Since I seem to be blogging on blogging this morning:
I was somewhat bemused by this New York Times article on weblogging. It was nice to see a piece that was neither raving about the new media nor making the same old trite and predictable observations about it (not reliable, poor quality, etc.). It also dovetails nicely with a Boston Globe article on Google and privacy I mentioned a few months ago.
I am regularly worried that this weblog will harm my career. I never reveal online who I work for, and I very rarely write about friends or family. But I worry that someone will decide I'm a racist, a sexist, a homophobe, an anti-Semite, anti-Arab, or something else monstrous based on something I've written. Still, I've been ostracized for my political views before.
In a weird way, though, my writing seems less likely to cause me trouble than the people mentioned in the New York Times piece. There's a sort of perverse public privacy to the kind of writing I publish here. What do I mean by that?
First observation: most people don't read.
The very thought of reading something longer than a short memo makes most people's eyes roll up in their heads. For generations, intellectuals have wailed about how awful this is. I used to be one of them, but I've ceased to be so elitist about it.
I frankly see no evidence that people who don't read for leisure are any less functional or valuable than the literati. You can be an utterly decent human being and a fine contributor to society, but not be interested in intellectual endeavors. I may find you boring to talk to, because I don't give much of a damn about sports or gossip or what's on TV, and that seems like all non-readers talk about. Then again, you probably find me boring when I start going on about the economic effects of Roosevelt's New Deal or the significance of the phallus in Roman society. So here's how I see it: you can go watch the basketball playoffs, and I'll sit in the corner reading my new
I do wish that more people who don't bother to read up on the issues would exercise their fundamental right to stay home on election day, but that's another subject. It brings me to my next subject, though: the fact that most Americans don't give a damn about politics.
I say the following without the slightest trace of irony, bitterness, or sarcasm: It is a wonderful thing that most people don't care about politics. There's nothing wrong with not following politics. Indeed, ther's something utterly American about it. I think it's worth celebrating and treasuring. Because there is no finer proof that we are a truly free and prosperous society.
Yes, the right to vote is sacred, but the right not to exercise any particular right is intrinsic to freedom. I believed in the right to keep and bear arms long before I ever owned a gun; it was having the right, and knowing that I could exercise it at will, that was important, not the gun itself.
So here's my point: I run a moderately popular weblog by most measures, and have lots of regular readers. I deeply treasure them, too. Yet, perversely, while most of my friends and family members, and many of my co-workers, know about this weblog, few of them look at it. Because most of them don't read for leisure, and of those who do, most don't follow politics--or science, history, or religion.
Which makes for an odd sort of non-private privacy. Funny, huh?
"Yet, perversely, while most of my friends and family members, and many of my co-workers, know about this weblog, few of them look at it. Because most of them don't read for leisure, and of those who do, most don't follow politics--or science, history, or religion.
Which makes for an odd sort of non-private privacy. Funny, huh?"
Join the club.
Funny, but it's absolutely true.
90% of my coworkers know that know I have a weblog don't read it. Same with my family.
Only once did I get in trouble for something I wrote, and that was only because someone didn't understand that part of a posting was a quote from someone else rather than my own voice. (Once I explained the difference, everything was fine.)
As a general rule, though, I don't say anything in the weblog that I wouldn't repeat, and back up by argument, in day-to-day conversations.
Chatting with an Englishman yesterday, he told me that Americans are considered wildly political. In Europe, MOST people don't give a rats fundament for politics, and it is rarely if ever a subject of conversation or interest.
Look at the best seller lists across the water, cookbooks, mysteries, books on gardening, etc. History books, political biographies, political discussions, simply don't sell enough quantity to get on the lists.
Dean, the 'could harm my career' factor is (I believe) why Amish Tech Support, after moving to his new digs at blogmosis, put in a robots.txt file that succeeds in telling google to not index him.
The possibly objectionable to someone important content is still there, true, but it's not easily mined by google. They'd have to dig around by hand, which would raise the bar for damage from casual searchers.
Dean, my own take on this is, I've reached the age where I really don't care whether people are turned off by what I think and believe. I mean, I'm usually Mister Civility-- that's just who I am, by temperament-- but I long ago learned that no matter how smoothly I express myself, somebody's going to be pissed off by the mere fact that I didn't keep my pet notions to myself.
So I figure I may as well just say my piece, under my real name, right out in public. And then let the chips fall where they may.
I'm not a blogger, but I do have a fairly extensive personal website where, if anyone really wanted to wade through mountains of material, I'm sure he could find something to offend him. Many friends and neighbors are aware of my site-- some visit it, some don't-- and I'm continually surprised to hear of the things some of them have actually bothered to read on it. Are any of them offended yet? Well, if so, I haven't heard about it.
So I'm not really sure if I'm protected by a "non-private privacy" or not.
As for the posts I make here on your blog, imagine my surprise when I discovered several weeks ago that my mother is a regular visitor to Dean's World!
Had I mentioned Dean's World to her? Yeah, I guess I had. Though I didn't realize she'd learned to use Google.
Have I written things here that I'd rather she not read? Ummmmm, probably.
Has it slown me down any? Not so far.
But that's just me.
David, having been a reader of ATS for a few months, I don't believe 'career-hurting' issues have entered Laurence's mind in what he does with his blog. Have you reading his scathing criticisms of former bosses? If career were a concern there, I rather think he'd be more worried about "burning bridges" with former employers.
That's part of the reason I love blogs like that - not giving a damn what other people think.