Theory of Negativity

Sometimes I wonder, why bother with a weblog?

People don't want any fruitful volley of ideas. The culture war is so bitterly polarized that only two types of things sell: Either ammunition for firmly stomping down the other side, or the comfort offered by like-minded ideologues. Provide anything different and you're suspect, the object of bewilderment, or possibly attack.

I toy with the idea of adding comments to Spacetropic, but inevitably my mind is changed by the mental droppings I see in the comment section of various weblogs. I see how many bloggers have a Greek chorus of commenters that scrape along behind, delivering some crass variation of "Me too!" to every utterance.

Or the commenters are prissy antagonists. They resemble the product of the most insular type of home schooling, when Mommy said everything about them was brilliant, and they never had to knock elbows and learn to get along with other kids.

For now I am watching and sometimes participating on some local websites - notably Wes Flinn's Walk-In-Brain, NixGuy, and 'The Nati'. The first two very different politically and in terms of editorial content, and the last deserves more publicity as a solid, positive take of Cincinnati news. They all seem like respectable people.

Rarely do I ramble, and rarely am I cynical. I just wonder if all of this jabbering and invective can't actually be focused around a more productive social purpose.