In my previous post, I invoked the well-known slogan of
Marshal Mcluhan, "The medium is the message," by which I understand
him to have meant that the form of a communication ["the medium"] so constrains
and dominates the communication ["the message"] that it comes
virtually to be the message
communicated. After putting up that
post, whose purpose it was to explain my reaction to televised discussions of
the Trayvon Martin case, I reflected that it was also quite apposite to my
experience as a blogger.
I took to blogging, at the suggestion of my son, Patrick,
when the prospect of retirement loomed frighteningly before me. It is not for me a natural form of writing,
anymore than is Face Book or YouTube or Twitter. In April 2010, I thought I had found a way of
bending the blog to my natural inclinations.
I began a lengthy autobiography, posted seriatim. When I had brought
that to conclusion [by writing the story of my life up to the moment in which I
was writing it], I was loath to give up the genre of the extended essay, and
launched a series of tutorials, mini-tutorials, and "appreciations"
on a very wide range of subjects. By
April 2012, the autobiography and tutorials together had run to more than
400,000 words, the equivalent of three good sized books [or eight doctoral
dissertations!]
But even the most indefatigable of writers run out of themes
sooner or later [leaving to one side such phenomena as Georges Simenon and
Agatha Christie], and the form of the blog has defeated me. I have been reduced to comments on the passing
scene and navel gazing musings like this one.
One might have expected that having had my say, I would simply fall
silent, but having told my name the live long day to an admiring blog, I am
compelled to continue.
4 comments:
The medium of the daily 'blog' can express 'Philosophy' as a daily regimen, rather than as a consolation, a constructed theory, navel-gazing, a three-month hoop to jump through en route to a degree, an alternative to perishing, etc.
I read your blog regularly. I started with your very interesting autobiography. I read your book, "In Defense of Anarchism" shortly after it was published - except for Plato, Aristotle, and Rawls it's one of the few works in political philosophy that I've had the patience to read. And indeed I call myself a "philosophical anarchist" in the Wolffian sense. As in your case, a friend urged me to start my own blog so that he wouldn't have to read my emails - now he reads neither. Keep up your important blog. TV for daily voting would be great, but as entertainment I look and listen elsewhere.
Please do continue, Prof. Wolff. As much as I enjoy the extended essays, you commentaries on the passing scene are often little gems.
Just echoing everyone else's enjoyment about reading your blog. To my embarrassment, I often skim over the more philosophical posts and delight in either the commentary on politics or your personal stories (especially your adventures in Paris).
And if nothing else, the blog has brought me to read your "In Defense of Anarchism", "Critique of Pure Tolerance", and "Autobiography of an Ex-White Man" (with "Moneybags Should be so Lucky" lying around somewhere in my apartment waiting to be read) and several other works, like "The Racial Contract", I'm not sure I would have stumbled upon on my own.
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