Wednesday, 10 March 2010

Recommended Reading List #53

@Babyrambles tentatively poses the intriguing question "Is there anything you won't blog about?"

Emily explains she has the 'very British' habit of keeping away from any subject that would cause her any personal embarrassment.

Reading List has a specific 'news' theme, so obviously it's unlikely we'd ever get round (ahem, down) to discussing those topics Emily touches on as examples here, but it is nevertheless a fascinating question about our individual self-imposed limits.

Extrapolating outwards it also opens up a range of issues at the root of questions of how personal morality and public law can, should and does interact. Are you prepared to self-censor, or do you reserve the right to fully explore and express every part of your thoughts and experiences? And in the counterpose, what level of intervention would you support in any given situation, and how far would you go to impose your authority and will on it?

With an election just over the horizon these questions strike at the heart of some of the political choices members of the public will face at the ballot box. How we answer them will go a long way to determine what the future will look like.

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More Recommended Reading List

3 comments:

  1. Emily O11 March 2010 at 12:38

    Thanks for linking to my post. I think if you're looking to project a certain image of yourself on your blog then you'll be imposing some limits on what you do and don't say. This is probably true of many political blogs, where limits may also be imposed by the requirement to toe the party line. It must be quite interesting writing a blog when you have limits imposed on you from elsewhere.

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  2. Gideon Mack Orangutan11 March 2010 at 13:38

    I think the benefit of blogging is that you pretty much can blog about whatever you want as long as you're not slandering etc.

    For instance it's fine to say that I think that W4B are a bunch of orangutan habitat killing bastards who's palm oil biofuel makes a mockery of 'environmentally friendly' hydrocarbon replacements.


    Hello Oranj me old mucker.

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  3. Oranjepan12 March 2010 at 12:33

    Hiya!

    @Emily
    there are no restrictions or limitations imposed on this blog from elsewhere - if there are any biases in the reporting then they reflect the editorial balance and the range of sources available on that subject.

    I try to include everything I can find relating to each issue so that what comes out is actually a reflection of what the blogging public thinks, rather than just the opinion of me and my collaborators. That said, it can be a bit of a stretch wrapping everything up into a neat package all the time, so I will use a bit of polyfilla if it feels necessary.

    I've read a range of discussion pieces elsewhere on this and it seems clear that each party has different tendencies - through central memos giving issues of the day, to more locally-accountable organisations and those which give complete independence to bloggers.

    So maybe you could say the content reflects the form of organisation, which in turn reflects the individual and group philosophy...

    @GMO
    we've found a common concern there!

    Like above, I agree that how anyone uses their blog to communicate reflects back on them as much as it does the topic under discussion - so sometimes it can be worth being a little more cautious about the strength of language used, though naturally that depends on the purpose you want to put it to and the niche you want to carve out for yourself.

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