As this is, as best I can calculate, my 1000th weblog posting, I figured I ought to say something significant.
A few days ago we were in a restaurant with friends and the discussion turned to blogging. One of them asked why people blog, as she had never felt the need to. Naturally this made me think about why I blog.
Journal. It acts as a sort of (in my case informal) journal for ideas. A way of documenting things I find amusing, interesting or important and which I probably wouldn’t otherwise capture, if only because I’m lazy about writing things down cogently and I’m trying to get rid of mountains of paper, not collect more.
Enjoyment. Yes, this is something I enjoy doing. I wouldn’t enjoy having to write something to order every day, hence the London bus irregularity with which items appear here. I do it when I want to do it, not to some schedule.
Catalysis. As a practising catalyst, blogging gives me a way to spread my ideas, albeit to a small and self-selecting audience (which is fine by me!).
So what’s all this about then?
Noreen and I chose not to have children but to be available to help our friends, family and their children (hereinafter “friend”). This is, to me, part of being a catalyst and a facilitator, and part of why I’m here (assuming there is some “purpose” to life).
Why? Because no parent, however good (and most do a thankless job brilliantly), can ever provide everything their child needs. We don’t live in an ideal world – that would be so boring – so there will always be something a kid doesn’t want to talk to parents about, whether that’s girl/boyfriends, bullying, sexuality, money, dropping out of university, or whatever. (And of course the equivalent applies to adults too!) We offer to be there if any of our friends needs to talk about anything (literally, anything), needs a refuge, needs someone to stand bail – and all in confidence, of course. We always make this offer to our friends’ children as soon as they are old enough to understand what this really means (usually in their early to mid-teens).
Part of this is so the friend has that needed ear/refuge/whatever. But also so that they can have a different perspective on their situation, different ideas, which hopefully will help them resolve their situation and develop. Blogging is another aspect of this, albeit at a slight remove.
Democracy. I’ve observed elsewhere (see, for instance, here and here) that in a (democratic) society, morals and ethics are the consensus of the beliefs of the people, and that progress and change are made by those with differing views challenging that consensus.
As one of the working thinkers in such a democratic society I see it as my professional duty to challenge the consensus view where I believe it to be in error. (Equally when I was working I saw it as my professional duty to challenge management stupidity and misunderstanding when I came across it. Not popular, but for me the moral obligation of a conscientious professional.)
For me this is especially important in matters where I see the repressive moralities of others trying to close down freedom of choice, expression, belief; for example the moral right’s crusades against sexuality, nudity and perceived pornography. This was interestingly highlighted in a recent article in The Register; here are a few salient quotes [with my comments in italics]:
Censorship does more harm than good
…
A moral panic around childhood sexualisation and the dangers of the internet is closing down important channels of debate
…
The real problem, though, is that no one knows what “sexualisation” is: it is a convenient label used to position the child as always the victim, and then to pile every problem imaginable on top, including paedophilia, body image, sex trafficking and self-esteem. Once that particular juggernaut gets rolling, it is almost impossible to have a sensible debate about what’s really going on. [People become so frightened of being ostracised and/or victimised by the authorities that they daren’t speak and free speech disappears]
…
as soon as someone declares an image erotic [or pornographic, or violent], it is then analysed in that context, as opposed to being viewed for whatever it is
…
a major issue was the way in which childhood activity was being viewed through the looking glass of adult eroticism. “Showing your bum” is not a sexual activity for most eight-year-olds and should not be treated as such. [Arguably it isn’t a sexual activity for most 18-, or indeed 88-, year-olds either] “Sexting” is nothing new, but merely a modern manifestation of habits as old as dating and courtship [you show me yours and I’ll show you mine].
That was not to ignore the real danger of what happens when an image taken from one context (childhood play) becomes taken up in another (adult sexual interest). [It’s a question of balance and perspective, something we seem to have mislaid]
…
A moralising attitude makes it very dangerous for young people [read “anyone”] to discuss sexuality on the net [read “anywhere”] – and certainly to discuss sexual issues … closing off an important channel for exploration and seeking knowledge to teenagers.
Unless those of us who are more libertarian push back against challenges from the conservative right, society will regress to the more hypocritical behaviour patterns of Victorian Age, with its strict pater familias figures allowing no freedom except their freedom and no dissension from their moralising diktats, while sexuality in all its guises goes back underground thus ensuring more (not less) abuse for the under-privileged majority.
How much better to have everything accepted, in the open, with people free to choose what they do and believe, thus reducing the scope for abuse and improving the opportunities for better (physical and mental) healthcare by making everything visible.
We didn’t fight the revolutionary war of the 1960s and ’70s only to see these hard won freedoms given away again.
Some people feel strongly about militarism, third world poverty, climate change or whatever, and hence blog or campaign about that. I feel strongly about the liberalisation of sexuality, body freedom, so-called pornography, free speech and the loosening of the stranglehold of religion and politics. So that’s mostly what I choose to write my more serious blog posts about and a part of why I blog.
I’m not the sort of person who in the 17th and 18th centuries would have had the confidence or money to publish salacious pamphlets – pamphlets were, after all, the blogs of their day. By creating weblogs, technology has opened up pamphleteering for many orders of magnitude more writers and audiences. Using that facility is, to me, all part of being a working thinker. And I choose to do it quietly rather than being out on the streets and “in yer face”.
Vanity. Belatedly I realised that there is also an element of vanity and attention seeking in why I blog. One of the things it seems my childhood has left me with is a need for attention. No, I don’t know why! Maybe one day I will. Or maybe it’s something to do with being male? I suspect this is a subtle reason why I blog, but I don’t think it is the main reason; if it were I would be productive of a whole lot more rubbish.
Would I have analysed this if it weren’t for blogging? No! So there’s another reason: self-discovery. What better reason
could one want?
