November 09, 2003

Crashing

Yeah, what she said:

Arguing with liberals is so exhausting; they only know four or five words and just keep repeating them, hoping you'll go away if they play brain-dead. Assuming they're playing...

You know, I've been really creeped out by something in this blogthing world stuff whatever. I can't put my finger on it, except for a general rise in the level of nastiness. Just... nastiness. No, I'm not talking about the sort of blunt, often dumb, but at least openly in advocacy of something rants that so-called rightwingers engage in, but this ongoing oozing flood of negative tearing down that seems to be offered mostly by those on the so-called "leftist" or "liberal" side of things. But both those designations are really meaningless -- they have to be, when the "liberals" are taking reactionary, "don't touch anything!" positions on just about everything, and so-called "rightwing conservatives" are the ones going about promoting dumb classical liberal ideas like bringing democracy to crazy foreigners who like as not will just vote themselves sooner or later into another thugocracy. (Excuse me, my cynicism is rising; I do in fact support the dumb classical liberal idea of bringing democracy, or at least responsible, civilized government, to the rest of the Thug World, but I also recognize that it's an uphill battle against human nature -- oh, but that makes me conservative doesn't it? Names, names, names.) But the others, the "antis" I will call them, don't seem to be for anything, except for tearing down anyone who doesn't think like them. I keep seeing people asking trolls just what they would do instead of whatever it is that is being slammed, and getting in return nothing but more trash talk.

I can't think of anything else to say right now. I didn't mean to stay up so late but I kept going from blog to blog, staring, as one would at a car crash.

Posted by Andrea Harris at November 9, 2003 02:52 AM
Comments

Andrea,

Maybe your peace of mind would be better served if you were to eliminate your "comments", ignore the "comments" sections of the other sites you visit, and tend to trust more in your own right-reason than the shallow "comments" of those incapable of serious, rational thought.

Posted by: roscoe at November 9, 2003 at 03:28 AM

It's not anything new, Andrea. It's the Usenet-ification of the blogosphere, and it's been progressing for some time now. And no, it's not just the lefties - there are a whole lot of "rightie" blogs I don't read anymore because they've been Usenet-ified.

Fortunately the blogosphere is not Usenet, where the garbage and the stupidity inevitably overwhelm and drive out the worthwhile writers. Good bloggers can maintain control over the quality of their sites, and I can keep them bookmarked and ignore the rest.

Posted by: Moira Breen at November 9, 2003 at 08:29 AM

Gawd...I know how you feel!!!

Posted by: Sharon Ferguson at November 9, 2003 at 06:29 PM

First off, thanks for the hits andrea!

Last month, a little twerp started name-calling me because I don't have comments on my blog. This guy had been blogging for all of 2.5 weeks or so. Unlike (ahem) me, Miss July 2000.

When I look over the crappy flame wars I've gotten myself into, it all comes down to comments sections (oh the irony!) If RobotWisdom and Obscure Store and PCJM and Insta-fricking-pundit dont' have comments, then I wonder, why should I? they just generate so much nastiness.

So I'm gonna try to avoid them from now on except to say nice stuff. Because getting into fights with lefties who don't know how to debate is too exhausting.

Posted by: Kathy at November 9, 2003 at 06:36 PM

I am really thinking seriously about turning off my comments. People are really pissing me off. (Not you; other people.) Then hooray! I can get whiny emails complaining that I'm a sissy coward who doesn't want to hear anyone disagreeing with her anymore.

Posted by: Andrea Harris at November 12, 2003 at 07:22 PM