Some time ago in Credenda (15/3), I wrote something about blogs and blogging which excited some comment in the blogging world at the time. Now that I have my very own blog, I expect those words to be thrown back at me, much like what happened to H.L. Mencken when he got married after he wrote In Defense of Women. But I stand by what I said, which is quoted below in full. So if anyone detects any incipient narcissism or lonely soulism on this web site, please write to the elders of Christ Church, Moscow, Idaho, and have them slap me in session.
Here it is:
“Web loggers, or bloggers as they are called, set up nifty web sites, with cool graphics and interactive gee-whizzery, all of calculated to . . . let us read their diaries. This is occasionally interesting when an interesting or challenging person does it—but in many cases the only people who want to read the diaries are those who want to have their own diaries read. This is the same reason why Hollywood actors or Nashville recording artists, when talking about one another, always use the word “genius.” What goes around comes around. Asinus asinum fricat. So chalk up another one to technological capacity driving what we do before we understand it.”