I was reminded of it when I read an article in the Wash Post today. There I am – gliding in on the coattails of another blogger, me, Nina, referenced by name in the Wash Post. Waddaya know… (C’mon. scroll down to the last page. Okay, so I am not easy to find. What did you expect??? We’re talkin’ Wash Post!)
The article itself picks up on the recent flurry of activity surrounding Ann’s post of many many months ago – a post where she cited an email discussion she and I had about blogging from the left (that would be me; at the time Ocean actually acknowledge the existence of politics) and from the right (or, from a centrist position, perceived as right-facing).
Now that Ocean is squeaky clean, preferring to write about places and foods and idle conversations, the amount of disgruntled emails in my Inbox has gone down. (Though it hasn’t entirely disappeared. I just had a million-word exchange last week with a person in Poland who was terribly bothered by a generalization I posted about Polish people).
It’s so easy to offend. Sometimes I understand why it might lead to a tightness in someone’s chest, sometimes I do not.
Sometimes I myself am offended when I read blogs. Sometimes I am just damn mad. What the hell, how dare they? Excuse me?
Okay. Those are troublesome times. But you know, the blogs that I read are all over the place. And so I am used to stances and positions and worldviews different from my own. In fact, it is safe to say that no one out there that I know shares everything --- age, worldview, writing style, eastern European angst – that I think are my small burdens. So hey, I can deal with most anything well presented and well argued.
Even if it swings this way….
barbados sheep
Vilas Zoo, Feb.13
And that…
barbados sheep
Vilas Zoo, Feb.13
I once heard someone say, "the right looks for converts and the left looks for heretics." It was someone prominent on MacNeil/Lehrer, I'm sure...because until blogs (specifically post 9/11 blog-reading) I never accessed any other political discourse, except for the odd newspaper editorial.
ReplyDeleteAnyhoo, that maxim would explain Ann's and your observation, wouldn't it? I tend to think the advent of the political blogosphere has encouraged the right to also look for heretics, but it has not much encouraged the left to look for converts.
(I just deleted two chunky paragraphs all about me. Yay, me. I'm so tired of commenting about me.)
(And, of course, I'm not saying at all that Ocean spent it's political days looking for heretics...I'm talking about the big name poli blogs that make a sport of their politics.)
ReplyDeleteI'm glad to see that Kurtz quoted your (Nina's) injection of perspective into that meme of Ann's, which (to offer the polite assessment) hasn't aged well. You'll forgive me, I hope, for quoting myself from a long post on the subject of the operational modes of the left and right blogospheres I wrote a year ago (the full thing is here for the masochistic):
ReplyDelete"I'd be remiss if I didn't deny any averments from the right that the left blogosphere has any sort of monopoly on intellectual insularity. Regarding the politics of blog comments, my observation has been that large-readership righty blogs with comment functions are as good at recirculating their own ideas without making them any more palatable to the other side as their lefty counterparts. I would argue that there is a large class of blog comments, common on both sides, that could be freely exchanged between the hemispheres simply by replacing references to the one side's heroes with references to its villains."
Chuck: You might check out the latest couple of posts on Glenn Greenwald's blog for another perspective on that maxim. Considering the perfection of the 'slime and defend' modus operandi under Rove (picked up by many of the right blogosphere's central nodes), to pin the obsessive policing of orthodoxy on the left makes me wonder what hallucinogens the commentator in question was using.
Nina, I love Ocean just as it is, for what it is.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the parenting book recommendation the other day. I just looked it up and now I know why you loved it so: Faber & Mazlish! They are among my favorites, too. I think I have at least 2 of their other books. So much common sense, and sensitivity, too. I'll look around and see if I can find a copy.
Hi I love those pictures of the Barbados sheep. I read until I got a headache, and couldn't find any write up about them. Any way to find out why they were in here? I'd share some funny pictures of them if I can send them.
ReplyDeleteThanks,
Ovisdallii Ovisdallii@gotomy.com