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Blog rage
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Blogging, so different from the staid old dame of print magazine culture, has me thinking about the issue of politeness. One is told to be “thick skinned” to get along in this new game. Thick skin is skin imperviousness to the arrows that come by Night, and the Christian who trusts in God has that.
There’s a lot I like about blogging, being a neophyte to the form. I like that the reader gets an equal (and often much more than equal) say on the topic at hand. It suits my sensibilities as a wallflower and person with sober judgment about my modest abilities.
I liked one commenter’s analogy to “road rage.” Road rage, there’s another mystery. My guess is that we have road rage — say, as opposed to pedestrian rage — because the buffer of chrome and glass between car-sheathed people has a dehumanizing effect.
I have just reviewed with profit an old bit of advice from Francis Schaeffer:
Every man is my neighbor and is to be treated in a proper human, man-to-man relationship. Every time we act in a machine-like way toward another man we deny the central teaching of the Word of God — that there is a personal God who has created man in his own image.
The woman at the cash register is your sister first, the cashier second. So is the blogger.
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Politics of fraud
and so our own family members…
I really hope all those disdainful, hyper-critical readers (and unfortunately, repliers) of yours out there will take heed to your/Schaeffer’s advise. They do not realize perhaps how they come across…so full of pride and vanity. It really spoils it for the rest of us. This blogging thing is weird on the psyche. Keep giving us your pearls, Andree.
Amen to you, Andree, Reg, and Genie.
#2, “They do not realize perhaps how they come across…”
True. What is obvious, however, is that we come across differently to different people, across the spectrum. Personally, I just try not to take (or give) anything too personally. The problem is that ideas and convictions are often quite personal to us. But we can always do better–to be more respectful.
When Anlir was doing the Wabby Awards, I sent him my own list. It included something along the lines of “Most Improved Blogger: Anlir, whose posts used to be indistinguishable from [some obnoxious troll]’s, but who evidently awoke one day to find that there are real human beings behind these pseudonyms.” I thanked him for reminding me of something I should already have known.
It seems coincidental that this topic should come up so soon just minutes after my reading another story that illustrates a related point. But then I don’t believe in coincidence since everything has a purpose within the providence of Almighty God.
The story was about a 15-year-old boy in Maryland who allegedly murdered his whole family and then staged the discovery of their bodies a day later. In the headline and throughout the whole article were constant references to the fact that he was a Boy Scout.
What in the world did that have to do with the crime? Absolutely nothing! Why would the writer do that? Does he have a vendetta against the Boy Scouts that he seeks to tarnish their image in this way? Or was he just trying to insert a special angle into his piece to increase interest in his journalism at the expense of someone else?
In my opinion he was grossly unfair in the way he wrote the article and his motivation was personal and selfish. He smeared someone else (the Boy Scouts) for his own personal reasons, whatever they were. That is not objective reporting. The reader goes away with this thought in his mind: Boy Scout murderer, Boy Scout murderer, Boy Scout murderer. The editor who allowed this deliberately distorted piece to be published is equally guilty. And this comes from a professional journalists?—baloney! That is not professional at all.
So, it is not just bloggers who use this new media to be nasty to one another. Even the supposed professionals do it. Truly, we are all sinners and need the help of Christ to get beyond these ugly human traits.
The woman cashier at the grocery store always tries to rip me off. It is becoming a fine hobby. She is not my sister but an evil doer of high standing. I get in her line, she sees me and speeds up significantly to get to my order ASAP.
She tries to rip me off, mainly on produce since the rest is scanned. She does manage quite handily to double scan a lot. It is my mission to catch her doing her evilness with my bill. “Sorry, those aren’t Cognac soaked, Belgian, fury midget, chocolate covered cherries at $23.99 a pound Sweetie. In fact, they are not even cherries at all. They be really big grapefruits that weigh about 10 pounds. You must have made a mistake or transposed a number or something. There is no way I bought $230 of any kind of fine cherries.”
She sometimes leans her rather fat belly on the scale when she weights things too. No way I ever by 39 pounds of Cilantro. It’s hard to say to a large woman “Can you back up a bit from the scale? Your casting such a large shadow, I can’t see what you are scanning.”
I know I could go to the self check out or another line but why miss all the fun. It also could be I am all she has to live for. Wouldn’t ant anything bad that might befall her to be on my conscious.
This weekend she got all the way through without me saying a word. She was very pleased with herself and was smiling like crazy when I signed my credit card bill.
I went right from check out to the service center. She sort of frowned because she suspected I had caught her clipping me for the lone Roma tomato I had bought, that was on sale, when she had charged me for 3 pounds of vine ripened yellow tomatoes.
On the way out, I just held up my $9 refund and winked at her. For some reason she never ever undercharges. She has to be the highest paid cashier with the most training in the store. They have to be paying her a fortune.
Nope, Csashiers aren’t my sister.
7–
Wow!
Michael Martin at #6:
In my opinion he was grossly unfair in the way he wrote the article and his motivation was personal and selfish. He smeared someone else (the Boy Scouts) for his own personal reasons, whatever they were. That is not objective reporting. The reader goes away with this thought in his mind: Boy Scout murderer, Boy Scout murderer, Boy Scout murderer.
Well … maybe, but I don’t think so. You often read details about suspected or convicted murderers such as, he was always friendly to his neighbors, he was a church-goer, he was gentle to his elderly mother, and yes, he was a Boy Scout …
The reason is that those things are considered to be the sort of things that are true of good upstanding citizens, not murderers. The writer is trading a bit of shock value … how could a church-going Boy Scout do such a horrible thing?? … but I think that’s because people expect Boy Scouts to not be killers.
“bit of shock value” above should be “a bit on shock value.”
No, Steve (#10), this reporter does not deserve a pass with some excuse about legitimate journalistic technique.
The article was 700 words long and he made direct reference to the Boy Scouts nine different times—far beyond what was needed to accomplish the purpose you mention. He was not only reporting on a murder, but also deliberately casting doubt on the value of the Boy Scout organization and their activities.
My impression is that he doesn’t like the Scouts and took this opportunity to smear them in such a way that he couldn’t be held accountable for it. There were many facts in the story. The boy’s father was a real estate lawyer; they lived in a half-million dollar home; they attended the Methodist church; they were a loving family; etc. Yet, just one fact among many, was singled out for repeated emphasis. On average, every 78 words, he spoke of Scouting as he wrote about these murders.
I find that inexcusable, unprofessional, and deliberately harmful. Andree’s post is about blog rage exhibited by mean-spirited amateur writers. My point is to illustrate the same thing among supposed professionals who should know better. They just do it in a more clever and sophisticated manner.
OK. Do you have a link to the story? I haven’t read it.
MM - If the article you are referring to was from the Baltimore Sun, rest assured that no one here accuses them of being “professional.” That is really an awful newspaper.
Actually, Andree you do well at venturing your inner thoughts about the passing scene, mainly from a Christian viewpoint. This is threatening to hard-edged secular nonbelievers who regard serious Christians as an anathema.
You have a marvelous way of expressing your views while being aware of realities but not being in any way soured by opposing views, however piercing their slings and arrows to you personally.
This was the way of Christ who was supremely the Son of God on earth while well aware, humble and forgiving of the forces against Him. While we can’t hold a candle to the way of Christ, we can try to imitate Him.
Actually, Andree you do well at venturing your inner thoughts about the passing scene, mainly from a Christian viewpoint. This is threatening to hard-edged secular nonbelievers who regard serious Christians as an anathema.
You have a marvelous way of expressing your views while being aware of realities but not being in any way soured by opposing views, however piercing their slings and arrows to you personally.
This was the way of Christ who was supremely the
Son of God on earth while well aware, humble and forgiving of the forces against Him. While we can’t hold a candle to the way of Christ, we can try to imitate Him.
Every man is my neighbor and is to be treated in a proper human, man-to-man relationship. Every time we act in a machine-like way toward another man we deny the central teaching of the Word of God — that there is a personal God who has created man in his own image.
This is not the God described by those on this site.
I like to read what everone writes…even if I don’t agree. I prefer to understand differing opinions rather than quash them.
Being rude and dismissive is hardly in the spirit of academia.
SteveG (#12),
This is interesting. Yesterday I had copied the article to my word processor in order to analyze it in greater detail. It was written by an AP writer by the name of Kasey Jones and I don’t remember if it was credited to any specific newspaper.
Today I cannot find the exact article anywhere but on the internet edition of the British Guardian. All the American versions have been modified and are now signed by a different author (Alex Dominguez) and the Boy Scout references greatly reduced. My conclusion: someone at the AP also thought that Jones had overdone the Scouting references and they have done some backtracking and erasing.
I believe this confirms my original point: even the supposed professionals can, for personal reasons, indulge in their own version of “blog rage.”
machine-like–abusive?
“Thick skin is skin imperviousness to the arrows that come by Night…”
Does anyone else besides me wonder whether this is a subtle, dual-purpose reference to one particular example of a blogger on this site who exhibits frequent fits of ‘Blog Rage’– NIGHT TRAIN?
Proverbs 20:7
A righteous man that walketh (not just talketh) in his integrity, Blessed are his children after him.
19
it is better to dwell in the desert land, Than with a contentious and fretful woman. (It is worse to do both.)
24
Make no friendship with a man that is given to anger; And with a wrathful man though shalt not go, Lest thou learn his ways and get a snare to thy soul.