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Tuesday, May 03, 2005
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BLOGOSCOPY SELF-REFERENTIALITY Ann Althouse quotes Camille Paglia at a recent bookstore appearance saying "I'm worried about blogging." The "self-referential" nature of blogging creates, Paglia says, a certain "decadence." Yet Paglia concludes, notes Althouse, that "if she were just starting out now, she'd be blogging." Self-referential? Not UD, I hope. Not too much. Recall that all blog advisors advise some personal stuff, so that one's readers have a hint of the human being behind the posts. (Recall also what everyone quoting Paglia goes on to point out - she's one of the most self-referential writers around. You don't need a blog.) Consider too that, for UD at least, her most self-referential posts tend to yield the most communitarian dividends. Her post about her house, for instance, and its last owner - Munro Leaf, author of The Story of Ferdinand, prompted a relative of Margaret Leaf's (Munro's wife) to write to her. A history professor, this person not only shared with UD fascinating details about the lives of Margaret and Munro, but apparently cheered up Margaret Leaf's ailing brother with an account of my posts about living in Ferdinand House. Maybe Paglia has in mind the web diarists, bloggers like Ayelet Waldman at their worst and Liliputian Lilith at their best, for whom the blog is indeed primarily a mix of personal feelings and daily activities. But this sort of blog hardly defines the genre. |