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 ...
Yes, I did mean "Jones" town. ha
Wonder how many times Demir has had Freeper Lightening strikes scorch him?
What's wrong with blogs?
In the eyes of the Left, and of the MSM, what's wrong with them is that they represent an unsupervised exchange of ideas. Free speech, in other words.
I agree with your concept of blog vs forum distinctions. Also need to add that I really like our cult. HA
Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
Well, that clearly eliminates Free Republic from the author's "cult" definition.
Besides, as you point out, FR is not a blog.
Yeah, it would really help if people who write about blogs knew what a blow is.
Of course, it would also be helpful if some people who write blogs realized realized that's what they are doing.
We are not a cult....and by the way, I want you all to know, that I venture out from Free Republic.....Occasionally.
And while I post and contribute to FR, I do make a point to check out Kos. Maybe not everyday, but weekly at least.
You just can't make that stuff up. Or rather, maybe you can.
My favorite Kos story was one where they claimed that Tajikistan boiled political dissidents in oil. They included a link to a state department report, supposedly to back up the accusation. But if you actually bothered to read the report, you'd notice that it doesn't say anything like that in there.
Got to know what the mo's are up to.
Cults are always built around one irreplacable Leader. Freep has none. Daily Psykosis and DU do.
We always "dissent"!
I have never ventured that far out, I do venture over to Lucianne.com.
Well, those who "dissent" from (with?) me are filthy, liberal trolls. ;-)
In essence, the behavior Barlas is describing is apparently socially acceptable human behavior, as long as it is beneficial to his point of view, and pocket book. Otherwise, it is quaint and provincial.
Blogs and online forums are hurting the news media, and thus affecting journalists, columnists, and pundits who are realizing they no longer have a captive audience.
"Blogs and online forums are hurting the news media, and thus affecting journalists,"
And the funny thing is, the MSM has their own 'blogs'.
They're called 'editorials'.
The majority of people don't see the fuss either way, and look on this as a giant food fight between two small groups of left/right wing zealots.
The intellectuals of this majority feel so superior to be above the fray.
I think we should go over to Line 56 and disent http://www.line56.com/articles/email_editor.asp?ArticleID=7818
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