Confessions of a 1-Year Blogger
I haven't accomplished nearly any of what I had in mind when I started blogging.
But I'm a different person than I was a year ago.
First and most importantly, I got married, which has caused an adjustment in both priorities and schedule. Even though it has lessened my consistency in writing, it's certainly not a point of regret. Marriage and family, I believe, is and will ever be the most substantive part of what is real and worth doing in life. Social, political and economic concerns are only more important where they affect the stability, safety and prosperity of the family.
Secondly, my political views have shifted somewhat. I've been reading and commenting on political blogs ever since the 2004 Presidential primaries. When I started considering blogging, the 2004 elections were gearing up, I was sweating bullets at the thought that a spineless, deceptive politically opportunistic empty suit like John F. Kerry could come so close to getting into our highest office sheerly on Bush hatred, blind ambition and historical revisionism (having the MSM as willing accomplice and PR machine was a given, regardless); doubly so that it would take place at a crucial point in the War on (Islamofascist) Terror. I was donating to the Swift Boat Veterans, reading their Unfit For Command book and Hugh Hewitt's "If It's Not Close, They Can't Cheat: Crushing the Democrats in Every Election and Why Your Life Depends on It".
Of course, I voted for Bush. Not that my 1 red drop in one of the reddest "buckets" of votes (Idaho) made a substantive difference, but I would do so again on principle, were I to do it over again.
But once the election (and it's accompanying euphoric relief of not having to utter the title "President Kerry") had passed and real life settled back in, some things had already started changing in me. I had decided to start blogging partially from the encouragement of some of my favorite bloggers and partially from Hewitt's book, which aspired to prompt it's readers to change not just their minds, but their behavior. While I still think that the basic pragmatic premise of his book is essentially accurate (Democrats essentially have no platform but Bush-hatred and lack the will, the mindset, the capability to comprehend the nature of our nation's enemies and defend against them, and therefore must not be allowed to obtain a majority in the political system in 2006 or 2008 for the sake of our collective survival as a nation) and agree that political change needs to come from the actions of individuals, my intent and perspective has shifted from Hewitt and his GOP pom-poms.
I started listening to talk radio in the car (on Election Day, because I couldn't get my blog/news fix in the car-- is that sick or what?) and found myself more intellectually stimulated by Michael Savage than the other local offerings (Hannity, Ingraham, O'Reilly). Even though I disagree with him on many things, I found his allegiance to logical argument and conservative values over rhetoric and party platform to be refreshing. I consequently found my own views shifting, or rather, fine-tuning, to be more focused on conservative values than party platform. With that shift has come a growing disappointment in Bush (and GOP) adherence-- or lack thereof-- to those values; and a dissatisfaction of the political system in general, in the current form that we American citizens have permitted politicians to twist it into over the years.
Another cause of shift has taken place as I discovered and absorbed the views of other bloggers. Charles "Tremendous" Jones has said that the only difference between who you are today and five years from now are the people with whom you associate and the books you read. With blogging, reading and association meld into one.
I've gained a great deal of respect and compassion for the intellectually honest with differing viewpoints, and found myself more open to considering their views after having to come to know them-- one becomes more careful, for example, in characterizing or addressing the conflict of agendas between Judeo-Christian concerns and atheist/agnostic concerns when one has a friend who personally identifies with the opposing concerns. And while I've always considered myself to be a conservative-- for as long as I've known the term-- I've found myself, through blogging association, identifying with many elements of libertarianism (not to be confused with libertinism.)
Finally, after some experimentation with this medium we call blogging and much reflection on the format, style, voice and content I wanted my blog to have, my views of my own role and purpose in blogging has changed.
One of the earlier blogs I added to my list was Normal Rockstar, and I did so primarily on the merit of one post, though I have continued to enjoy many of his entries.
Jeremy responded to a reader's comment on his first post, in which the reader asked why he seemed concerned about being influential via his blog. Jeremy's apt response was, "Why does being influential not matter so much to you?"
Aside from the Christian's mandate to be the salt of the earth and a light on the hill; in a democratic republic, it is the duty of a citizen to make their voice heard in order to have their values represented, and more importantly, in order to preserve Liberty for themselves and their posterity.
Politics, after all, is merely the administration of moral values.
Don't believe me? Let's look at a laundry list of common political issues of the day:
- Abortion: An obvious moral conundrum... When does "life" start? When, if ever, does one have the moral authority to terminate a pregnancy, and who has the authority to decide when it is terminated. When do the needs of the mother outweigh the needs of the unborn child, and who determines which needs are valid?
- Budget & Taxes: Where does a citizen's financial duty to their country end and coerced deprivation of private property begin? How should those tax monies be regarded by those administering their appropriation, and what accountability do those administrators have to the contributing citizens?
- Crime & Justice: What activities are deemed "illegal" and why? What measures may be taken to prevent those activities? What punishment should be measured out against offenders? When is a punishment too severe or too lenient, and what are the repercussions to society in each case?
- Economics: This touches the same issues in Trade and Budget & Taxes, but there are also basic questions such as, Does one have a right to private property? Where is the line between protection of consumers and unwieldy regulation? How much of the result of ones own efforts does one have a right to retain?
- Education: Who is responsible for the upbringing of a child? Who is the authority in what a child should learn? Should one be effectively coerced to contribute to an educational system if they disagree with the merits, the content or the results of that system?
- Foreign Policy: When is aggression justified? Where is the line between the preservation of peace and the obligation to preserve life and liberty? Does abstinence from armed force equate with or accomplish peace? Should one ally with an entity which admittedly has unjust policies in order to defeat an entity with more grievous and/or more aggressive policy? Does this make one an accessory to the injustices administered by the ally?
- Social Programs (including Health Care, Welfare): Should an individual be coerced to help bear the burdens of society? Where is the line between providing a compassionate safety net and catering to the lazy and exploitative?
- Trade: Should one do business with an entity whose policies are unjust? (this loops back to Justice) Is it fair or in ones long-term interest to set trade policy which always tilts the exchange to result in a greater favor to ones self?
This list is certainly not all-inclusive, but it should serve to illustrate my point: All of these issues are basically questions of moral values.
Ah, but whose values are to be administered? Therein lies the controversial nature of politics. Everyone wants their values to reign supreme.
And therein lies the importance of influence. I submit that everyone who wants to accomplish anything of significance in their life cannot do so by themselves and must therefore involve others in that accomplishment. They must influence others in order to prompt their involvement and therefore any plan for significant accomplishment is a plan to influence others, and the number of people who must be influenced is inextricably tied to the significance of the accomplishment.
What is the scope of my desired influence? My modest goal is to change the world.
In more specific terms, I want to have an influence on which values are administered in the society to which I belong because those values do affect the stability, safety and prosperity of my family; and I have a duty and a passion to preserve Liberty for them.
Can a lowly blogger change the world, you may ask? (Especially one who posts so sporadically, you may chide.)
Dan Rather might have something to say on that subject (grudgingly, of course) but unseating an aged king of blather is hardly changing the world. And blog-based punditry often falls far from the Hindu origins of the word (pandit; learned man). Many a resulting screed brings to mind the platitude about opinions and armpits (and I'm certainly not excluding my blog from this category).
But mere opinionating is not necessarily influence, or at least, not necessarily a desirable influence. Blogging, like journalism, can quickly become what Stanley Baldwin called "the privilege of the harlot down the ages-- power without responsibility". Philosopher Soren Kierkegaard wrote of his concern for the influence of the press on the public sphere in the 1850's. Hubert Dreyfus, writing how Kierkegaard's concern could be circumscribed to today's information society, summarizes that being in the public sphere, one could hold an opinion without having to act on it.
Dreyfus:
"If all the public can do is observe and reflect, then by being part of the public one can be secure while at the same time having opinions on everything. Kierkegaard already saw that the essential feature of this freedom to have an opinion on everything is that people do not take responsibility for their opinion."
. . .
"The Public Sphere is a world in which everyone comments on and has an opinion on all public matters without needing to act and therefore without have to make any commitment."
The motto Kierkegaard suggested for the Press was: "Here men are demoralized in the shortest possible time on the largest possible scale, at the cheapest possible price." While incidents like the Dan Rather National Guard memo and the swift-boating of Kerry are regarded by the right-of-center, at least, as a New Media triumph over-- even a circumventing of-- that demoralization by the Press; those left-of-center might argue that the New Media is still that same demoralization, just on on faster, cheaper, larger scale.
Kenneth Minogue writes that Kierkegaard mistrusted journalism because he thought it would feed our love of the ephemeral. He writes that journalism (and I would add, the web on a greater scale than legacy media ever could) feeds our propensity for boredom by providing us an endless stream of novelty, and that focus on novelty crowds out the time and energy that would otherwise go into reflection.
Minogue:
"Religious people, philosophers, or scientists—people who are genuinely educated, we might say—will think about God, or Nature, or literature, and will find new things in quite exiguous materials, whereas the less educated become increasingly miserable without a continual flow of novelty, and since most of reality is repetition, the novelty is a function of triviality. People become, in a word, shallow."
Minogue sums this hunger for the flow of novelty as "the lust to see and know of things of no concern to us."
Those familiar with scripture will note the parallel of these thoughts to Paul's description of the those of the "last days" who are "led away with divers lusts, Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth."
Minogue quotes Pascal, who remarks: "More often than not, curiosity is merely vanity. We only want to know something in order to talk about it." Many bloggers can relate to the phenomenon of scanning the news and blog sites simply to find something interesting to blog about themselves, or to put their own spin or perspective on it.
Yes, blogging is vanity. And with the prospects of the elusive Instalaunch bringing thousands of eyeballs to ogle ones own dear precious opinion, that vanity is compounded.
Well, now that I've managed to characterize my fellow bloggers as shallow curiosity seekers consumed by lust and vanity, I should note that blogging has already shown itself to perform an important role in society, such as breaking the hold that mainstream media monopolies and oppressive regimes have traditionally had on the flow of information; and the informal network of bloggers who have participated in these activities are in some measure even heroic for their efforts. A recent re-reading of George Orwell's 1984 drove home to me the importance of the free flow of information. Blogging, done with intellectual honesty, is the anti-memory hole.
But, I repeat, mere opinionating is not necessarily influence. My recent slowdown in blogging, aside from time constraints, has been in part a resistance to succumb to opinionating on the latest topic of interest. It all becomes a lot of heated discussion by the self-important on issues often self-created to have something to discuss-- as Shakespeare would say, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Much like the politicians themselves. My slowdown has also been in part from becoming disillusioned in our current political system's ability to accomplish much of anything outside of self-preservation.
So what separates the average bloviator from bloggers of note? Some in the blogosphere have observed that many of the more influential or astute bloggers already have a background in law, media, or academia previous to taking up blogging. They would argue that those fields which train one to be logical, curious, or disciplined thinkers gives them an edge in observation and argument that allows them to excel in blogging. That may be true, but I think it can be reduced to a more basic principle: One must have something of worth in order to give it. Goethe said that one must be something in order to do something, but I think the reverse is equally true: One must do something in order to be something. Do something in order to be something, in order to have something, in order to give something worth having-- worth influencing others with.
Maureen Dowd has argued that Cindy Sheehan has "absolute moral authority" (i.e. something worth influencing others with) to speak on the war in Iraq because she had a son who was killed in that war. The reason Ms. Dowd is wrong, and why Ms. Sheehan will never come to significant influence is that, notwithstanding her unquestionable grief, she did not "be" or "do" anything in her son having been killed, nor (by evidence of his reenlistment prior to his death) did her son share her views... Thus she is perceived as a person simply leveraging her own son's death for political opportunity and the warmth of a spotlight. Contrast that to the influence of Lisa Beamer, wife of Todd "Let's Roll!" Beamer, and founder of Heroic Choices: The Todd M. Beamer Foundation, a non-profit public charity created to equip children experiencing family trauma to make heroic choices every day. That's doing something, being something, having something worth influencing others with. That's leadership.
It becomes obvious why John C. Maxwell says that "Leadership is influence" (and that "Everything rises and falls with leadership"). I submit that there are only two positions from which one effectively can be a leader: 1) "This is what I did, repeat after me" or 2) "This is what I'm doing, do it with me". All else is hypocrisy, a con game, or at the very least, just some guy with opinions and armpits. What does this have to do with me and my humble blog? I don't want to be any of those things.
Am I saying that a blogger can't have an opinion on something with which they have no responsibility or experience? No, but their opinion, by itself, will never have significant influence, and without significant influence, no significant accomplishment will ever come of it. That's fine for most bloggers, I suspect, but not for someone who wants to change the world.
So how does one go about changing the world? Obviously, having never changed the world before, I'm dwelling in the realm of theory here, but luckily for those so inclined, many of those who have changed the world in the past have left behind their thoughts and actions to adopt and emulate.
Going forward, this blog will focus less on daily punditry except where it intersects with the specific topics on which this blog is themed, and key in on those things which I (and therefore any other average person) can do-- and am doing-- within those topics to influence the world. I've touched lightly on some of them here and will delve into more as I go.
For now, I will leave you with this:
When I was a young man, I wanted to change the world.
I found it was difficult to change the world, so I tried to change my nation.
When I found I couldn't change the nation, I began to focus on my town. I couldn't change the town and as an older man, I tried to change my family.
Now, as an old man, I realize the only thing I can change is myself, and suddenly I realize that if long ago I had changed myself, I could have made an impact on my family. My family and I could have made an impact on our town. Their impact could have changed the nation and I could indeed have changed the world."
--Unknown Monk, 1100 A.D