Photo Source: WIKI.
Yesterday, on Xmas Day, I received two emails from America from a total stranger who, uninvited but with great relish, set out to take me and my blog apart. He didn't like some of my objectives, the closed commenting on Seeking Utopia, and found the idea of member-only commenting on its sister blog verged on treasonous.
Perhaps he was having a bad hair day or trouble with his haemorrhoid's or his wife had recently left him (which, from the nasty tone of his epistles, I could well understand!). And what qualifications did he have that allowed him to unilaterally appoint himself judge and jury of my blog and why did he think that anyone (including me) gave a tinker's damn what he thought anyway? Who would know but that certainly didn't deter him.
I believe the problem arises from the fact that any person who possesses a computer and who can manage to string a few words together (irregardless of whether they make any sense or have any value at all) can set up a blog and, once they see their name in print a few times, they suddenly experience a rush of narcissism and believe that they have become internationally famous! Further, they believe that they have somehow joined the small league of journalists and writers and authors and that everything they think or say is sacrosanct, worthy of serious consideration, should be carved on tablets of marble. Such is the powerful but dangerous illusion of the Internet.
Of course in the print and electronic media usually only the best voices are heard. Competition to be published is fierce and very few make it. As one who competed with some success, I served a long apprenticeship, learned the rules, took the many knocks, the rejections.
But with the Internet there are no rules and there is no apprenticeship. Anyone and his or her budgie can set up a blog, say what they like, and, in the main, can comment freely whether they are dumb, have no talent or are bores, are crazies, have egocentric or societally-damaging agendas, etc.
Resultantly, there is a huge cyberspace amphitheatre of 56 million gabbling, squabbling voices all trying to be heard. Sadly, MOST are not worth hearing and would NEVER EVER be given a voice in ANY mainstream media!
The result, in the main, is incredible chaos, divisiveness, mediocrity and frustration in blogdom which surely is no way to resolve the world's problems let alone discuss more minor issues.
And he who tries to instill some order in blogdom on his own blog is not safe even on Xmas Day!
