I love the internet, particularly the blogsphere. I love how easy it is to pass information back and forth, how I can connect with people with different ideas, but more importantly (for me) is how I can connect with people who have the same idea. For me, the main thrust of the feminist blogsphere is not to really change anybody’s mind, but to support people who already believe in the same worldview. There are exceptions of course: plenty of feminist blogs that look to educate and persuade (Feminism 101, The Happy Feminist when she was active, Hugo Schwyzer) but mostly, it is somewhat of an echo chamber (in so much is that it’s all feminism: anyone who says there isn’t dissent in feminism and lively debates is either unfamiliar with the blogsphere or is being reductive). And, quite frankly, I like the echo chamber; it beats the mainstream echo chamber where sexism abounds. My friend PE compared it to a picket line. Pickets rarely change people’s minds: people picket for solidarity and emotional support. That is what the blogsphere is to me.
Yet, what I love about the blogsphere is also what I sometimes hate about it. “Information” routinely doesn’t have anything to back it up, and hearing alternate ideas doesn’t really happen because the internet can be more clique-ee than high school. As much as a enjoy a good debate and some well placed snark, I sometimes get blog-overload. Even the worst debates I’ve had in the fleshy world is not as mean as some of the better ones online. It may not be that “Normal Person + Anonymity + Audience = Total Fuckwad” (Penny Arcade), but it may be that people just don’t communicate well over an electronic medium. I can’t see a person respond to me when I write this: it is simply symbols on a keyboard. I don’t see them get hurt, or angry, or afraid (although what I could do that is frightening is beyond me). They can’t tell (easily) if I’m being sarcastic, sincere or technical. And since most of our communication is done with those non-verbal cues, it is easy to interpret people online with our preconceived notions of what isl.
Before someone brings it up against me, yes, I am just as guilty as everyone else for it. I have typed in anger: both on comments, and in posts. I have been mocking and belittling to posters- sometimes when it is clear that they were arguing in bad faith, sometimes when I was just in a bad mood that time.
I some times think perhaps the liberal blogsphere beats up on straw-conservatives, like the conservative blogsphere beats up straw-liberals. I think MRAs and feminists occasionally do this as well. I’m not saying this out of false equivocation; my iniciall impression is that liberals beat up straw-conservatives in an effort to make they’re frequently contradictory worldview make sense, and forgetting that “conservative” isn’t any more of monolith than “liberal” but I’m biased. Quite frankly, I don’t spend enough time in the conservative blogsphere to get a good idea as to why they have straw liberals- perhaps it’s a lack of knowing who any fleshy liberals, perhaps it is too much listening to to professional conservatives, perhaps they really have met self-identified liberals who did what they say liberals do. But, I know that because of this, debate on the internet more resembles Hardball than Lincoln-Douglas.
In an effort to actually bridge this divide, I’m going to go out in search of people with different worldviews who argue in good faith (they must exist). I am going to find someone’s blog post that I either agree with or disagree with, and respond to it on this blog. Hopefully, this will result in a conversation as opposed to a yelling match. I’m looking for discussion, not for confrontation. The rest of the posts will be as snarky and confrontational as they always are, but I’m going to see if there isn’t another way to write.
So much word. (Except that I don’t blame the blogosphere, I blame America). I’ll be interested to see what you write on this subject.
I agree with you about non-feminist blogs, too; I read a fair number, but then I get into comment threads and come across things like, and this is a real example, a regularly commenting liberal/centrist on CiF who was saying how awful it is that men can’t legally rape their wives any more. I am totally down with reading things by people who aren’t feminists. I am just not going to hang out in places where my basic dignity as a female human being, or as a queer human being, is liable to get trashed at any minute.
It sounds awesome, I can’t wait to see!
Thene…I understand the desire to avoid unnecessary criticism… But you can’t go through life forever without being insulted or offended.
Sometimes, that’s the only way to get people to engage.
I too look forward to reading….
I some times think perhaps the liberal blogsphere beats up on straw-conservatives, like the conservative blogsphere beats up straw-liberals.
Straw conservatives? Are you saying that we are imagining conservatives that are worse than the real thing?
In the last couple of weeks, I’ve heard from conservative students in an advanced poli-sci class assert with all sincerity that the video “Obsession” is the Truth that the Liberal MSM Won’t Reveal, that social security is a communist plot as is climate change (because scientists/acadmics are communists who want to destroy capitalism), the US is promoting democracy in the Middle East, and that the voting franchise should belong only to property owners.
These aren’t straw-anything. These aren’t “low-information” voters or “morans.” These are university students majoring in political science. In class discussions they often make some very good points, express themselves well, understand political theories and methods, and show a generally high level of understanding about the world and even compassion for the people in it.
Then they let loose with a defense of the Alaska Independence Party’s goals and motives, an assertion that the Islamic Caliphate is a threat to the continuing existence of the West, or the latest theory of the financial crisis being the fault of poor minorities and gays.
These aren’t straw conservatives, and I’m not making them up. These are real people with ambitions for the power to put their ideas into public policy.