The Reality-Based Community

It's come to my attention that in my recent postings I've been a partisan. That sounds ridiculous, and it is, but not for the obvious reason.

That the postings have been partisan is no great secret. What's come to my attention is that when I write them I myself become a different person and a less subtle one: eager to score points, repetitive, and mildly pumped up with the idea that in writing something I might cause discomfort to the other side. (Like most buzzes, this one comes with altered mental states: in saner moments I know very well that no Republican cares what I think—at least not as long as I write the way I've been writing.)

There are lots of ways to describe the problem. A Platonist would say that I've become prone to "eristic" instead of "dialectic." A Humean would say even though political alliances are necessary for politics, excessive and continual attachment to such alliances spoils us as individuals for judging politics and everything else. I like the latter way of looking at it; in fact, I like it enough to be writing a paper on it. Partisan judgments need not be inaccurate to corrupt us intellectually. Perhaps the most accurate ones are the most corrupting, because the hardest to chase from our heads.

Short version: there are people who can blog and keep their heads, perhaps even strengthen them. But I'm not one of them. I'm taking a break, perhaps for good. I thank those of you who have written to call my writing forceful, entertaining, and more or less fair. (And remarkably few have written to say the opposite; I expected many more flames than I got.) But this isn't about my writing. This is about me. I'm not a blogger at heart: I'm a political theorist. I'm hanging it up to make sure it stays that way.
[/self-indulgence. Please keep reading this blog; my colleagues here are really something special.]

Posted at 08:37 PM | TrackBack (0) | |
Thread: Blogging , Thread: Moral philosophy