Monday, August 08, 2005
A Tale of Two Blogs
One of the best liberal blogs around is Legal Fiction. Frankly I haven't kept up with it since Publius declared he was going to stop blogging for a while . . . and then came back before much time had passed. I honestly didn't know he had returned to blogging, and just lost sight of the blog once the habit of reading it had been broken (which is why bloglines is such a great tool. It's a one-stop shop for all of your blogging needs).
Anyway, Adam White at Southern Appeal brought Publius back to my attention with this post last night on one of Publius' posts which seemed to draw a moral equivalency between Muslim terrorists and the allied forces in Iraq. Adam rightfully called him out in and seemed to have the better of the arguments in the comments section, though perhaps he went a bit overboard in comparing Publius to Ward Churchill.
Publius has been an outspoken an ardent opponent of the war in the Iraq, but his objections cannot be as easily dismissed as those of extremists on the left. Unfortunately I think that Publius occasionally leaves the plane of rationality, as he did last night. But just when I'm about to lose hope in humanity, Publius comes right back with this thought provoking and insightful post about the Confederate flag. He doesn't defend the flag, but encourages his liberal readers to understand the southern point of view, a message this conservative opponent of the flag (who has utilized the "confederate swatstika" reference in the past) took to heart. It's the sort of post that reminds me that as many times as I'd like to hurl a rock through my computer when reading Publius, I admire him for his unique and well-thought out perspective. I think I'll have to make Legal Fiction a regular part of my reading habits again.
It also brought to mind a (somewhat) related point. Living in DC almost makes one forget that there's a world beyond politics. It's not to say that people outside the District cannot get passionate about politics, but when one lives and works "inside the beltway" there is simply no escaping political talk. Sometimes it can get quite oppressive, and there have been several times in the past year or so where I have almost given up on politics completely because I felt so burned out on the topic. After years of thinking and writing about politics in both a professional and academic setting, it gets numbing. What's more it becomes such a focus that you almost can't think of anything else, and frankly you lose perspective. It doesn't help in terms of invective, and that shows in some of the tenser exchanges that one witnesses on this blog and others.
It's not easy to contain one's emotion, and often times I do not. The blogosphere is a great tool to express one's ideas and to share them with others. But this great tool comes with the cost of too easy an access to pontification. We can all have reasonable debate and discussion, but more often than not it deteriorates into petty name calling and irrationality. I'm as guilty as anyone of engaging in such behavior despite my wish to remain as objective as possible. It's easy to slip from snark to boorishness.
All that's a drawn out way of saying that I hope that, if nothing else, I can use the blogosphere as a forum for quality discussion rather than baseless foaming at the mouth. It's incredibly valuable to gain another perspective, especially when that perspective is worth reading, and Publius' perspective is almost always worth the time.
Anyway, Adam White at Southern Appeal brought Publius back to my attention with this post last night on one of Publius' posts which seemed to draw a moral equivalency between Muslim terrorists and the allied forces in Iraq. Adam rightfully called him out in and seemed to have the better of the arguments in the comments section, though perhaps he went a bit overboard in comparing Publius to Ward Churchill.
Publius has been an outspoken an ardent opponent of the war in the Iraq, but his objections cannot be as easily dismissed as those of extremists on the left. Unfortunately I think that Publius occasionally leaves the plane of rationality, as he did last night. But just when I'm about to lose hope in humanity, Publius comes right back with this thought provoking and insightful post about the Confederate flag. He doesn't defend the flag, but encourages his liberal readers to understand the southern point of view, a message this conservative opponent of the flag (who has utilized the "confederate swatstika" reference in the past) took to heart. It's the sort of post that reminds me that as many times as I'd like to hurl a rock through my computer when reading Publius, I admire him for his unique and well-thought out perspective. I think I'll have to make Legal Fiction a regular part of my reading habits again.
It also brought to mind a (somewhat) related point. Living in DC almost makes one forget that there's a world beyond politics. It's not to say that people outside the District cannot get passionate about politics, but when one lives and works "inside the beltway" there is simply no escaping political talk. Sometimes it can get quite oppressive, and there have been several times in the past year or so where I have almost given up on politics completely because I felt so burned out on the topic. After years of thinking and writing about politics in both a professional and academic setting, it gets numbing. What's more it becomes such a focus that you almost can't think of anything else, and frankly you lose perspective. It doesn't help in terms of invective, and that shows in some of the tenser exchanges that one witnesses on this blog and others.
It's not easy to contain one's emotion, and often times I do not. The blogosphere is a great tool to express one's ideas and to share them with others. But this great tool comes with the cost of too easy an access to pontification. We can all have reasonable debate and discussion, but more often than not it deteriorates into petty name calling and irrationality. I'm as guilty as anyone of engaging in such behavior despite my wish to remain as objective as possible. It's easy to slip from snark to boorishness.
All that's a drawn out way of saying that I hope that, if nothing else, I can use the blogosphere as a forum for quality discussion rather than baseless foaming at the mouth. It's incredibly valuable to gain another perspective, especially when that perspective is worth reading, and Publius' perspective is almost always worth the time.
# posted by Paul Zummo : 4:33 PM
