Averros on Blogs

First, what Hubris said:

"....Atrios is a good example of what's wrong with political blogging on both the left and the right. I'm not saying that this applies to everyone with a popular site, but political blogging generally tends to be an assholocracy of sorts. People flock to the people who will stridently reinforce their point of view to the exclusion of all else. And even when you point out blatant inconsistency or dishonesty, and manage to break through their "loyalty factor," it usually comes down to tu quoque: "What about X on your side?"

So you end up with Malkin digging up stories of a white kid who didn't get to play third base in Little League because of an illegal immigrant kid playing while he's receiving free school lunches from the government, and Atrios posting stories about some cracker raping his entire family because he went to church, and their respective fans nod their heads while thanking goodness that they know what's going down in the real America, and that they aren't part of the demonized hordes on the other side.

Hey, fierce writing is appealing. I understand why people don't want to go read stuff that's extraordinarily civil in tone (my post wasn't civil, actually). I just think there could be more takedowns that don't stop at self-serving ideological lines.
Maybe I'll try to do a better job of it myself, for the sake of my three readers. "


Then, what Avveros said:

"Well, Hubris, i wish i'd said that, especially your own long comment (long by blog standards [which aren't too high {and don't support analysis in depth}]). Nested analysis is not necessary when all one wants is confirmiation of his own dogma.

I say i wish i'd said that, but, of course, i have. But not nearly as well, as concisely, nor as clearly as you have.

You've certainly voiced my depression, my sadness of finding everywhere on this should-be-oh-so-fine new communication medium little but the bleating of sheepy flocks and phoney shocks, everywhere the Cult of Moral Outrage.

I miss most of all the Shakespearean imperative to "strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends." Instead we have a new imperative to separate by dogma, by the motet of the choir, so to speak, and to treat those who differ as moral reprobates.

We might have thought that blogs would have become the new and more general philosophy seminars. but they have become ad hoc tiny offices of propaganda. All we have seemed to gain since the middle ages is the formation of micelles of the oil and water of our opinions, ever walled off from one another by an instinctive revulsion for any but our own opinion. The blohgoisphere has become a great foamy emulsion, a tale told by minor idiots, signifying nothing.
Hubris, you are a great joy in the midst of this."