At the risk of starting another meta-blog thread, the recent post about the new Bolt/Blair stoush site ‘Pure Poison‘ got me musing in the following fashion:
1) Why is it that, generally speaking, men are the bitchiest denizens of the blogosphere and the keenest proponents of narky little stoushes? Despite the misogyny inherent in the word ‘bitch’, why is it that men, again generally speaking, tend to best fulfil the description of bitchy behavior online, especially in the to-and-fro of blog comment? And is the use of the term ‘bitch’ to describe such behaviour just a misogynist projection?
and, on a related note –
2) Bloggers in their behaviour and agenda seem to me to most closely resemble the pamphleteers of the 17th-19th centuries. There was no shortage of bitchery between writers back then, although most of what endures today from those pamphlets are the substantial articles, not the month-to-month snark of those old missives. What purposes, sociologically speaking, did pamphleteering fulfil then, and does blogging fulfil the same purposes today?
3) Still in anthropological vein, a great deal of blog stoushing seems to me to resemble the kind of duelling that went on between the petit-aristocracy over minute, and to us sadly trivial, points of “honour”. Thus today the 101st Fighting Keyboards of the blogosphere seem to carry on in much the same fashion as the duelling gentlemen of a “gentler” age, when the tiniest perceived infraction of one’s reputation was settled at dawn, with rapiers.
Your thoughts? (Fair warning: the slightest disagreement with the central thesis of this post will be met with a request to step outside and settle this like whiny little bitches men.)
Answer to 1: Same reason there are late nite ads for titillating phone wallpapers. It’s the demographic.
Sociologically, your “petit-aristocracy” is almost correct. We, the long-standing Australian patricians who had “.oz” addresses for our machines and mailboxes, netizens since before the “web”, once having pure packets direct from munnari running through our sockets, are the only ones who understand netiquette in our bones. Now, be off with you, peasant, before I get my well-trained daemon troops to throw you out! I’m off to powder my wig.
Well, of the masculine terms we could use only ‘dickish’ really hits the Parental Guidance Recommended level. ‘Prickish’ is a bit too much.
Maybe the kids of today have it right when they use `gay’ as an insult‘– it’s not sexist to declare something or someone to be totally gay, but who knows…
Not much more to say, really.
Bitchy flying monkeys with rapiers fighting to the death? I think I’ve seen that movie.
One cannot take the gender of bloggers for granted. For instance, a lot of comments on mainstream blogs in support of the Liberals by bloggers with conspicuously female names. I wonder how many of them are in fact by males in “identity drag” – attempting to make a prima facia case for strong support of the tories by females. Wouldn’t put anything past these ratbags!
Quick! Everyone! Check your pants and report anything unexpected!
Rx, I think it…unlikely.
Point of clarification there Mercurius. “101st Fighting Keyboardists” was a sledge from the bad days of 2002-2003 against hyper-belligerent Iraq war supporters of the ‘everyone wants to go to Baghdad, real men want to go to Tehran, anyone else is a dhimmi stooge’ stripe. It’s inaccurate to apply it to just anybody who likes an internet fight.
And yes, ‘bitching’ is nothing more or less than a lame misogynist putdown.
Pure poison seems to get under Bolts skin, given the rubbish he writes I consider that a good thing, well reasoned argument seems to have no affect.
I don’t think there is anything pithier than a Fyodor put down though.
.
Some semi-informed opinion blossoms for split second and BAMMM …. ignorance dealt with.
It usually isn’t a long and drawn out process.
Two things with the premise;
1. You cannot tell the gender of the poster from their pseudonyms or avatars, nor indeed from the structure or wording of their posts. One poster at the now defunct Blogocracy was referred to as a female for years and only came clean that in fact he was male when Tim shut down Blogocracy.
2. If you think the goings on at Pure Poison and the previous Bolt Watch – Blair/ Watch Project are bitchery/bitchiness/bitchy then you haven’t seen/read females really going at each other.
I’d say that Pure Poison (and its previous iterations) is sometimes ‘narky’ with the occasional lucid and valid piece thrown in, but bitchy, no.
Perhaps there are more male bloggers or you haven’t visited enough blogs. This issue is about style not substance. Is Pure Poison primarily about personalities? Is that what bitchery implies? Not a term I warm to. The stuff of ‘reality’ media.
I would consider a moratorium on the use of the “teh” insult a good place to start when moving towards blogging civility. Then again, I’m probably going to be accused of being in the bunyip aristocracy.
Quick! Everyone! Check your pants and report anything unexpected!
Oh dear, another ferret.
Kevin, I’ll try to give straight answer your questions, though I confess I have difficulty seeing the relevance of them. I don’t know if ‘Pure Poison’ is primarily about personalities — you’d have to ask the authors. Although it seems to have been conceived as a takedown site against the faeces-hurling of Bolt & Blair, by some people who have significant personal grievances with Bolt & Blair, so it would be probably be fair to characterise the site as being about “personalities” — but I fail to see what that has to do with bitchiness in general, or the bitchy behaviour of both its targets and proponents.
What I’m getting at — and I see another example in the interminable 4-decades of griping between Henderson & Manne — is that all this spleen just amounts to a whole lot of flouncing, puffed-up indignation, erstwhile moralising and po-faced pedantry. And I can think of no better description than “bitchiness” for it all — despite the obvious irony that it seems to be a lot of men who are more steeped in it and practice it with greater enthusiasm than do women, against whom the epithet was historically hurled.
And that got me to the links with previous generations of petty dueling that went on among the bourgeoisie, and got me to thinking that the word “bitching” is probably due for some gender-reassignment surgery based on the behaviour I’ve witnessed, and occasionally been guilty of myself, at least if the gender of the participants is of any significance.
Helen, that was very good. I’d like to claim a new keyboard but wasn’t doing anything potentially keyboardishly destructive at the time (like, say, drinking red wine).
“Men should pause for one moment and take another long look at the very thing that brings meaning to their meaningless lives”
http://imgs.sfgate.com/c/pictures/2003/01/28/dd_comics2.jpg
Ah, yes, the mythical Oz intelligentsia Brigadoon that is the Manne/Henderson stoush.
Does it really exist, or did some post-ideological elders invent it as a story to threaten their with children, ala, “Don’t rat on your parents, or Kayser Soze will get you.”
(Sorry about the abundance of movie references, but I’ve got Oscar fever.)
I disagree with the “bitchy” description in totalis of male bloggers – I would have normally associated it with indirect passive/aggressive behaviour rather than the more male oriented direct insult stuff. It’s a pattern you see in real life (and yes, it’s a generalisation but so what, the whole post is).
If you see somebody take their fight to another blog, or start a meta comment about a fight on another blog, that’s bitchy. The blair/bolta watch site has an element of bitchy about it I suppose in that context, but it’s largely a result of the censorship that operates on those blogs which seeks to remove all dissenting comment, no matter how pertinent. Perhaps that’s how bitchy developed in meat world too.
“As a story to threaten their with children,” it’s Yoda-speak time, honour the Oscars so as to.
Personally, I’m just as likely to think “what a prick!” about a poisonous male. Alternatives being “absolute prick”, “gutless wonder”, “pathetic”, “shitty little prick” etc. My vulgarity is exceeded only by the poverty of my imagination.
Is it time to trawl the pamphlets of 17th-18th century for colourful epithets, and launch several of the best onto the intertubes for this new age? Are there scholars reading LP who could assist? Certainly some Shakespearean gems of abuse were posted here a few months ago.
Muchas gracias, Don Haiku, Duke of the Son of Dago.
I always fancied my own blog as 2), a kind of Whiggish riposte to both conservatives and Labor. I wish my blog was a ‘mainstream blog’ (see below) though, unless I don’t.
Now, let me dust off my BA notes and get into this:
I wonder if this post is prompted by:
a) a wish to appear I’m-not-sexist-oh-no by claiming that only males can be Liberal activists
b) which ‘mainstream blogs’? Is LP a ‘mainstream blog’? What could this phrase mean?
c) so what if they were? Would you rather votes in the box (or next best thing, reputable polls), or the sheer triumph of Right Thinking on the ‘mainstream blog(s)’ of your choice?
It’s one thing to have someone say something you disagree with in an impersonal medium like Parliament or television, but if someone does that on the screen of a machine on which you have your very hands, in your very own office/bedroom, in response to one of your posts, then boy howdy that’s a different thing altogether,
a man’s home is his castle and all that.I can’t say that I have been struck by one gender or the other dominating the “bitchy” behaviour. I’ll take a bit of notice going forwards but I suspect it will be pretty even and no sex has a monopoly upon it.
Eliga G. Gould cites some interesting diatribes in his : The Persistence of Empire. British Political Culture in the Age of the American Revolution, but you have to trawl for them. I don’t have a collection of either British or American pamphlets/newspaper yet,and much of the stuff I do have of that nature is scattered around several books. (Tom Paine is choice.) but I did find some interesting diatribes in some primary sources, among them, Ambrose Serle’s American Journal against the American rebels. (He was a contemporary and acquaintance of our Governor John Hunter.)
Here are a couple of examples.
On George Washington ” … a little paltry Colonel of Militia at the Head of a Banditti or Rebels . …. Rebellion is indeed as the Sin of Witchcraft, blinds the Eyes, and hardens the Heart against every sound Principle of Religion and Duty” (pp.35-36)
Or, from Peter Oliver’s Origin & Progress of the American Rebellion (Oliver was a Boston Loyalist)on Benjamin Franklin:”Dr. franklin (pardon the expression) was cursed with a full share of understanding: he was a Man of Genius,but of so unprincipled a Heart, that the Merit of all his political & philosophical Disquisitions can never atone for the Mischiefs, which he plunged Society into by the Perversion of his Genius.”
Thanks Paul, Erudition is Thy Name.
Orwell wrote a fine book on English pamphleteers, but I can’t recall whether he displayed the diatribes.
“Maybe the kids of today have it right when they use `gay’ as an insult‘– it’s not sexist to declare something or someone to be totally gay, but who knows…”
In the gamer community it was usually written as “ghey” meaning “lame”, leetspeak.
Better jaw, jaw, jaw?
I for one Xtra chrome would certainly would argue most cattily about the police barge-arsing around looking for cyber-bullies. We don’ need no steenkin’ badges!
Regarding Liberals dressing up in comments blog drag: I immediately thought of the notorious Hillary Bray, Crikey’s original shit-flinging Tory-for-hire. The kind of things that used to go to print under ‘her’ name make the purepoison lot look like buffoons and amateurs. I can’t quite get excited about Crikey’s brand-damage—it earned its place through puerile gutter journalism, PP is a welcome return to its roots.
And for those of the blogosphere’s unreconciled juvenile set who like watching otherwise reasonable people degrade themselves in public and at length,* it’s beautiful spectacle.
*raises hand proudly
Geez. I see a lot of people saying a lot of things like those things are bad things.
William Hazlitt is my favourite from 19th-century, and his epithets could so easily apply to so many columnists today:
——–
“Your clandestine connexion with persons high in office constantly influences your opinions, and alone gives importance to them.”
“The distinction between truth and falsehood you make no account of: you mind only the distinction between Whig and Tory.”
“Your slowness to understand makes you quick to misrepresent.”
“In combating an opinion, you never take a broad and liberal ground, state it fairly, allow what there is of truth or an appearance of truth, and then assert your own judgement by exposing what is deficient in it, and giving a more masterly view of the subject. No: this would be committing your powers and pretensions where you dare not trust them. You know yourself better. You deny the meaning altogether, misquote or misapply, and then plume yourself on your own superiority to the absurdity you have created. Your triumph over your antagonists is the triumph of your cunning and mean-spiritedness over some nonentity of your own making…”
“The foregoing is a harsh criticism, and may be thought illiberal. But as Mr. Gifford assumes a right to say what he pleases of others, they may be allowed to speak the truth of him!”
Down with you, O NNTP Aristo! For the glory of B1FF and the Eternal September Revolution!
Mercurious, classic quotes. And to think that I’d only previously been aware of Hazlitt as a literary critic. Who was he talking about, I wonder?
I’m not certain if men bloggers are nastier than women bloggers. The three main political blogs at the moment are, I guess, Troppo, Catallaxy, and Larvatus Prodeo… all set up and run by men, though a women do take an active part in the running of LP and Troppo, at least.
Can i just say how disappointed I am by Margaret Simon’s Content-Makers in the new Crikey blog stable? Seems to be mainly industry in-house minutae, not much on big picture issues for thoughtful media consumers. Do we care what a marketer said to her friend about re-subscribing to the Age, or that the Wash Post has a new Ombudsman (well, we need them here too, but if that was her argument, I was too underwhelmed to read on)?
Bitchy? To some perhaps, but it’s sincere.
An oldie but a goldy.
“Among those whose reputation is exhausted in a short time by its own luxuriance, are the writers who take advantage of present incidents or characters which strongly interest the passions and engage universal attention. It is not difficult to obtain readers, when we discuss a question which every one is desirous to understand, which is debated in every assembly, and has divided the nation into parties; or when we display the faults or virtues of him whose public conduct has made almost every man his enemy or his friend.
To the quick circulation of such productions all the motives of interest and vanity concur; the disputant enlarges his knowledge. the zealot animates his passion, and every man is desirous to inform himself concerning affairs so vehemently agitated and variously represented.
It is scarcely to be imagined through how many subordinations of interest, the ardour of party is diffused; and what multitudes fancy themselves affected by every satire or panegyrick on a man of eminence. Whoever has, at any time, taken occasion to mention him with praise or blame, whoever happens to love or hate any of his adherents, as he wishes to confirm his opinion, and to strengthen his party, will diligently peruse every paper from which he can hope for sentiments like his own. An object, however small in itself, if placed near to the eye, will engross all the rays of light; and a transaction, however trivial, swells into importance, when it presses immediately on our attention.
He that shall peruse the political pamphlets of any past reign, will wonder why they were so eagerly read, or so loudly praised. Many of the performances which had power to inflame factions, and fill a kingdom with confusion, have now very little effect on a frigid critick, and the time is coming, when the compositions of later hirelings shall lie equally despised. In proportion, as those who write on temporary subjects, are exalted above their merit at first, they are afterwards depressed below it; nor can the brightest elegance of diction, or most artful subtility of reasoning, hope for much esteem from those whose regard is no longer quickened by curiousity or pride.
It is, indeed, the fate of controvertists, even when they contend for philosophical or theological truth, to be soon laid aside and slighted. Either the question is decided, and there is no more place for doubt and opposition; or mankind despairs of understanding it, and grow weary of disturbance, content themselves with quiet ignorance, and refuse to be harrassed with labours which they have no hopes of recompensing with knowledge.”
- Dr Samuel Johnson – The Rambler no. 106
And more from Doc J.
“Sir, I have found you an argument. I am not obliged to find you an understanding.”
“I can’t say that I have been struck by one gender or the other dominating the “bitchy” behaviour. I’ll take a bit of notice going forwards but I suspect it will be pretty even and no sex has a monopoly upon it.”
You wimp.
anyone else hear the crickets?
Why do most female commenters avoid threads such as this like the plague?
Simple, Simon.
Enough talking about me. Let’s talk about what you think of me.
Why is it that, generally speaking, men are the bitchiest denizens of the blogosphere and the keenest proponents of narky little stoushes?
.
Egoism, and/or Celic ancestry.
Oh Lordy… let me count the ways.
Meta blogging thread plus meta gender thread. ZOMG!
Whenever I want a beautiful example of ‘damn with faint praise’, Liam, this comment will be it.
Exactly how many women do you think have been driven away from commenting on Oz blogs?
I have a theory blogwars are actually a kind of inbuilt animal ritual, like those elks who lock horns or something. It’s a battle for male precedence – who is biggest bull seal on the rock etc. etc. That’s why it tends to be a male-dominated sport.
The thing is, I get to this point where I just don’t care, but fellas are likely to keep on persisting with this sort of stuff. That’s why my Dad always finished computer games quicker than me. I was faster out of the blocks, but then I got bored and gave up. Whereas Dad had to show that game who was boss.
(NB: I am a woman – but often mistaken for a fella due to non-gender specific moniker).
“Only those ready to get Ugly and tell the brutal truth will survive, the soft and wussy will be cast aside.”
Who said this?
Billy Ocean.
No? OK, how ’bout one of them Coeliacs Adrien warned us about?
Poodle baiting Julia Gillard, I bet.
That’s not the question Helen asked. She was inviting a comparison of how few women comment on these sorts of threads here with some others at LP that draw in a lot more female commenters.
That was FF’s question, Principessa.
And I’ll hazard an answer: because the subject’s been done. You can’t set out to provoke a cathartic shedding of blog blood or a massive gleeful thread derailment, these things just have to happen organically. This one’s a bit of a lame thread, tempting into its waters only those of us who obviously enjoy the to-and-fro, but for everybody else? It’s too obviously put-on.
For the record, I do not bitch. I kvetch.
I’d give credit to Zoe for that, Kim.
And I’d also be inclined to call a wee bit of bullshit on it, if only to observe that this site is probably the best place I’ve found to see males and females engaged in a wide range of stoushing activities.
Sure, sometimes it don’t work so good (and I think this cuts both ways gender-wise), but to call some of the regular female commenters here ‘high calibre’ is not merely a facile metaphor. Youse are packing heat.
Ahem. Zoe’s question.
FDB – that may well be right. Have only scanned rather than read this thread due to general distaste for said stoushing. Apologies all round, etc.
Liamista:
Two words. You know which ones.
Hint: singer/sexuality.
Have Graf von Bazarov’s people call your people, K. There’s lipsnigering that ain’t done yet.
L to the H out.
Yawn
Alright, let’s all just simmer down eh?
Exactly how many women do you think have been driven away from commenting on Oz blogs?
2746.
Exactly.
But where’s your EVIDENCE? Or is it just the midget Hitler in your ear?
Wrong. It is 42. Any IT nerd would know that. Sheesh.
What we *really* need is Birdwatch. Hang on, that’s Catallaxy comments threads…
# 36 Too cool to fight Feminist Ozblogger Feb 23rd, 2009 at 6:00 pm
Women avoid blogging, and associated snark-fests, for the same reason that they avoid op-eds and irate letters to the editor. They have more important things to do, such as the re-production of the species. Steve Sailer observed that women dont write good op-eds because they are too busy with the real world:
Lets face it, intellectual productions are not that important in deciding the burning issues of the day. Thats why the pay of such folk is so low.
Most issues are decided by constituents voting their interests which tend not to change or voting their illusions which bear little relation to reality. The ecological issue is a limiting case, but only achieved traction when real events (ice melts, droughts, fuel shortages) started to impinge on public consciousness.
Women avoid the life of the mind in public affairs because it is not where the action is ie where Alpha Males throw lots of resources around. Sad to say, there are no, and will never be, attractive blogging groupies. (I am married now, so I do not feel this sort of loss as keenly as I once might have.)
This is why men get so snarky when they find themselves challenged in the blogging world. Status-frustration is bad enough in intellectual endveavours which their efforts are ostensibly serious. How much worse can it be when their dominance is called into question in the relatively unimportant world of cyber soap boxe spats.
When asked why academic disputes are so venomous, Dr Henry Kissinger replied “because the stakes are so low”.
Hmmm….
To beat the meanest and the smallest creature is a sin,
How much more bad to beat a beast with prickles on its skin.
(Don’t ever change, Jack)
If jack is right, we need an Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt thread.
One with a three paragraph rule, though!
Speaking of pointless but fun stoushing, now you can have fun with Bird without letting him contaminate your site
http://graemebirdforum.wordpress.com/
I don’t know about Jack Strocchi, but if Steve Sailer has half-a-pint of brains he’ll realise that the late great Cool Hand Luke was almost certainly taking the piss when he mocked Joanne Woodward thus.
Because, as everybody knows, that’s what women are for.
Fair suck of the sav — 65 comments and counting ain’t exactly “crickets” now, is it? Never mind the quality, feel the length!
Awwww….but it’d be so much more fun with youse all here!
Dan Savage sez in the second link I made @ 2:
Substitute ‘bitchy’ for ‘gay’. Discuss.
The use of the word ‘lame’ as a synonym for ‘pathetic’ is offensive to crippled people and reinforces a cultural prejudice that disabled people are inferior in what they can contribute to society.
Using that expression is offensive, and when you use it, you’re helping to sustain the prejudice that deprives your differently abled friends of their physical access rights and perpetuates the societal obsession with perfection.
“Status-frustration is bad enough in intellectual endveavours which their efforts are ostensibly serious. How much worse can it be when their dominance is called into question in the relatively unimportant world of cyber soap boxe spats.”
Does anyone recall thousands and thousands of Strocchiwords delivered in high dungeon whenever someone dared point out that the Basil Fawlty of the internets may not be 100% correct about his opinion of himself?
“Lets face it, intellectual productions are not that important in deciding the burning issues of the day.”
Does that mean you will no longer bore the shit of people with pompous, ineffectual and strenuous intellectual productions? Cool. Is there an address to which I can send a complimentary fruit basket?
“Sad to say, there are no, and will never be, attractive blogging groupies.”
The fact Jack thinks blogging should or could lead to such things tells us more about him than about who he thinks he’s passing judgment upon.
Mind you, given his totally rebarbative online persona, it’s not like Jack is talking from any kinda authoritative position here.
“I don’t know about Jack Strocchi, but if Steve Sailer has half-a-pint of brains he’ll realise that the late great Cool Hand Luke was almost certainly taking the piss when he mocked Joanne Woodward thus.”
Yeah well Nick, the Hello Sailers and Basil Strocchis regard taking the piss as more dilution of our purity of essence.
“Speaking of pointless but fun stoushing, now you can have fun with Bird without letting him contaminate your site”
Oh c’mon Jase – that’s a canned shoot. True gentlemen who like the sporty game stealthily stalk Birdy like a 12 point stag on his own site.
Women avoid blogging, and associated snark-fests, for the same reason that they avoid op-eds and irate letters to the editor. They have more important things to do, such as the re-production of the species.
Fuck off.
Yes, Helen, I think that’s the effective translation from Strocchinese.
I just fecking knew I left this thread too early last night.
“…and perpetuates the societal obsession with perfection.”
.
And you live in Queensland?
Damn right you left the action early, Slim al-Shadi.
Food fight!
If PP had 1 poopteenth of the wit that Dr J exhibited in the olden days, it might be interesting.
Testosterone does not substitute for rapier-like repartee. Yawn.
Wow! this thread has morphed into some incredible byways. Mr. Strocchi, haven’t you noticed a lot of the contributors on LP are women? Just askin’.
Hi kids! Do you like
violencestoush?Don’t mention the boor.
Mr Strocchi, Sir. My apologies for not engaging with your comment last night, but I had to go and get life advice from Who magazine before earnestly attempting to reproduce.
I am gravely concerned that despite your now-married status you have been leaving lengthy blog comments in the evenings instead of adequately fulfilling your evolutionary duties. May I suggest, as Helen did, that you fuck off.
(and Mecurius, the crickets could only be heard from the feminist grandstand. I believe it was quite noisy down the hill)
Heh!
and the use of “pathetic” demeans pathos, and the use of “stupid prick” undervalues ice picks and rapiers…. also I cannot fathom why Sgr Strocchi calls blog posts “intellectual productions”.
# 64 Nickws Feb 23rd, 2009 at 11:54 pm
I don’t know about Jack Strocchi, but if Steve Sailer has half-a-pint of brains he’ll realise that the late great Cool Hand Luke was almost certainly taking the piss when he mocked Joanne Woodward thus.
Newman was “taking the piss” alright. But out of himself, not his beloved wife. You see he was being ironic in his inflated estimation of the husbands high concept intellectual analysis so by suggesting…ohh never mind. [bangs head against wall for umpteenth time]
Sublime Cowgirl at 68 said
“The use of the word ‘lame’ as a synonym for ‘pathetic’ is offensive to crippled people”
I’ve seen this said elsewhere recently and thought it over but I’ve decided that I don’t agree and will continue to call lame things lame. The connotations summoned up don’t work in the same direct one-to-one way as they do with using ‘retarded’ or ‘gay’ as terms of abuse (the former I admit I used to do but weaned myself off, and I am too old for the ‘gay’ insult to seem cool to me, mercifully).
Also, isn’t ‘crippled’ a bit unsatisfactory itself?
I know, let’s just abolish the pejorative sense altogether.
Fuckin’ oath, FDB.
“oath” demeans the solemnity of swearing on a holy book; and a “feckin’ oath”
- why, sir, is that a solemn promise to feck? Is it as an IOU? Heaven forfend that such phrases be uttered by gentlemen.
Does this mean ‘feckless’ is demeaning and offensive to those who can’t get a root?
This really has been fun.
Unfortunately, I’ve run out of popcorn.
indubitably so, FDB
The way things change …..
No longer should a patient be described as ‘depressed’ . They are ‘obtunded’.
And if we filters are in a state of less than adequate performance it must be called ‘dysfunction’ , never again a shall my life’s work be a ‘failure’!
It’s only been recently that the possible offence of ‘lame’ has been drawn to my attention. What’s your argument about it, Laura? I associate ‘lame’ with animals. It’s use as a synonym for disabled seems a bit archaic to me.
Well – whether its origin is ‘lame’ in an an animal being hurt, or ‘lame’ as in a human who is physically or mentally not able bodied – then the opposite binary must be to be whole or healthy. So lameness, that is – the state of not being able bodied – becomes a perjorative by virtue of its otherness to the positve and desirable state as articulated by the dominant culture. If the animal is lame its hurt right? Its not healthy. If the human is lame, its not fully functioning either. So SC is right in pointing it out. Its the same as ‘retarded’.
But surely the yardstick should be as always? Does a certain section of the population take offence in having their disability or less that full bodied state, known to some as lameness, used as a perjorative? Do they believe the word ‘lame’ has been emptied of its original significance? Who decides the word no longer signifies that kind of otherness? If it didn’t signify it, how would it work as a point of difference anyway? And who is to decide what is offensive and what is not? We, the full bodied ones who do not know anything about being lame or retarded or disabled? What then if some of the less than full bodied folk who post here say its cool? Just like some gays say its ok to use the word gay as a perjorative? Does that negate the objections of all the others who don’t like it? Then it follows that out of consideration towards others, we may consider not using it as a perjorative, or a descriptor, or a teacup – or whatever.
OK, how ’bout one of them Coeliacs Adrien warned us about?
.
I didn’t mention the intestines once.
.
And now back to Bird-baiting. According to Fyodor the one and only rule of this game is:
Now if you want a study of the psyche of the male animal looking into the question of just why it is that intelligent men spend so much time with this nutball may be illuminating. Just can’t help it.
SCG – The use of the word ‘lame’ as a synonym for ‘pathetic’ is offensive to crippled people and reinforces a cultural prejudice that disabled people are inferior in what they can contribute to society.
.
Using that expression is offensive, and when you use it, you’re helping to sustain the prejudice that deprives your differently abled friends of their physical access rights and perpetuates the societal obsession with perfection.
.
Is that a joke?
.
To be lame means you don’t walk so well. So if a joke’s lame it means it doesn’t walk so well. It’s a metaphor. It doesn’t translate to a literal contempt for someone who is lame anymore than saying Andrew Bolt’s myopic on global warming is somehow pejorative to short-sighter people.
.
These literalist proscriptions on language rob it off it’s capacity for beauty and nuance. For what? I’ll wager there’s not a single solitary skeric of evidence that the use of the word ‘lame’ is actually harmful to the disabled.
.
And ‘differently abled’ has to be the funniest bit of PC speak ever. If someone’s a paraplegic they can’t walk. They don;t have different abilities, they lack the ability to walk. Calling it something different doesn’t change the circumstances. If I was in a wheelchair I;d find such nomenclature condescending.
They don;t have different abilities, they lack the ability to walk.
I think the point is, adrain, that some people prefer not to be conceptualised as lacking in their very essence.
!
In other words, it’s not all about you.
!
Surely any perceived lack could only ever be relative, not essential. And the point of ‘differently abled’ – unwieldy as that phrase is – is that walking abilities (or any other particular bodily abilities) are only a subset of human ability in general. Everybody lacks some abilities that others possess, no matter how ‘able’ they are.
Casey, is it possible that there’s not just a binary comprising of able-bodied / disabled being drawn on in the word ‘lame’? I wasn’t bullshitting when I said I had thought about it. I thought and I did some corpus research. ‘Lame’ has been an epithet applied to discursive productions since Chaucer. The word has a figurative sense that is related to but not dependent on the literal bodily sense, which is synonymous with ‘crippled.’ In relation to language it signals something like metrical defectiveness, uneven internal distribution. It’s obvious how this is linked to the bodily meaning but it’s not dependent upon it – it’s got a life of its own. ‘Lame duck’ is a significant concept and one that can only presumably be offensive to ducks? All this differentiates it strongly from epithets like retarded, spaz, and gay.
In terms of the ‘out of consideration to others’ principle, I don’t automatically make that the primary overarching consideration informing all my decisions. Particularly in the area of language; this is partly because I am increasingly seeing progressive types using salvific rhetorical policing as a complete substitute for either thought or action; and partly because in the blog world I’ve seen several thought-provoking instances of somebody being asked to stop using a term on the grounds of it having connotations that are problematic for somebody, grounds that turned out to be totally fictional.
I probably should respond as the first user, and therefore, the called-out, of the term ‘lame’ on this thread. Without wanting to do Katz-ish dictionary-duelling, I’m not using lameness as a reference to disability. I specifically do like the word as a reference to arguments which don’t live up to their full potential. “Bitchiness” is an inadequate expression of its user’s misogyny, and it ought to be described so. If we withdraw from words which express the various meanings of insufficiency, inadequacy, and—most of all—inability to accomplish human reason in an internet fight, we lose powerful bits of vocabulary.
I used “lame” as a descriptor of “bitchiness” as used by misogynists (and Mercurius) to put down any given women’s argument, and I don’t think that’s incorrect or unfair.
Sublime cowgirl,
The crippled? The broken? Lleyton Hewitt’s “Faggot Spastics”? Those of the Humpty Dumpty Persuasion? Friends of the Wicked Witch of the West? Franz Fanon’s wretched of the earth? I suppose my use of lameité shows me the lesson of going the Full Retard.
To draw a parallel: idiocy is one of the internet’s best perjoratives. If it’s drawn to refer to narrow definitions of mental illness or any kind of clinical condition, we’ll have lost a beautiful word of loving abuse. I’ve called many people on the internet total fucking idiots before, and will again. I’ve been called a fucking idiot, and I’ll deserve it, again and again. These Lamenesses, and idiocies, and the various properties of being a moron, are not to be resiled from.
Arise, ye lame, from your slumbers, and the last fight let us face etc.
Yes but in all of that Klaus, the very real politics of alterity are subsumed. You say “Everybody lacks some abilities no matter how able they are”. Would you be comfortable saying that to a quadraplegic who needs serious modifications made to a household in order to live any kind of life? Modifications which cost hundreds of thousands of dollars? And with no access to the monies to provide them? Would you talk about the notion of the essential and the relative and how we all lack then? Good luck.
You might not think its offensive but if its offensive to some people who actually live with disability, then whats then so hard about not using it? Obviously SC has had some experience to make the statement she did and with such conviction. Personally, I would certainly get embarrassed, if, in the middle of some conversation, I said to someone “oh that’s really lame” and turned around and a person in a wheelchair was staring at me.
sublime cowgirl
The use of the word ‘lame’ as a synonym for ‘pathetic’ is offensive to crippled people and reinforces a cultural prejudice that disabled people are inferior in what they can contribute to society…..
As you clearly are not “crippled” yourself – no disabled person would ever use such a vile word – I hope this is some seriously intended irony, right? I’m worried it might not be. There seems to be an epidemic at the moment of people assuming authority to speak FOR this or that perceived disadvantaged group. The use of the passive voice is so telling, but not in a nice way.
Why are so many people doing this at the moment? Perhaps out of presumption they are “privileged” and must pay penance by acting “offended” on behalf of people they have never met
Of course the semantics of words have to be induced through attempted falsification rather than taken as given through assumed meaning—as Karl Popper would have argued.
Methinks that the Sublimely Gothic Cowgirl may well have been taking the piss. I mention this because I know her off-line, and know what her sense of humour is like.
‘Euphemism Treadmill’ according to Wiki:
pretty crap entry but:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphemism_treadmill#The_.22euphemism_treadmill.22
But I’m a non sentient internal organ – how am I offended or upset by the application of the word failure to my lack of ability to work?
The patient is upset because they are sick or feel they have failed ?
It’s ridiculous.
It is also intriguing that the constant renewal of meaning words have attached to them in slang by younger generations , as in this case with the word lame always pisses of the old.
The old. That’s right – if are pissed off you are just showing your age.
“These literalist proscriptions on language rob it off it’s capacity for beauty and nuance.”
Hey maybe it’s just me, but the ability to follow basic rules of grammer robs language of its capacity for clear communication!
“I think the point is, adrain, that some people prefer not to be conceptualised as lacking in their very essence.”
A deliberate error?
Well in any case, I dont want to miss out. Berlustrochhi! Fuck off x 3! You are living proof that assimilation failed in this country. All that Australiafication and still the machismo bullshit that runs in your veins remains untainted.
Not Tracey stupid! Make that grammar! As you were…
I should add that I wouldn’t go to the barricades for the right to call things lame. But like Liam I value the language-given ability to describe various impaired and defective productions as impaired and defective. You can’t ever have too many words for all the different shades and varieties of crappiness out there.
Two words I have seen people asked to abandon are ‘bolshie’ (used as a rough cognate of larrikin) and ‘wanker’, because it is allegedly offensive to masturbators and masturbating is good for you right? And in both these instances those asked to change their language did so, and in both cases the askers turned out to be playing games.
Bolshie surely derives from “Bolshevik”?
@101 – as SL knows, I’m an offline mate of SC as well (there’s been at least one occasion when we three have been mightily trashed together) and I also had the suspicion that she might not have been entirely in earnest…
Yes and using it was said to be offensive & hurtful to relatives of victims of Bolshevik actions.
Ah, ok. I doubt said victims and their rellos were terribly bothered!
Re lame: to quote the late, great John Lennon, One thing you can’t hiiiide … is when you’re crippled insiiiiide. There, that didnt hurt too much, did it? There’re also a couple of Zappa songs that extol (kind of) lameness.
Actually, Laura @ 107, I didn’t realise that “bolshie” was used as a synonym for “larrikin”. I’ve always used it to indicate a fairly Marxist approach to life and wealth distribution. (And I don’t resile from being a wanker, with its rich tapestry of meanings. I have no problem at all with being a coffee, beer, and actual wanker.)
If SC WAS being ironic, I withdraw my comments,very relieved.
Fiesta’s comment to SCG at 100 – “As you clearly are not “crippled” yourself – no disabled person would ever use such a vile word” – represents for me the least edifying aspect of this sort of discussion, ie somebody laying down the law in such a way that assumes / imputes the worst possible motives to the offending party.
FYI some people do call themselves crips, in the same way that in the recent past brave people set about taking some of the force and sting out of words like fag, queer, wog, by claiming the right to call themselves those things.
And “gimps” for that matter, from my acquaintance with online stuff about disability activism, although I suspect that’s more a term both invented and re-appropriated in America. I’ve never heard it used here, but I might be wrong.
Fiesta at 114, i typed mine at 115 as you were posting your second, so I didn’t see it before. It’s getting a bit too complicated for me now.
Laura. Sorry, Ive been having a bit of fun here too tonight. Im in a completely perverse mood, as Mark might attest to. But I am very interested in your thoughts above, which I think are right. Though, having said that, if someone really didnt like the word, I wouldnt use it.
Ralph the Kidney, you wouldnt happen to want to donate yourself for a good cause would you?
Heh, Casey, we might have the perfect solution to our art acquisition goals!
I thought ‘bolshie’, though clearly derived from “Bolshevik” meant stroppy, inclined to become fired up, aggro; that sort of thing – rather than Strictly Marxist.
Is there a new Aussie heartwarming film in it, d’ya reckon? “Strictly Marxist” with a dear old grannie muttering about doing a paso rosso properly…. The
turgidgripping drama of grouplets fighting over the mantle of The True Leninists Downunder?Well, I’ve got mild cerebral palsy on the left side, and if I’m (very rarely) in the company of strangers who are embarrassed by my disability I say very loudly, “I’M SPATHTIC!” and try and spray in their face as I say it. Then I go back to being normal.
Jack M. Strocchi, fresh from peforming at Peter Cook and Dudley Moore’s The Establishment standup club:
Sorry, Jack, I’d forgotten you’re kind of like LP’s very own Elaine May when it comes to subtlety of humour.
But this Sailer guy, he’s a total hack, way beneath what you’re capable of.
I use ‘Bolshie’ in the sense of ‘lippy working class person’ — indeed used it in exactly that sense on the interminable BlogWars thread over at our place. And I’m a libertarian, about as far as its possible to get from ‘Bolshevik’.
Up the Bolshie, I say!
“Ralph the Kidney, you wouldnt happen to want to donate yourself for a good cause would you?”
With all the drinking I have to put up with you ask ME that question?
Folks, I enjoy a good thread derailment as much as anyone, and this one has been better than most.
But still, as a member of the syncopated-walking segment of the population, I feel perfectly entitled to point out that this discussion has limped along quite far enough, thank you.
You don’t think it’s got legs Mercurius?
If not, then no need to hobble it, eh?
It’s giving him the Trots.
And he wants to give it the boot.
Thread delivers.
Fuck off Leinad you DDT-beaurocratisation-holocaust CO2 bedwetter. Don’t make me get BRUTAL AND PULVERISING on you.
As in cloaca maxima.
You can shut your bong-hole too, hippie.
Piss-off FDB you putrid pre-pubescent percussive paranoid, you ruined my lame punchline.
Hazlitt again: [the words of philosophers] “lost in the labyrinths of intellectual abstraction, or intricacies of language. The complaint so often made, and here repeated, is not of the want of power in these men, but of the waste of it; not of the absence of genius, but the abuse of it. They had (many of them) great talents committed to their trust, richness of thought, and depth of feeling; but they chose to hide them (as much as they possibly could) under a false show of learning and unmeaning subtlety. From the style which they had systematically adopted, they thought nothing done until they had perverted simplicity into affectation, and spoiled nature by art. They seemed to think there was an irreconcilable opposition between genius, as well as grace and nature; tried to do without, or else constantly to thwart her; left nothing to her outward ‘impress’, or spontaneous impulses, but made a point of twisting and torturing almost every subject they took in hand, till they had fitted it to the mould of their own self-opinion and the previous fabrications of their own fancy, like those who pen acrostics in the shape of pyramids, and cut out treees into the form of peacocks. Their chief aim is to make you wonder at the writer, not to interest you in the suject; and by an incessant craving after admiration, they have lost what they might have gained with less extravagance and affectation.”
quoted by A. C. Grayling in “The Mystery of Things”
Shorter Hazlitt:
“Wankers”
Yes, wordy bastard aint he. ‘The Pleasures of Hating’ is my favourite.
heh FDB and laura,
as I was typing it, I thought “Is our fine fellow perhaps exemplifying the sins he describes?” but dully laboured on …..
BTW, I hope the Wedding Industry hasn’t yet conquered you, laura.
I once heard a rumour that many 19th century scientists were paid for journal articles by the page: this supposedly explained their clear want of brevity.
Could this explain Mr Hazlitt’s generosity?
“Would you talk about the notion of the essential and the relative and how we all lack then?”
My point, Casey, was that, in contrast to what Adrien was implying (and in partial elaboration of Zoe’s riposte), ability is relative to a set of norms, not some ontological state. That it is felt as an ontological state is not diminished by my observation in the slightest. If anything, what I say throws the question back to those who are ‘normal’ and about how the ‘ordinary’ makes others feel.
As for your inference that I can’t distinguish between the ‘trauma’ of subjectivity as such and the genuine traumas of marginalised subjects, well I am well aware of the distinction, thank you very much. As an example, I don’t buy into certain modes of anti-essentialism that would imply, say, that the constitutive violence that heterosexuality does to heterosexuals is in some way equivalent to homophobic violence.
Well this only one comment. I’m not trying to derail anything.
.
Methinks that the Sublimely Gothic Cowgirl may well have been taking the piss. I mention this because I know her off-line, and know what her sense of humour is like.
.
So do I. It’s why I asked her if she was joking. Her emoticon says so. So apologies.
.
Klaus says: Everybody lacks some abilities that others possess, no matter how ‘able’ they are.
.
Yeah and I think that’s the point. I just don’t think ugly jargon cuts it. Using it doesn’t mean you have a good attitude. I’ve had quite a few friends who had a disability. Yeah they get typecast by it as somewhat lacking in the full humanity (especially sexuality). All of ‘em, for whom the subject came up, thought differently abled was noxious. My point was about the tactic not the strategy.
.
some people prefer not to be conceptualised as lacking in their very essence.
.
And banning the use of metaphorical ‘lame’ does that? Policing the language does not change hearts and minds.
.
In other words, it’s not all about you.
.
Um okay. I didn’t mention me. I’m not disabled, just hung-over.
“I just don’t think ugly jargon cuts it. Using it doesn’t mean you have a good attitude.”
On these points I can’t disagree, especially the latter.
Oh, I know, I know. I mean, look at his little face.
Ugly jargon? Is there any other variety?
Ugly jargon? Is there any other variety?
.
The Operation Examination Consultation Process has up-itemized this concept. After a thorough unilateral, bipartisan, restricted but comprehensive review we will produce a working party’s report on preliminary inquisitional procedures.
.
I really like your blue cat Klaus. Where can I get one?
Why, at MoBA of course!
Adrien, I appreciate you tailoring your ‘jargon’ schtick to your audience. Don’t feel you have to pull any punches on my account, however.
Cheers Klaus.
.
Nice painting That’s one serious cat.
If there is a message it is that cats are sinister malignant creatures who will send anybody who crosses them to the same place the dog went. Having said that, I reserve utmost admiration for rabbits, not cats, because rabbits have few weapons other than their death-bringing stares. This adds a gravity that a cat, whose threats have substance, can never hope to approach.
klaus k is a malfunctioning machine, right? And I so don’t mean in any way resembling the estimable HAL 9000 – case you were wondering.
I always thought a rabbit’s stare looked vacant and dopey.
.
cats are sinister malignant creatures who will send anybody who crosses them to the same place the dog went
.
But so beautiful you don’t care. Unless your one of the dogs my cat used to attack for sport on a regular basis.
“I always thought a rabbit’s stare looked vacant and dopey.”
Think again.
I thought again. The word ‘lunch’ came to mind.
y’all are the sweetest, most thoughtful, reflective authentic and appropriate bunch of bloggers i know
Btw Liam for the record I had absolutely no idea you
a) had previously used the word lame in this thread
b) would fess up to it, and
c) feel the need to defend it!
Well I think you all suck.
No wait, that’s not my position at all.
“klaus k is a malfunctioning machine, right?”
Correct.
“I always thought a rabbit’s stare looked vacant and dopey.”
No, FDB is correct. It’s all dissaproval verging on contempt in our house. Sometimes more than verging on.
If you want vacant, dopey, but nevertheless adorable, you need to try guinea pigs. Furthermore, they are edible.
Oh yes, and my comments on cats are not supposed to be at all negative. I’m merely suggesting that they disdain human ‘virtues’.
Klaus I was joking! Didn’t mean to offend. Sorry. Im very aware you that you are quite able to distinguish between all sorts of things. Ive read you for a while now! I would have hoped these lines:
“We, the full bodied ones who do not know anything about being lame or retarded or disabled”
and
“Personally, I would certainly get embarrassed, if, in the middle of some conversation, I said to someone “oh that’s really lame” and turned around and a person in a wheelchair was staring at me.”
suggested that I was mucking around. If you read downthread you will see that I said so and that my main interest was in Ralph the Kidney.
Ralph the Kidney, it doesnt matter you are damaged. We all are. But it just doesnt seem right, a lone kidney, wandering round commenting on blogs. Let me help you.
Thanks Casey – just get people over the “I’ll take a Bex and have
a lie down ” and I’ll make it through.
I’d sniff now if I could but the result may be unpredictable.
Right! Time to impose some order on this word-soup.
Those wishing to claim categorical oppression please move by whatever means you are able (and by “able” I don’t mean to infer that there exists a binary opposite state that is “disabled”) to the left.
Those who are movement empowered, kindly contract and expand your primary perambulatory muscles in a repetitive fashion until you have left the building.
Serious cat was serious… sorry Casey.
Unserious thread was unserious… and worse: off topic. Sorry Mercurius.
Oppressed categories of cats or categorically oppressed cat categories? Adrien and klaus, you’re going to have to fine-tune or tweak your feline taxonomy. Categorically.
Always keep a copy in your glovebox:
“101 Things To Do With a Pressed Cat”
He can oppress me all he likes, with his only-the-big-cheap-tins and his why-don’t-you-go-play-outside-once-in-a-while. Ain’t stopping me vomiting all over his Lady Friend’s best handbag.
I hasten to add I was very sad on both occasions we lost a pet (dog) to the unheeding speeding of a vehicle.
Four legs good
Two legs dubious
I love that fact that so many people were sucked into SC’s little blag, including me. It was admirably followed up by Casey and had us shivering in our boots. Many excellent insults abounded and no real bitchery.
Is ‘ralph the kidney’ a personage then? I thought it was an exhortation, like ‘rock the casbah’.
I hope he’s a person. I like him.
Well he’s only a bit of offal really but a valuable bit, and I like him too. Ice yourself Ralph. Talking kidneys don’t come along every day. I will get you.
Personally, I like serious cats Klaus :]
I LOVE serious Klaus.
The whole picture is pretty sweet too. I may not know much about bad art, but I know what I like.
Laura – you are harbinger of the LOLocaust.
I like Ralph too. Plucky little filter, inni? As long as he doesn’t start up with lecturing us about our completeness, a la that tiresome Pyzo.
Oh Pyzo, where did you go?
Oh Pyzo, where have you gone?
Laura
Thanks for Hazlitt’s “Pleasures of Hating”, ’twas a pleasure to read it last night. LP abounds with good advice and tips.
I miss Zabeel the Horse.
I miss Homer Paxton the lame cunt.
Fark, BBBBEPLPLP, way to mix your metaphors.
Also, ‘the lame vajayjay’ or ‘the lame hoo-hah’ would be more acceptable in polite society.
Did you see what I did there?
Of course. But also less metaheretical.
* See? Doesn’t work quite so well.
Yes.
Of course. I was metacommenting on your metaheresy.
Laura, your offal comment made me laugh so hysterically that one of the cats came in to see if I was all right.
(NB: klaus k et al, please note usefulness of cat in this context)
Also, an attempt to get back on topic: note inter-gender (and indeed inter-species, to say nothing of organ personification) nature of pleasant absurdist banter over the last 50 or so comments. Degrees of gender specificity would appear to be strongly linked to specific blog-post/thread genres and sub-genres.
Oh, I say let’s bring back Sophie Masson
heh
Adrien and klaus, you’re going to have to fine-tune or tweak your feline taxonomy.
.
Procedures producing pardalisian pensivisities pondering pokerfaced pussies are pointless.
Sophie Masson? Dreams are free. But why would such a hot, brainy, creative, successful goddess want to touch down on Planet LP any time soon?
I know Sophie Masson. Well, I’ve met her. We used to go to the same secondhand book shop.
FF
FFS
To discuss anarchism, popular terror and its ideological genealogy?
FFS FF=J-ro IMO
“one of the cats came in to see if I was all right.”
Are you quite certain the cat wasn’t simply checking to see if you had finally become edible?
“Are you quite certain the cat wasn’t simply checking to see if you had finally become edible?”
This was my first thought also. Thinking about it, I would say that most cats are well and truly above eating human flesh, unless prepared correctly. A (shame-filled) pooch might get that far if locked in the house with a deceased loved one for long enough…
Lions and tigers are cats. They eat people.
HEH
I’m sure she’d have a view on lipsnigering.
Hmmm, good point Paul. And leopards. I get the sense that ‘domesticated’ cats have higher standards, though, but haven’t had a pet cat since I was a child, so I couldn’y say for sure. And domestication really is a pretty tenuous place to try and hook my ‘argument’, isn’t it?
No. I may be an ailurophile, but I am not deluded.
Don’t we all, mate. As often as possible.
‘ailurophile’. I just looked that up and learned a new word. Cool.
Dr Cat, much as I love my cats I’m under no illusions about them. (I’m nudging crazy cat lady territory with three of them.) I also think she was checking you for edibility. I reckon that’s why Mr Snuggles grooms me in the middle of the night (unless it’s to wake me up so I’ll feed him).
Would feral cats eat people. Certainly the Deepwater/Tenterfield (or wherever it hangs out) panther would.
Cats don’t eat people. Cat people eat people.
Good one, Il Gattopardo, but wheres de blood?
You want blood?
5:37
In response to my uber PC stand at #68 may i present:
1. Stuff White People Like
#101 Being Offended.
http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/05/28/101-being-offended/
2. How to help White people be offended:
The Retarded Policeman
I’m not going to put in the link cause i dont want to upset anyone, (its all over YouTube) bit i have to concede, after being really troubled by it at first, I’ve now decided it was just me projecting my stereotypes and assumptions about what is ‘appropriate’ onto the actor and his family who produced this. Once i got over that, I have to admit its kinda funny in a southpark way.
(warning: some of this series is not safe for work esp # 4 Racial Profiling.)
Hi Mercurius,
In regard to our second point about the similiarity between bloggers and pamphleteers in the 17th – 19th centuries. I have been long thinking of writing an article on the same subject:
http://jt-geniusmadness.blogspot.com/2009/02/blogging-and-english-civil-war.html
I read a wonderful book last year called Can Any Mother Help Me? It is an edited collection of letters from the women members of a British ‘correspondence club’ that existed for nearly fifty years. These women, all of them mothers, wrote letters to one another, on a vast range of topics including personal ones, that were compiled (stitched) into a monthly magazine that was circulated amongst the whole group. Postal RSS. They even commented on each other’s letters. The whole correspondence is part of the Mass Observation archive now.
It seemed to me then that this sort of activity (and they don’t seem to have been the only correspondence club by any means) is a far more precise model for blogging as I know it than is c18 pamphleteering.
Does the pamphlet model appeal to analogists because the pamphlet writers, and coffee house habitues, were fellows?
Perhaps it’s also the high-minded associations with the Enlightenment and the birth of the bourgeois public sphere.
* with apologies in advance – I couldn’t help picking up what Fyodor was putting down
Na. It’s the glory of the language.
Mass Observation: now there’s a well-organised pre-blog blog.
I think that the English Civil War newsbooks are the closest models to today’s blogging. The “bitchiness” – attacking their newsbook rivals and political enemies was written in the same fashion as say Grods or Leon Bertrand. But the fact is that the newsbooks during the English Civil War like blogs like Grods, LP, Leon Bertrand, Catallaxy etc.. were taking part in the great political debates of the day, even if at times they got quite venomous, mocking or spiteful.
For example: Oliver Cromwell was often attacked by the Royalist newsbooks on account on his nose: ‘Nol’ Cromwell, ‘His Noseship’.
Or the Royalist newbooks portrayal of some of the Parliamentarian leaders getting sexually excited meeting the petitioning Leveller women:
“And when this great assault shall be made, Harry Martin hath promised them they shall not want for a Standard, for he will keepe his unshaken till that day, and then hee will mount it amongst them, and display the banner of his mettle right valintly so long as hee can stand.” (Mercurius Pragmaticus (For King Charles II), May 8-15 1649)
Too subtle, Laura.
Seems so.
What’s the title of this thread?
Typing with my feet here – I object strongly, us bitchez are cute, furry and loyal. Stop using us to denote horrid things! Got to go, Helen’s coming.
Woof!
Last night there was a thread at Pure Poison about a “sockpuppet” by the name of WB posting at Tim Blair’s blog, pointing out that WB and Tim had the same IP address. Several posters commented that this was the best post so far on Pure Poison. However, this morning (Monday) the thread was removed, along with all the comments, and later this morning, a retraction with apology was posted in its place, with the specific allegation that WB was Tim Blair removed. I can understand all this, but why did Pure Poison have to block all comments to this retraction? That feels like censorship to me.
You’d have to ask them Silkworm.
PP’s effort to gotcha Tim Blair as a sockpuppet can now be viewed as Figure A. in Wikipedia’s entry on “Epic Fail”. A single IP address could mask hundeds of single users at a school or university, or in this case the charming folk at Casa de Blair.
In any case, this thread too is over. That’s not censorship, it’s just a bid to avoid tedium. The point’s been made.
Also, I wouldn’t want to ever overtake the Missy Higgins thread. That would be just bitchy.