In the conversation about Barbara Ehrenreich below, I responded to a poorly chosen rhetorical tactic of hers, and Alan A. built on my response, like this:
>If she were in the habit of arguing on the Internet
>she wouldn't have left that vulnerability.
This is more of a spin-off question, but do you think that the Internet's rapid-response capabilities will make traditional writers more cautious in what they say - and perhaps better writers as a result?
It's a good question Alan asks, and some of the possible answers make a good counterweight to the now-famous George Packer article criticizing the weblog form.
But I wonder if maybe it boils down to this:
There are all kinds of writing, and political debate is one of them. Internet argument provides great training in political debate. It encourages the habit of thinking through each comment as though it were a chess move, in terms of the likely opposition response.
But chess and literature aren't the same. Chess and political polemic aren't even the same. Too much attention to armoring a statement against possible responses cramps originality and can make thought less free. That's the kind of caution that, for example, makes upper-level political speeches so frequently dull.
Maybe belonging to a debating society is no more than useful preparation for speaking well in a more dignified frame?
That's not, however, to disparage all online discussion. To begin with, there are all kinds of weblogs, which is something that Mr. Packer may not have wasted enough time online to find out. There do seem to be places -- including, I hope, this one -- where it's possible to use conversation to tease out the meaning of something and not just to have an argument.
I dunno. What do others think?
Posted by Martha Bridegam at May 24, 2004 01:52 PMMy initial thought: one thing that Net dissection ought to be doing is to make it more difficult to publish what I'll call a School of Coulter/Moore book - a political tract full of misleading or inaccurate factlets and quotations which can be taken apart piece by piece. The evidence suggests, however, that that kind of book is becoming more popular, not less. Which may only prove that the Internet is less influential than some of its more enthusiastic users (such as us, I guess) would like to think.
Posted by: Alan Allport at May 24, 2004 03:10 PMOr it may prove that the Internet, although influential, doesn't have the particular effect of influencing people to fact-check each other's work. Net political discussion can make people lazy about doing research through any medium other than the Internet itself. It can also give more importance to analyzing who's making a statement and why than to checking the truth of the matter asserted.
Posted by: Martha Bridegam at May 24, 2004 04:18 PMOne of the many things that's interesting about Peter Davison's Complete Works of Orwell is the inclusion of reader responses to his magazine and newspaper articles, most of which are reprinted in the CW for the first time and which put the original essays in a rather different context; Orwell doesn't always come out looking so good. This one comes to mind in particular; a follow-up letter in the Listener (which I had a chance to read in the original magazine back when I visited the Beeb's archives in 2001) critiques Orwell's argument effectively, and if I recall rightly GO's response is rather snippy and defensive. One comes away still admiring the essay's prose, but less convinced of its truth. I don't know whether blogs would have made Orwell less of a stylist, but they might have made him a bit more honest sometimes.
Posted by: Alan Allport at May 25, 2004 06:29 AMAlan, I can't seem to open that O. Dag item. Can you tell me the date of the letter?
Thx/M
Posted by: Martha Bridegam at May 26, 2004 01:23 PMI'm talking about the two letters from Robert Nichols in April 1942, published in CW XIII pp. 218-220. Orwell's crotchety response to the first letter is also included; he never replied to the second.
Posted by: Alan Allport at May 26, 2004 02:23 PMThx, found it. No, Orwell wasn't at his finest in implying that the English Channel hadn't been culturally crossed until 1914. Looks like a stupid scrappy flamewar, which may be the default tendency of written arguments conducted in public. Mind you, I'm not saying it was easy to write brilliantly in 1942 London.
Posted by: Martha Bridegam at May 26, 2004 03:23 PM