15 July 2001
Purposes
Various connections have been bouncing around in my head for nearly two weeks now, refusing to coalesce. And assorted recent conversations and discussions have produced additional connections that have refused to coalesce. I think I've finally managed to find some common denominator. It all relates to my purposes and goals -- website, intellectual, personal, etc.
For me, the site serves several (not unrelated) purposes. I'll begin with the exoteric ones. Obviously (at least to some), I'm making a social argument (more narrowly, political and philosophical) with Reductio ad Absurdum, using a combination of humor, scorn, praise, and analysis; additionally, if one treats Reductio ad Absurdum as a "text" to be analyzed, it's entirely revealing. Regardless, there's something there for most people (although if one leans libertarian/conservative/objectivist, obviously there's more with which to identify). It's entertainment (and sometimes informative), whether one agrees or not. The journal, in its present configuration, is more of a story. It's a log of events I find interesting, as well as thoughts and integrations. I try to catalog events and thoughts of importance to me. In that sense, it's written for me (mental notes and reminders if you will), because I was never particularly good about a written diary (and while I find writing marginalia necessary when reading, this version of "marginalia" about life more broadly is much handier because it's searchable and thus easily accessible); like all public journals, it's also written for others -- exoterically, so friends, family, and acquaintances can keep up with me (in lieu of many individual emails). The Essays page (population one thus far!) is a place for serious, refined op-ed-style writing that advances an argument or systematically makes connections. The other pages (with the exception of the Message Boards) are simply secondary pages with obvious purposes.
The Message Boards are an entirely different creature. Whereas the other pages, in their current configuration, are best described by the familiar author-->text-->reader model, the boards are by nature interactive. They allow for feedback. They allow for questions. They give readers control. I've given the message boards some thought in the past, but not much. The most detailed discussion I've had about them was in the form of a private email to the Lovely Evelynne, when I discussed the boards versus the inline-comments feature of GreyMatter that I used to use, and why I rarely answered comments inline (the reason: I viewed those as the readers' chance to comment, and usually confined responses, on the rare occasions I thought one was somehow necessary, to private email). I thought about the purpose of the Message Boards some when I eliminated inline comments (and the guestbook) in the latest redesign. That was done in order to provide a clearer organizational/logical break between my writing and outside commentary, as well as to centralize the outside commentary, some of which has been highly interesting to me personally. If I had to give a purpose of the Message Boards, it would be to provide a forum for my sorts of people, people who are regularly drawn to the site, to bounce ideas around (some generated by the site, some not), and to encourage people to think, reason, and write (when popular culture seems entirely happy these days to stress "expression" over that sort of reasoned discourse).
Overall, the purpose of the site is all of those things wrapped together with an important addition: I'm really interested in finding the sorts of people who "get" it. Leo Strauss certainly was not the first to note that in the great texts of political philosophy, the authors are writing on both an exoteric and esoteric level, the esoteric level reserved, if you will, for the other great thinkers and authors across time. For a careful reader of such authors, it is hardly surprising to find Nietzsche located centrally within Strauss's influential Studies in Platonic Political Philosophy (much of Nietzsche's work is a response to the far-reaching Plato; the same can be said of Rousseau, whom I've been re-reading recently, and the other greats). I won't compare myself to those greats, but I was recently discussing with Hanah the same phenomenon with regard to some of my own most regular analytic reads on the web (and elsewhere), and how I literally know how to "read between the lines" when I see certain things written. Part of the purpose of the site is to attract similarly thoughtful people. Those who go beyond the silly (such as references to [Bloa]Ted or PMDD or That Scary Man) and want to delve down into what motivates such nonsense (or the constant references to Leo Strauss for that matter, or any number of additional things). Those who get it when I respond to the nonsense in this thread, then contradict one key statement (a Shiner Bock to the first who points out which one!) with my very different response (rhetorically speaking) in this thread.
That last topic being raised, I want to clarify that I'm not the typical Straussian or Objectivist elitist. I don't WANT to be surrounded personally just by people who "get" it, and I like the fact that all sorts of people visit the site and find things to interest them. But my greater purpose is not to draw "fans" (my ego and self-esteem are quite healthy enough, thank you) nor to provide a forum for the masses. A net friend recently wrote (in a different context): "LJ [LiveJournal] brings journals to the masses, and that is a noble thing." Perhaps, but it is so NOT what I am about here! I see those housewives and artists and students and regular people every day in real life. I hope those folks enjoy the internet and use it to serve ends useful to them (or not, if it pleases them), but those are not the people with whom I'm seeking to interact electronically ABOUT ideas. I want electronic (and personal) interaction with people who make similar connections, better connections, educational connections; I do NOT want "expression" for expression's sake. I don't WANT to host electronic interaction with the masses if that means this (though gawd bless her and gawd bless Evelynne if it is of value to them).
I'm reminded of this particular entry from months ago, but I'll just reproduce three sentences:
How many of you read this man two months ago? How many of you read the entire entry as this man's lament (the exoteric language to the contrary)?
Along those lines, I'm not criticizing the "masses" of the internet, and I hope all people who wander in here find something of value to the pursuit of their own goals and passions. To the extent the site helps to identify a few who share my own goals and passions (at those "frontiers" so to speak), that's even better (and it does happen). And one of several purposes. :)
* * * *
Unfortunately, I never really got around to tying in several articles (particularly this one, which raises so many interesting questions) or ideas ("ideology" being one) that raised some of these issues indirectly in my mind, but I'm tired of writing now. Maybe someone else will make those connections!
[Posted @ 08:33 PM CST]
