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Wednesday, November 23, 2005

I Don't Get It

I don't get this whole blogging thing.

Well. No. I absolutely get my self-absorbed, moody, confusing blog thing, I just don't get the rest of the blog universe. Well. No. I do get "it" because "it" just seems to be a reflection of society. What I don't get is how I can fit myself into "it." Did that make sense?

The tincanman recently posted about how blogging is an activity for herd beasts. Yes. I see how that seems to be mostly the case. I also see how it is not the case for me. Irksome.

If I didn't know better, I'd think from reading my blog that I don't read other people's blogs and/or have much of an opinion about anything much at all.

Recently, around the NZ blogs, there have been several heated "discussions" about various hot topics, you know, religion, rape, feminism, fat, labeling people etc. I admit a lot of the time I have been thinking things like "what planet are these people from?!" and "how stupid!"

I actually have very strong opinions about all these topics and they might not be what you'd expect (surprisingly enough I agreed with the Agrarian fundamentalist more than I agreed with the feminists). I just don't feel like expressing my opinions, not even from the comfort of my own blog. I guess the point is that I don't actually care whether anyone else agrees with me or not and I don't care whether I am right or wrong or somewhere in between. Maybe it all boils down to me not caring that I am different. Well...not enough to do anything significant about it anyway.

What IS this post about?

I don't know. But it seems the ability to see things from another persons point of view is very rare and the ability to let other people have their point of view without trying to change it is even rarer.

Comments:
AL.

I am only interested in opinion blogs (mostly personal). The other types of blogs that you refer to (journalist, scientific, work) don't interest me, so we can exclude them from this pseudo-analysis. Political blogs tend to get nasty and personal, so are therefore also interesting. I tend to class politics/religion as personal opinion, which I am sure you will disagree with.

What were my claims? I have no idea now, but on re-reading this is what I think I claimed:
1) Blogging is a relfection of scociety and makes sense to me as such.
2) I don't understand how I would go about fitting in to blogging/society.
3) I agree with tcm's herd beast analogy.
4) I have strong opinions that I don't feel like expressing.
5) some other stuff but I am sick of writing this list now.

Which claims (other than the herd one) do you disagree with?

I think the point of my post was that I am quite impressed by the amount of energy some people go to to express their opinion and to try and change other people's opinions. I am impressed, because I can't do that.

What debate are you talking about?

I don't expect most people to spend spare time promoting other people's opinions (there are exceptions).

I disagree with you about the herd claim. I think blogs do tend to form "herds". Not one big herd, but lots of little herds. Cliques, if you will. VRWC for example. Obviously "herd" is a metaphor. Groups of blogs/bloggers do not act exactly like herds. They are not eating grass.

The non-commenters and non-opinion posters are irrelevant. I wasn't talking about them.
 
Al, think of the polarisation in political viewpoints. There is definately a 'right-wing' herd, just as there is a 'left-wing' herd. Any changeover from one to the other is extremely unlikely.

Generally, a blogger will link to others that they enjoy - people they can in a way associate with.

Much like making friends in real life; you attach yourself to the herd that you feel most comfortable in.
 
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