Things That Shake My Blogging Confidence
May 3rd, 2007 by Hugh
From the sawing-off-the-limb-you’re-sitting-on dept.:
1. Having a lot to say is not necessarily commendable.
I’ve had this thought lately that my “words read:words written” ratio needs to go up. Way up. The same goes for my ratio of “thoughts carefully considered” to “thoughts spoken.” Scripture seems to agree:
- “When words are many, transgression is not lacking, but whoever restrains his lips is prudent.” (Proverbs 10:19)
- “To draw near to listen is better than to offer the sacrifice of fools, for they do not know that they are doing evil. Be not rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven and you are on earth. Therefore let your words be few. For a dream comes with much business, and a fool’s voice with many words.” (Ecclesiastes 5:1b-3)
Some less-authoritative sources concur as well:
- “Talk low, talk slow, and don’t talk too much.” —John Wayne
- “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.” —Abraham Lincoln
- “One of the lessons of history is that nothing is often a good thing to do and always a clever thing to say.” —Will Durant
So blogging responsibly would seem to require a lot of time on the “taking in and processing” side as compared with the “issuing forth pearls of wisdom” side. When I consider that I’m already giving numerous priorities the short shrift, how in the world can I hope to blog responsibly?
2. A blogger must have a great answer to a charge of narcissism.
S. M. Hutchens (emphasis mine):
…we express ourselves without first thinking clearly and carefully—and with brutal self-criticism–about what we are going to say and how we are going to say it. We have the impression that our minds are pregnant with valuable thoughts that really must be heard…
Do I really have anything to offer that’s worth saying? Or am I just full of myself?
3. Can anything good come from the Internet?
Of course it can. But consider a case in point. I picked up this story tonight about missionaries in Turkey who were martyred for Christ. I spent two hours writing a careful post about the glory of God reflected in their deaths. I clicked “Publish.” Then I found out much of the story was exaggerated, and I yanked my post (thankfully before Google Reader and Bloglines picked it up). The fact that my original information was largely exaggerated doesn’t change anything of what I wanted to say, but by then it was after midnight and I just left it for another time.
It’s not worth getting upset over one Snopes-type episode, but it does reinforce the point that where the web is concerned, signal-to-noise is rarely very good.
Am I just adding to the noise? I can’t help but think that 99% of the blogosphere is one big ontological catastrophe, and I fear the verdict as to my contribution…
(See also The Unbearable Lightness of Blogs.)
Don’t be so hard on yourself, hughbie. If you say something foolish, I’m sure Eric will set you straight.
Where do you guys find all the smiley faces, by the way?
Here’s a list of WordPress smilies.
It’s kinda funny how when blogs begin to get self-critical is when they appear to take themselves too seriously the most. I know that as a certified CPR (crusty, prickly, reformed) curmudgeon, I should be down on blogs, Wikipedia, and the like… but, I just can’t muster the usually crabbiness that is expected of me.
Most blogs are just folks giving their take on things. They are not marketed. They don’t arrive in my inbox as spam. They are just there if I choose to read them.
I look forward to reading what you write (along with a cadre of other blogs I follow). I recognize a blog post (or a Wikipedia entry for that matter) for what it is–one person’s take on a thought or issue. I think it is the irresponsibility of readers that is the problem. I suppose this is why ‘buyer beware” no longer works in our responsibility-free society. We sue McDonald’s because the coffee was hot. We get bent out of shape because a blog entry was not fact-checked and triple-sourced.
I will grant that as one builds a readership (as I suspect you have because your writing is insightful, engaging, and a pleasure to read), a certain responsibility to those readers develops. But it’s still a blog. It’s not the WSJ.
I’m all for caution if it makes your writing better– but not if it keeps your writing in your head where we can’t get to it.
Consider yourself set straight.
Does the fact that it’s a blog mitigate things, or exacerbate them?
Think about it in terms of the reality that each of us will be called to account for every word we speak.
Think about it in terms of the admonitions regarding the dangers of the tongue in James 3 — when we open our mouths and the audience has a certain scale, our words become leveraged and therefore subject to stricter accountability.
On the other hand, the fact that I spent two hours on a blog post — and then took it down because the source material was in question — indicates that I’m not typically flippant with these matters. I think it just underscored for me how hard it is to be consistently careful with well-intentioned words spoken from a public platform. Consider Mr. Driscoll…
I like what Eric said. Well said, Eric.
I find point 2 interesting.
I would venture to say that most people have thought clearly and carefully about what they are going to say. The qualifier is that it’s just as clear and careful as they can at the time.
If you’re going to post something then others, like Eric has done, have the opportunity to ask you what you’ve been smoking. A blog is a platform/medium. Narcissism refers to how its owner regards its content.
While it is a good rule of thumb to be slow to speak, something must still eventually be spoken. There are no guarantees in the two-party process of communication.
Dude. You want to talk about self-aborption - this guy’s blog is all about that:
http://frommymindtoyoureyes.blogspot.com/2007/05/im-gonna-try-to-write-book.html
American Idol does that to folk, I guess.