Zola-Ink-Spots

Friday, December 29, 2006

A ZOLA SNIPPIT

Blogs and websites are deeply personal. Blogs have feelings. Those that would deny this would be those that switch on an electric light without ever appreciating that human labouring hands facilitate that switching on. It is a big shame when some say that blogs and comment pages are not personal. Tragedy? No farce and alienation I say.

Furthermore when the heated disputes on the CiF site were raging then it was, often, feelings that were hurt. OK no more blogs on blogs for this week.

18 comments:

Anonymous said...: oh dear me poor Zola is feeling hurt.; 12:42
anticant said...: I don't know WHY feelings were "hurt" on CiF. That is - allegedly - a public discussion forum. So many of the posters there haven't a clue how to debate. A lot of niminy-piminy sissies, if you ask me. I've no time for the "my feelings are hurt - I'm offended - boo-hoo - pass a law to protect me" rubbish. Just another cue for censorship.

Personal blog sites, like Zola's, and my burrow, are different. Without any wish to curb free discussion, I do think that the blogsite owner's personal preferences re appropriate use of language and so forth should be respected.; 13:26
zola a social thing said...: Perhaps I might say better what i try to mean.
Even technology is not impersonal.
No, I am not a Matrix freak either.

Science is never "neutral" and technology is deeply personal through and through.

Now then ladies and gentlemen .....; 14:14
anticant said...: There are no such things as "objectivity" or "total neutrality". We mediate all our perceptions and ideas through our own unique mind-body complex.

The "dualism" that provided such well-trampled ground for traditional philosophers since Descartes is way up the creek. He got it the wrong way round. He thought because he was.

I shall never forget an earnest bespectacled young woman at one of those far-off student debating groups vehemently declaring: "Nothing is absolute! Everything is relative!"

Finally [for now], when I, as a twelve-year-old bookworm, had my nose buried deeply in some tome at the local public library, a little old lady impatient to get to the shelves poked me with her umbrella and sarcastically enquired: "Do you think the world was made for you alone?"

I have pondered upon this deep question ever since. My final, though reluctant, answer is: "No, but it should have been."; 14:49
zola a social thing said...: Anticant : As Liverpool Football Club well knows You will never walk alone.; 15:00
anticant said...: I know this has appeared before in my burrow - probably from ben - but it's too good not to repeat here. Bertrand Russell tells of a lady who wrote to him saying that she was a solipsist, and that she was surprised there weren't more of them. Russell replied that he was surprised at her surprise.; 16:22
Anonymous said...: anticant, I think you'll find that Georgie Henry would say that her site is as much a private discussion forum as the burrow.

Would she be wrong? It certainly seems that most Awkwarders think so. But does she care what we think? Not one whit.

Since I started my site, the only things that have been deleted are spam comments in the chatbox which provide links to porn sites. I have no objection to any of my human visitors giving links to porn sites, although I can't imagine why they would want to, but I draw the line at robots.; 16:38
anticant said...: What rubbish! A newspaper is a public document, providing a public service. Obviously, in pre-net days, they couldn't, and wouldn't want to, print every letter sent in to the Editor - there wouldn't be room for anything else in the paper. By all means have 'ground rules' for a newspaper blog. But if you do, abide by them. To call that site 'Comment is Free', and then to censor it inconsistently with your own guidelines, betrays not just humbug but extraordinary mental confusion.....; 17:38
Anonymous said...: As I didn't quite make clear, I agree. But that's what she's said many times.

It was one of the reasons I left.; 17:46
zola a social thing said...: Maybe Zola has not been clear enough either.
my main point is that technology itself is very personal at all levels of social action. If I mentioned the work of Bruno Latour here I would be justified but hardly justified in this mentioning too much to try and make a point.

The related, but other, issue concerns freedom of comment and the guardians of the gates of a sure public domain. I have no hassles with being open with comments so long as my deep personal stuff is not messed with.

But to repeat all public space and technology is personal. Yes, all !!

But I doubt i am disagreeing with you all in all practical senses.; 17:55
anticant said...: I don't think any of us really disagree. As for Georgina H - and for that matter Rusbridger - I think [even though the latter is a member of my college!] they are basket cases. What is fascinating is that the advent of the net and instantaneous communication has cut the ground from under the "professional" journalists and jolted their ivory pedestals. They must be very fearful for their futures and their salaries......; 18:05
zola a social thing said...: Indeed and yes.
But room there is for all.
One is not the death of the other.; 18:23
anticant said...: Agreed. But principles are worth preserving.; 19:47
zola a social thing said...: Agreed Anticant.
however as my blogs today try to open up those "principles" ( like democracy on your own thread) are only well made as they are found and worked out together in the real situation. principles are rarely ok when handed down from above from some royal "we".
Perhaps the philosopher Richard Rorty springs to mind here and again my blogs refuse over-academic rightousness.

In the end I would need to ask which principles are worth preserving? Which would you keep and preserve and which would you throw away or trade?
I am not necessarily in disagreement here either because I may find i agree some principles with you and others on these blogs. Indeed I suspect that the very fact that "we" have somehow carried on is a sign of agreement already.; 19:57
anticant said...: In principle, I agree.....; 22:08
zola a social thing said...: Anticant : Through your own wishes and statements now - please.
When you say "In principle, I agree" could you try and substantiate that so that a thread might continue. If not then an appy new year anyway.; 00:09
anticant said...: Zola, I'm getting a bit sleepy and so, apparently, are you. I was referring to your remark that "Indeed I suspect that the very fact that "we" have somehow carried on is a sign of agreement already."

I thought I had made perfectly plain in my earlier comments that the principle I wish to establish and if possible get adhered to by all those concerned is that a newspaper's blogsite is NOT "a private discussion forum". That doesn't mean that it should spinelessly print anything and everything posted, but it should acknowlege that the paper providing the blog doesn't "own"it, and that it has wider public responsibilities than a private blogger. Pretty obvious I should have thought - but apparently not.; 00:35
zola a social thing said...: I agree Anticant.
In fact i have said that self-same comment in one newspaper that i write with.
I agree.
Sleep well and best wishes.
you gave me a tough day today with your demands but I respect them and you an all.
Like you all i do.; 01:15

Zola-Ink-Spots

Friday, December 29, 2006

18 comments:

Blog Archive

Links

About Me