"Most people’s views on (topic) are similar and/or very different."
Black Hockey Jesus is one of the few people I’ve stumbled upon who seems to have figured out that blogging is a specific form, and that as such it might just aspire to art. That is, it might have some unique material nature that separates it from other forms and allows it to do things in ways that are specific to it alone. By way of example a post called Cracking Open the Bloging Question was gorgeous and started me thinking about privacy, language, and all manner of things. Then I read the comments; something I rarely do. Maybe it was because I liked the post so much, or maybe because he actually asked for comments; something BHJ rarely does:
What are we doing? Why does the bulk of the population, my poor wife included, crave a circle of privacy to live inside? And why do our experiences seem to yell "Hey! Check this out!"? And before any of you echo and parrot "Narcissism Narcissism Narcissism", OK, let’s deepen that. To what end narcissism? … What do you think? Talk to me.
The thing is most of the comments made me feel like I’ve been transported back to seventh grade English, and oral book report’s, "…this is a story about how the writer has lazy children and doesn’t like cats and uses bad words sometimes but it was really good mostly." It’s not just there wasn’t a lot of news, it’s that there wasn’t a whole lot of what I think of as real response; not much conversation, and way too much oversimplification. Or maybe just the wrong kind of oversimplification. That’s the thing life’s simple and the world is complicated, or else the other way around, your choice.
For those wondering about what I think a good discussion would look like I offer one of the longest Flickr comment threads following Anger Is the Swiss Army Knife of Emotions T-shirt.
