of the world, sometimes outright refuting it, but more frequently adding context and nuance and complexity to an idea. The role of a blogger is not to defend against this but to embrace it. He is similar in this way to the host of a dinner party. He can provoke discussion or take a position, even passionately, but he also must create an atmosphere in which others want to participate.
One day I’d love to print out all my posts and read them, to see how my views have changed over time and how I have been influenced by others. There is an intimacy about declaring your views openly online which is both liberating and frightening. But there’s also an immense opportunity to learn and to make friends. It’s a good thing, most of the time.
(Via Climate Audit)
12 Comments
Make mine a coffee, a milkshake, maybe three (of each).
As with the host of a dinner party, ditto for the guests, who when visiting those with markedly different views is more nuanced than when among their fellow travellers, and will more often than not, try and use some of the assumptions of their hosts as argument points.
(But I’ll never miss a chance as a Cats fan to slag off Collingwood unmercifully, so I won’t visit Victoria Park, if you get the analogy)
At some point I would love to see your and Helen’s collected posts in book form. You both write so well.
It would also be interesting to see how your views have changed over time. I know mine have. Yes, there are common themes, but the very act of trying to clarify views by writing forces change.
Yes, writing in order to think things out is very useful, I find i often start a post as a spray, not sure of its ending, finish it, then go back and edit and polish now that I’ve worked out exactly what it is I want to say. Knowing about the invisible reader has the effect, for me, of making sure it all works logically, rather than just dumping it in a pile as I might in a hidden diary meant for my own eyes alone.
[Don't eat the salmon mousse...]
Please, tell me this is NOT the same Andrew Sullivan that is convinced and still bloggs that Sarah Palin is not the mother of her son Trigg.
Doesn’t matter, I just checked and he is. I only just found this site and thought I might read something interesting but we all know what thought did. Now I will delete this site from my bookmarks.
Jenny, I hadn’t actually read any of Sullivan’s writing or blog before – I just came across this one piece and thought it was well written and interesting.
I should say also that if a blogger writes a post I disagree with, my personal policy is not to then write off everything that person says. If they then write a later post which I think is worthy of comment, then I’m happy to link to it. I like to keep an open mind.
I accidentally found my way back to this site and had read a couple of articles that interested me before I realised it was the same site that had published the article by that nutter Sullivan. The funny thing is I had already bookmarked this site before I realised it was the same site I had deleted the other day. I have since had a laugh and decided not to delete it again. I was really annoyed Sullivan had turned up on an Australian site as he is all over the US bloggs and I find his opinions irritating and mostly, well for the want of a better word, crap. However it is a world wide web out there and there are no borders behind which I can retreat. Thank God for the delete button I say.
FWIW Sullivan is a bit of a cock, and his endless hyperbole about Trig Palin is a classic example of it. Doesn’t mean he can’t write — he obviously can — but I’ve learnt from hanging around with plenty of literary types that literary skill and acting like a cock are not mutually exclusive.
I still think Sarah Palin challenged a lot of people on all sides of politics right where it hurt, and in the long run that can only be a good thing. I’m pro-abortion, but there’s no doubt that when we abort the disabled, we’re making a rather eugenic comment about the sort of world we’d like to live in. British academic Tom Shakespeare has written about exactly this conundrum with great wit and humour in Disability Rights and Wrongs. Sullivan obviously finds it really, really challenging — such that he’s prepared to smear someone who disagrees with him in the most egregious way.
There are lots of other things, too, but that was the first Palin challenge that popped into my head.
I second Jim’s thoughts. Lulu.com do some great self-published books and your posts would indeed make a readable tome.
Sullivan’s also been on the Colbert Report and he’s pretty quick-witted and an engaging conversationalist. I don’t agree with much of what he says, but I can appreciate someone who does have a brain, and can string a sentence together (in the last few years, my standards for public figures have fallen dramatically, and these days, I’ll settle for a triple-digit IQ and complete sentences).
Apart from his slightly odd obsession with Trig Palin (and his other, occasional flights of fancy), I’ve found his writing to be some of the best on the web. He writes somewhat semi-regularly for The Times, and he first caught my attention there with a light piece during the Primaries about the contrast between the Obama and Clinton camps.
And can I third the thoughts on a paper copy of your posts? It would be so much easier to read when travelling or on increasingly aggravating public transport …