Civility, Ideology, and The Internet
Last week, an old post of Ann Althouse was resurrected. In this old post, she characterizes herself as a moderate and said that liberal bloggers were much ruder to her, than the conservative bloggers.
Well, nobody considers Althouse a moderate mostly because of the company that she keeps in the Internet. If you pal around with Glenn Reynolds and Hugh Hewitt, ain’t nobody on the left going to like you. You are your blogroll. If you like to play with people on both sides of the ideological spectrum, like I do, that just makes everyone very confused.
There is no room for subtlety in the blogosphere. If you say that you are liberal on this, but conservative on that, you’ve already lost half your readers. People are zooming through the blogs at lightening speed and then need to know what you are about immediately. If you can put it in your tag line, even better. “I’m a God-Fearin’ Christian and Want to Make Sweet Monkey Love To Ann Coulter” “I’m a Guilt-Ridden Liberal and I Spend Every Waking Moment Thinking of Ways to Steal Your Money” I’m not even sure if there are any successful, truly moderate bloggers.
And rudeness crosses across all ideologies. Mostly because rudeness sells well on the Internet. If I write a post that says, “I agree with this person because of A and B, but disagree because of C”, nobody will link to it. If I write a post that says, “Blogger A doesn’t shave her armpits”, that will get lots of notice. It’s simple, armpit is a funny word, and people like fights.
Cass Sunstein in Republic.com
I’m not sure that this works for the blogosphere. People are definitely reading blogs of other political stripes. But they are doing so to find good blog fodder. Extremity of thought is the result of the short attention span of most Internet readers, the need for cut and dry political identifications, and the primary function of the blogosphere, which is to entertain.
Apt. 11d 
Your experience raising son’s has clearly sharpened your understanding of the dynamics of the blogosphere. “Armpit” as a funny word probably also works when trying to get the boys’ attention during the mad morning rush….
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Now I understand why no-one reads my educational policy posts except you. I did one post which got no comments and a single trackback which was about the fact that the post was so obscure that no-one could comment on it…
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Ann Althouse a moderate?! That’s a hoot.
I checked her out because (a) she’s a law professor, and (b) she has a heavily trafficked blog.
What I saw, when she wasn’t blogging about reality TV programs, were frequent and snide remarks about Hillary, shameless baiting of John Kerry, constant criticism of “democats,” and a consistent group of commenters who lapped that up and tossed in a ridiculous number of references to Chappaquiddick.
But hey, I love the image of those boys jumping around behind you for the State of the Blog.
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Hey Harry, I read you education policy posts! I even read the White Paper one, and I spent about an hour on Google looking stuff up so I could make sense of your position and figure out where I stood in relation to it. I’ve got nothing against obscure, overlong posts (I better not, as that’s about all I write…).
Laura, I love your comment “you are your blogroll.” This is something that I’ve thought was true for a long time, and I’ve probably spent much too much time trying to apply it to my own blog. A while back I decided I was going to limit my blogroll, because I wanted to restrict my surfing and I wanted to really try to become a regular reader of a select number of blogs. The result is that, since slots are limited, I’m always fine-tuning it. Like you, I try to play with people on both sides, but I’m always wondering how I’m doing. Write now, I’ve got reasonable libertarians, big government populists, near-anarchists, conservative Democrats, dangerous liberal professors, paleo-cons, and Catholic hippies. With, of course, the result that I don’t belong anywhere, and miss out on many a linkfest because I’m not on any one particular bandwagon.
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Jeez, I think Althouse is moderate. But then, I read Bainbridge and Reynolds and Powerline, think City Journal is a source of great ideas, and Laura and Tim Burke are about as far left as I get. So Althouse looks right in the middle to me.
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Perhaps I have not read Althouse enough. And maybe I am just blessed to have avoided the real extremists. But she consistently pounds Democrats in the posts I have seen, and she constantly exhalts Bush, Cheney, Rice, etc.
I think that Laura is on to something that the blogosphere does not have a lot of real middle. And I’m still trying to decide whether that is as bad a thing as Cass Sunstein thinks it is.
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Harry–I also read your eduction posts. They are too based on the British system for me to comment intelligently, though–and I think I differ with you on what eduction should do (I think a social network is the most important thing)–so I don’t comment.
I’m think there is a “middle” in the blogosphere–or at least a space for temperate discussion. Blogs I find useful in that respect are two kinds: specialist blogs (like this one–I’m a regular reader) and thoughtful blogs (Volokh, Left2Right).
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RC, one thing about Althouse is her interest in the media aspect the news. Cheney shows up this week for obvious reasons. But read what Althouse actually wrote. She didn’t defend him — she just brought up the story. Or reread her post on Hillary Clinton. She didn’t attack Hillary; she actually criticized Jonathan Chait’s defense of Hillary for feeding mysogynstic stereotypes.
I dunno if there is a blog “middle”, but there are many blogs that have a “moderate” tone. I think Althouse counts, as do most of the Volokh Conspiracy, most of the Crooked Timber folks, Laura here. There’s a civility at these blogs that encourages interesting exchanges. The posters seem to couple individualistic viewpoints with critical thinking in a way that runs counter to most political blogging.
Henry(inPawt)
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http://www.janegalt.net/blog/archives/005703.html Jane Galt has just done a big post on ‘is Althouse a moderate’ – she says, ‘yes’. She also says it’s possible to be moderate and have voted for Bush, so, your mileage may vary…
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Henry(inPawt), huh? Home of the fabulous Modern Diner? Well, well. Greetings, near-neighbor.
I should withdraw my statement; Althouse just wasn’t my cup of tea and I sensed a strong bias that rubbed me the wrong way. But I only looked in for a week or so. Anyway, compared to, say, Rhode Island’s Future, I imagine she *is* moderate. I have looked in on that site lately — it seems to be about the only game in town — and I find myself wishing there were a more moderate political blog for Little Rhody.
But absolutely: some blogs have civil exchange, others do not. This nice place always does, in my experience, which is one of the many reasons I like it.
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I could relate to Althouse. I always identified as left — centerish left. To keep the theme of this comments section going, I’m from Rhode Island. And I went to Wesleyan (while Tim Burke was there!)And then Columbia. And I’m a journalist.
And then I started blogging. And my blog was embraced, loved and linked by the right and I was treated by a leper by the left.
It triggered a big-time identity crisis, and I really fought it at first. But then I realized it was a losing battle. I realized that if you live in Israel and identify as an Israeli, even a left-wing Israeli journalist who identifies left on every possible U.S. social issue, you are automatically tagged by the lefty blogosphere as persona non grata, part of the militaristic capitalist Bush aggressor neo-con cabal…and there’s nothing you can really do about it.
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Fascinating. I had not thought of the perils of “linked by association.” It does seem unfair to judge someone too much, or maybe at all, by who links to them.
But commenters, it seesm to me, are another thing. And with Althouse, it was my sense that she complains about comments from the “extreme” left but she does not object to the comments from the “extreme” right. Doesn’t that say something about one’s tendency to moderation? Bbyond linking, her blog seems like a magnet for views that are not moderate, and not diverse politically.
I guess it’s the dilemma of the radio talk show host, to come full circle to Rhode Island (where radio talk is, what, the Fifth Estate?)
So, what’s your blog?
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Oh, silly me, I forgot to link my blog. This time it’s linked.
Regarding the comments, Althouse is talking about the tone of the comments, no? That the left is nastier when they disagree with you and the right more respectful. Not always, of course.
I know from RI talk radio. One of my first jobs in media: I was a traffic reporter for WHJJ in the afternoon during the Buddy Cianci show. Seriously! Buddy used to ask me what was going on around the Thurber’s Avenue curve and the 95 split. That was back in the old days, pre-yuppie Providence, pre-Providence Place, pre-gondolas and Waterfire and all that stuff. It all seems a little surreal when I come back to visit.
I see you have a Brown U URL — both my parents worked at Brown.
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A friend of mine did an interesting study of linkage between the right and the left in the blogosphere. I think it showed a lot of mutual linkages between the right and left, but I bring it up because she was only able to identify a right and a left. There was no middle.
It’s funny how one issue, like Allison’s pro-Israel stance, can kick you out of a club. Nice big tent, people. I think that I’m somewhat included in the left in the blogosphere, mostly because of my economic positions and girl-power posts. But I think that I’m eyed with suspicion, because I also have written that divorce can be bad for kids and that full time parents shouldn’t be treated with scorn.
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Now, how ironic is it that a day after I wrote the comment above, I posted something on my blog that was linked by Instapundit (first time), LGF, and Powerline?
It’s about a horrible murder of a Jewish man in Paris that has gotten no coverage from the mainstream media whatsoever.
It will be interesting to see if it penetrates the lefty blogosphere at all.
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Great post, Allison. How many hits did you get from that conservative trifecta?
I’m running into the city to sell books at the Strand and eat Chinese food. Everybody is off for President’s Day, so we need an adventure. When I’m back, I write a post on it. Let’s see what reaction it will get from the left.
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Check out the Sitemeter.
The momentum continues — since I posted the comment above, Andrew Sullivan linked it…
And the story is still nowhere to be found in the mainstream media.
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Reynolds on moderation in the blogosphere
Good show, Allison!
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