Archive for October 8th, 2007

Told ya!

October 8th, 2007 -- Posted in Read, Think | 5 Comments »

See? I knew this blogging thing was good. After pomo scholarship has driven the Academy to talk so incomprehensibly, we need a little push to take it to the streets.

I still can’t figure out why so many people rage against blogging in general. My kneejerk reaction seems to be the only one that sticks– it’s simply out of the control of the Powers that Be. No different than that troublemaker Gutenberg. Imagine the unmitigated gall to distribute such dangerous things as Holy Writ in the vernacular and some random laundry list of an angry man’s complaints! Indeed. [/sarcasm]

Preachers have been blogging in the pulpit for millenia. <shrug> About political candidates. Favorite foods. Supreme Court decisions. The IRS. Even silly email jokes. Do I mind? Not really. . . . As long as we all understand the difference between the Word and human words. I don’t know that we do see the difference. Blogging, in fact, features that frail, transient quality to humanity and our ideas. Putting human ideas on a pedestal among stained glass and pipe organs makes it harder to tell who is Who.

Blogging is irritating, too, because for the Powers that Be a response is very difficult to construct. How did Vladimir Lenin put it?

Why should I respond to Kautsky? If I did that, the Kautsky would respond to my response, and then I would have to respond to his response, and so on. All I have to do is say that Kautsky is an enemy of the people, and everyone will understand everything.

Yes, it’s easier to just say that a blog post is simply not true or dangerous and expect the rank-and-file supplicant to believe the Powers’ words as God’s. Thankfully, that ain’t gonna cut it anymore.

My major professor urged us toward a productive criticism. That was his name for taking scholarship to the streets. I tried that. I don’t know that it worked. Touché. Since I’m not an Aristotelian, effectiveness is not my highest priority. But I knew even when I was defending that thing 6 years ago that I was prescribing to my own subculture as much as describing. And as soon as it was actually read — as soon as I took it to the streets – I was no longer an insider. 

It’s coming out in a few weeks here, and the date has pushed me toward a lot of self-reflection. About the rhetoric of the sage and the prophet. Insider vs. outsider. Esther vs. Deborah. The metanarratives of ungrace and grace.

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