Why Blog?

Thivai asked, Why Blog?

I think this question has to be broken down, temporalized. Why did I first blog? Why did I continue to blog? Why am I blogging? And will I blog later?

Why did I first blog?

I started I Cite for a two reasons. First, I was becoming increasingly outraged by the acceptability of torture in American politics. I wanted to start documenting this phenomenon. Second, my academic writing has been quite critical of political potential of networked communications. My notion of communicative capitalism attempts to conceptualize the ideological function of democracy in the service of intensifications and expansions of capitalism. I had started research on blogs and found that thinking about blogging from a distance was not particularly useful. So, I decided to blog as a kind of participant-observer exercise.

Why did I continue to blog?

I continued to blog because I Cite became part of a community. People started to read it--but it was more than that. At first, there were only a couple of readers (Alain was one of the first commenters. PE Bird has also been around here a long time. Patrick Mullins was quite active, until I blocked him). I had thought that my primary community would be other people writing about technology. Things didn't unfold that way, perhaps because that community was already quite established and closed, perhaps because my interests were really more theoretical. One of my students, George/Sam, encouraged me to put more myself into the blog rather than just cites. The more I did that, the more engaged I became and the more others started reading I Cite. George/Sam told me about the Weblog. Adam was encouraging and positive. He sent me an email saying that I had been linked to by wood s lot--this was completely thrilling. From there I also started reading Spurious, Pas au-dela, and Charlotte Street. So, I kept blogging because I enjoyed the intellectual and political company that grew out of a community of blogs.

Why am I blogging?

I blog because the community of blogs of which I Cite is a part helps me develop my thinking. But, not all my posts are related to theory, yet I continue to blog. I think this is because I trust the community or maybe it's better to say that what makes this section of the blogosphere a community for me is the sense that there are friendship-like connections that persist beyond and through the theoretical matters we discuss. So, I feel like I can post reflections and ruminations that will not be mocked, that will also be read as continuing or glossing on or reacting to posts at other blogs even when there might not be links. Spurious, for example, encouraged me to post more "boring stuff about me."  Often those posts are stimulated by something I read over at Spurious's, that is, they are thoughts that came upon me unexpectedly. And, so I wonder, if I post my unexpected thoughts, perhaps these will incite other unexpectancies in others (Laura's comment on my recent post, "David" suggests that this happens from time to time).

I also blog to keep from going mad--it's refreshing that other political bloggers share my outrage over the horrible state of the country. I also benefit from others' perspectives here. I am perpetually caught in what I think of as a Weimar dilemma: I am part of a left that has lost faith in democracy. But, I also know where that loss of faith has led, and so I am skeptical toward it.

Will I blog later?

Probably. Blogging has become an integral part of my practice of thinking and self-reflection. I have not been a diary keeper--I find it odd to write a lot with no possibility of another reading it. I also find that I bore myself if I only write for myself. Writing for a small group of others, for those who I imagine as reading I Cite, induces me to consolidate and clarify my thoughts. It also helps me refashion elements of my life into more bearable bits (for example, Paul's Old House) as I view them as entertainment.

Comments

[Amish Lovelock]

Does it have anything to do with the David thing? How similar are the two experiences?

...tis what I thought when reading this.

[tolga]

something too overwhelming.. I presume there is a sort of sublimeness of the words written to someone who is a friend more than a friend.. Do not we hide our all dirtiness while writing to them? and whenever we encounter them face to face, having to look at their eyes may reveal something.. if I call it supportive phantasy, do i overpsychologize?
I really wonder, whaty would happen if all the guys here met in "real" life? Well, I had this experience years ago by meeting more than 10 people from a website where we wrote, dicussed and probably more aggresively than anglosaxon blogs.. Everthing was OK, with some of them we became real good friends except the One that I had felt strongly and had articulated more passionate words.. We could not even talk.. Physicality, appearance, form were too much.. Well, I suppose this is a favorably feminine attitude..

[Jodi]

Amish--of course you are right. As I was describing the experience of writing daily, I was thinking about the relation of that experience to blogging.

Tolga, it's funny, with the letter writing, one of our goals was 'warts and all,' that is, allowing our less attractive attributes to appear. But, this was likely a kind of illusion (even if a nice goal). The physicality of the other--how they are when they eat or drink, how they piss, fart, and burp, their own relation to their bodily imperfections, their relation to their material environment and interactions with other people--doesn't appear easily in writing, and when it does, it is mediated, protected or shielded to an extent.

[anon]

It's also useful to probe the conditions for the possibility of blogging (and not just your intentional motives). Answer: tenure (although this could be differentiated in many ways).

I stopped blogging and will resume after tenure. I wish to incite critical thinking in students, and this often means shielding my own views. If the students have read my views on my blog, it is tough, although possible to negotiate. But, this drives some students to deliver quite horrible teaching evaluations, which I'd rather avoid at this point.

(I was at Mearsheimer's APSA talk. As you'll recall, his answer to the question: how'd you get away with writing the way you did about the Israeli lobby, his answer: "tenure.")

[Jodi]

I didn't see Mearsheimer's talk.

I differ in my approach to the questions you raise.

Admittedly, this may because I take stupid risks (In San Antonio, where I had my first TT job, I was dancing one night at a bar with a young woman. After a while, she leaned into me. I thought she was going to kiss me. Instead she said, "I'm your student." I freaked out--it was a big city and she was in a large lecture class. Of course I stopped dancing with her. Later in the term she made noises about making some accusations because of a low grade. I didn't flinch and she didn't bring any accusations.)

But, I don't think blogging is or should be something only for those with tenure. Who cares if students know your views? I don't think them knowing your views in any way hurts critical thinking. They need to see faculty give reasons for our views and recognize the limits of the reasons we offer. I think hiding from our views or hiding our views from our students is a strange kind of unwillingness to subject what we think to critical scrutiny.

Evaluations--it's difficult for me to think that students will spend a lot of time reading a faculty member's blog and then base their course evaluations on the blog rather than the course. Stranger things have happened, but this must be extremely rare.

[anon]

I had students come back to me and ask why on my blog I called NPR "National Pentagon Radio." I think I didn't get a contract renewed because the Chair was a right-winger, and I'm not.

Mostly, I am cowardly on this account because I don't have ten books in me, just maybe two. And I'm a slow writer. So I'll be lucky to find and keep steady work.

I'm happy to defend "my" views, but in class, I defend various views, and I have students try to defend various views, and I don't much stand for a too tight identifcation between what is said and who is saying it. This allows, it seems to me, a way for students to formulate, think through, articulate and evaluate arguments, without having to own them and therefore put their dignity on the line. It reduces a lot of fear and shows the array of thinking available to us.

(Maybe I saw you at Elaine Scarry's talk. If not that one, then one of the others . . . .)

[Jodi]

Anon--so, if in class you introduce arguments for various views (and, here your approach sounds like the one I take as well) then it doesn't seem like a problem for you to have your own view. Having students ask questions about your blog doesn't strike me as the same as criticizing your class.

I'm not in a department with any right wing (or even centrist) people--so maybe I am wrong or naive about how it affects the job situation, particularly for people on contract. Having to look for jobs and do a great deal of teaching also makes it difficult to write/publish.

From a different angle, for much of the profession, the job is publish or perish. I know very smart people, people who have well-received books from academic presses and articles in Political Theory, who have had terrible times on the job market, so publishing is not a guarantee. But, in most cases, it's necessary.

Didn't go to Scarry's talk.

[Arabica]

I blog, but with a veneer of anonymity that I hope at least lets me keep some financial, familial security that I think I need to finish my dissertation. It offers me some sense that I can get things I'm thinking of off of my chest, and perhaps they may be useful to somebody else. I am too enmeshed in the everyday hegemony of family expectations (and trying to encourage at least a little critical thinking in my children, wonderful in other ways as they are), debt and mundane corporate work to pursue, right now, an academic or activist position related to my interests. I plan for this to change if/when I finish my dissertation, or if/when I decide that look for other ways to affect the kind of transformation I hope for. Thanks for this space, Jodi, that offers a combination of high-level theoretical reflection and glimpses into everyday reproductive life.