Posted on 08/04/2006 1:12:45 PM PDT by AmericanMade1776
The more time I spend in the blogopshere, the more it seems to me that many blogs are merely online cults.
It's an easy comparison to make. Notice, for example, that blog audiences simply do not cross over. Most people who read and contribute to Free Republic stay away from DailyKos, and vice-versa. Once in a while, some brave soul wanders over to a rival blog, as it were, and is invariably banned by the owners of that blog; more rarely, there is a full-fledged flame war in which members of rival boards virtually invade each other's territory with the goal not of exchanging viewpoints but of causing maximum damage.
Notice how this behavior is perfectly typical of what, in the real world, we call cults.
*Cult members do not leave their own cognitive and/or physical environments. Online, this means spending most, if not all, of your time in the echo chamber of blogs aligned with your point of view. This has the benefit of inoculating you from even the possibility that your position might be wrong or at least in need of more nuance.
*Cult members have no empathy for rival views or the practitioners of those views. Opponents are devils; sympathizers are angels. Orthodoxy is all-important; dissent is unthinkable.
*A cult represents organized commitment to small-picture idiocy; a gang of what Berlin called philosophical hedgehogs (those who know only one big thing about the world). Overlay this with tribal ingroup-outgroup biology and you get the inescapable conclusion that a blog, far from being a progressive community of seekers, is more often a kind of prehistoric hunting expedition determined to go after big game.
(Excerpt) Read more at line56.com ...
I guess we're all just FReepies.
Time to don the orange toga and head to the airport to solicit donations for Rev Jim FReep Robinson.
LOL
I'll need a couple of FReepborines as well, I guess.
This group just wants to be relevant. They are not.
Obviously not relevant, as they are more into blather than substance.
It's funny to watch the left pine for the "good old days"- before the alternative press, before talk radio, before the Internet, before we could TALK back. How DARE we question their superiority! So now we are a "cult"?
Well- it's the most polite thing I have been accused of in a long time by a leftie. Just to make a small point...I often click into DailyKos and some of the other left wing blogs, just to see what they are up to. You know, "keep your friends close and your enemies closer"? I don't expect any surprises from them, but even lab rats develop something new every now and again. But try to engage one of these morons in a "debate"? I have long experience with this and "debate" is never what you get from them. It comes from not having a single fact to support what they believe.
You mean the English guys who settled in Virginia in 1607?
Or maybe Jonestown...in Guyana...Kool aid and all that?
(8^D)
Can't be a cult. No refreshments...
I suppose the author would prefer real-world gang warfare?
Or the Hare Krishnas!
Don't think we are a blog. But he got one thing right, we certainly are an echo chamber. (That's a bad thing, IMO.)
He really should not talk about gay-marriage advocates that way.
I disagree.
Well, that clearly eliminates Free Republic from the author's "cult" definition.
Yes, apparently this guy hasn’t seen the Evolution/Creationism threads on FR!
Damir is an obvious genius. He is absolutely right. My attaction to FR was the lack of debate and complete friendly agreement among its members.
This is why I continue to post here. Everyone agrees with each other and no dissenting opinion is allowed. ...and earthGod help the loser who should attempt to disagree with the group.
By posting here at FR, I've learned to ignore everthing else around me. I even send regular monthly payments to FR to support the "important" work that they do. After all it cost money to actively recruit folks and bring them into your "way of thinking". My life is better because of my complete submission to FreeRepublic and its ideals.
I hate DailyKos and all of its members, I wish they were all dead. For those at DU, I can't even say what I wish would happen to them. It is not allowed by my FreeRepublic mindguards and their legal staff.
[taking a brake, goose stepping around office... sitting back down]
However, because of Demir Barlas' observations and the argument that FreeRepublic is no better than DailyKos or DU he must be repudiated and I will lead this announcement which all on FreeRepublic will listen to and agree with me on.
From now on *everyone* and I mean *everyone* repeat after me:
"Demir Barlas is a stupid towel snapping fratboy and as evil as Hitler"
"Demir Barlas is a stupid towel snapping fratboy and as evil as Hitler"
"Demir Barlas is a stupid towel snapping fratboy and as evil as Hitler"
Say it loud and say it proud! The first ten Freepers to disrupt an important event and get the message broadcast on TV will win a free FreeRepublic official coffee stir or any number of other valuable gifts of recognition for service to the group and promoting our way of thinking.
The article is just so much philosophical masturbation.
Compare with the old radio stations - at one time, one could hear Sinatra, the Beatles, Cream, Marvin Gaye, Andy Williams, etc - ALL ON THE SAME RADIO STATION. Those days are long gone. Today, boys and girls, we have stations that cater to individual tastes and genre. You want country music - fine. But you won't hear it on the classic rock station. The internet is no different. The major news outlets are still coasting on a dynamic that long ago disappeared - the days when there were only 3 (three) channels to watch on TV, and they got to dictate what we watched. So, they are pissed off. Boo-hoo, cry me a river.
You know, minor point - I wish people would stop using "empathy" where "sympathy" is indicated. For example, one can't have empathy for an earthquake victim, unless one has been subject to an earthquake. It's pretty simple, but words are apparently interchangeable these days without much thought to what they mean.
So, if one group of people say the sky is blue and another group of people say the sky is burnt umber...both groups are cults?
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