In part due to the reaction toward my Indecent Proposal post and in part do to the nature of my next post, I’d like to make a quick point regarding my interpretation of the nature of blogs.
Blogs have three major beneficial effects: dissemination of information, a check on the media (as well as a supplemental source of that media), and blogs create a forum where ideas are placed on a table and then people can either admire, ponder, critique, applaud, add to, subtract from, etc. to those ideas. Blogs create dialogues.
I am a person filled with curiosity. My mind wanders, I daydream, and I constantly search for ideas and details that have been hiding in the shade. With that said, I like to play devil’s advocate, I like to defend positions I don’t agree with, and I also like to tinker with the perception of certain subjects in order to obtain a fuller understanding.
The point of this post is that it is much more beneficial for all of us to critique a stance or reasoning, than it is to denouce that person or idea as simpy “Republican,” “Stupid,” or “crazy.” Instead, it’d be much more productive to cite counterexamples, other arguments … do we all agree, or am I sounding too much like a hippie beside a camp fire at 3:30 am?
— Steve Cieslewicz
