The Purpose and Scope of Blogging (for me)

Mike Golby is having a bit of controversy over at PageCount on the appropriateness of content on his weblog. He’s apparently getting attacked for posting personal material that others (family relatives, mostly) feel should not be let out into the public domain. With that in mind, I guess this might be a good time to discuss the “purpose of blogging,” specifically for this site.

This blog, "thoughts on the eve of the apocalypse," is, by default, an extension of me. Still, if you haven’t noticed, I don’t share personal information freely. You might find that juxtaposition a bit odd. While I don’t relish the cloak of anonymity, I generally feel that "who I am" is irrelevant to the content you'll find here (although many of you who visit regularly know me in real life).

Blogging is a relatively recent phenomenon for me, as well as the world, and I do think it has revolutionized the way people interact with the internet. I find the rhetoric about its impact to be a bit overblown, especially coming from people like Andrew Sullivan or those techno-utopians over at TCS, but it is a significant cultural development. It has shaken up the way people consume information, spread it, and the like, but it has not changed the actual practice of journalism that much.

When I was a wee lad at my undergraduate institution back around 1997, I can distinctly recall having rather naïve discussions about the web “allowing everyone to be a publisher.” It wasn’t true back then, and still isn’t true now, but the line of publishing priviledge is receding more and more. What I can do now on my bloggy was beyond my comprehension just one and a half years ago. Back then, I was lamenting the corporate consolidation of the internet, a la McChesney, and wondering whether e-commerce was going to destroy the web’s discursive attributes. Things, obviously, have changed.

How much, I cannot say. It’s a substantial change, but, as I’ve noted in this post, blogging is still an enaction of priviledge. And it frequently is a voyage down the road of irrelevance.

To get back to the purpose of this blog, it is not intended to be a warblog. Looking at most of my posts, especially recently, one might be able to take issue with that declaration. I can only say that the wars are the "hot topic" right now. As a rule of thumb, I post information, largely for informative purposes, about what seems relevant to me. The predominance of material will have to do with politics, as that’s where my interests often lead, and also where I find the ability to share information, links, and material with others to be of most utility. When I can find time, or view it as being helpful, I will add my own thoughts. Most of the time, though, I will let the excerpts and links speak for themselves.

As for Mike's dilemma, I refuse to demarcate what is and is not relevant for a blog, especially for others. Blogging provides the ability to publish as you wish and nobody should feel the need to submit their offerings to a judge of worthiness. If you have the ability to publish, and want to, by all means go ahead and publish anything. It’s your choice; it is not for others to decide what you can post, but rather what they wish to read. Still, always keep in mind that there are consequences for every discursive act, just like in the "real world".