This is a message for Danial Langlois.
Mr. Langlois, for some time now, you have been posting
lengthy comments on this blog, sometimes as often as twice or even three times
a day. Surely you must have noticed that
after a short while I stopped responding to them, as indeed did the other
constant commenters. Speaking only for
myself, I will say that I refrained from responding because I find your
contributions to the discussion to be scattered, unfocused, and often simply
incoherent. You are always appropriately
respectful, and I think it would be inappropriate for me to remove your
comments, But I must suggest that in future you refrain from posting comments
on this blog. You are of course always
welcome to read the blog, and I will tell you honestly that if you continue to
post comments, I will not remove them.
But I really do think it would be best if you stop.
14 comments:
I don't read his comments generally.
Otherwise, I read the comments of all regular participants in this blog.
He seems to travel to the beat of a very very different drum.
You may have already tried this, but it would have been kinder to share your sentiment with Mr. Langlois in private via email, or in the comments of section of a post, instead of putting him on blast in his own blog post.
This blog has a core group of regular posters who appear to believe that *they* are the figurative adults at the dining-room table sharing stories in the great conversation. But that core is a tiny fraction of your readers, and it seems unfair to shame Mr. Langlois for being the precocious teenager desperately trying to join the conversation from the stairwell.
As a participant observer of this blog I'd say that though anonymous 12:22 has a point, for a blog with a definite perspective, the tone is civil and I've enjoyed learning from everybody. The Marxist POV is relevant and under represented in the media and to reiterate, perhaps the blog to a degree is an echo chamber it is in no way a shooting range which is why my inclination is to be charitable
Anonymous,
No one is sitting on the stairwell excluded from the table here. Everyone is invited to sit down and join the conversation. However, the host has the right to ask someone not to
continue participating in the conversation, as the host would in the real world of non-virtual dining room conversations. I don't see the problem with that.
Why the need to blog this rebuke? Your little echo-chamber of obsequious followers is not exclusive enough? Strikes me as mean-spirited.
I'm hardly an obsequious follower of Professor Wolff. If you check out my comments, I'm almost never in agreement with him.
Re (alleged) echo chamber:
My impression is that there's actually a fair amount of disagreement, usually polite but still disagreement, about various things in the comment threads here.
I note the title: 'TOUGH LOVE DEMANDS AN INTERVENTION'
You know, I wonder if my views are just too 'mainstream' for me to be tolerated around here. Or is it that of course I'm just so very scattered, unfocused, and often simply incoherent. You want things to be less scattered, etc. I admit that I've made a quantity of comments, and that this is understandable, if you're thinking about when to draw the line, and where to draw it. I have no hard feelings, it's not a problem, but you are the stubborn one, I think. How long can you maintain a political blog endorsing communism and anarchism, before somebody tarries to argue with you? Well, I say that I have no hard feelings and I hope I am able to be thoughtful as I say it, but it is you who will get the last word.
I can't believe that you've written a separate entry in order to humiliate a contributor. Why would you do that? The man is entitled to an opinion. As you point out, he is always polite and, for my money, not at all incoherent. If you have no tolerance for such a mild expression of dissent you should be the one to give up on the pontificating.
As for S. Wallenstein and his observations let me just say that when people sit at my table and express a contrary opinion I wouldn't think of asking them to discontinue participating. That is just pathetic.
Julia B
Julia B.
If you read the original post and the comments above, you'll see that no one has been asked to discontinue participating because of expressing contrary opinions. In fact, as I emphasized above, I generally disagree with Professor Wolff, and they are those who disagree more sharply than I do and are never asked to discontinue commenting.
I'm fairly sure that if you reflect upon it, there are reasons that you might ask someone not to continue participating in your dinner table conversations.
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