I have been writing this blog now for ten years. I started shortly after retiring, when I was
in my middle seventies, and I am now, though it is hard to believe, in my
middle eighties. For much of that time,
my posts have received a steady but slender stream of comments, and while there
are some readers who post comments frequently, rather like students in a class
who can be relied on to have something to say almost every day, the range of
comments has been wide, and I have regularly heard from first time commenters,
often from overseas. I have found all of
this enormously exhilarating.
Recently, things have taken an odd turn. The comments section of the blog has come to
be dominated by a small number of men [they are all men, I am pretty sure], no
more than half a dozen at most, who seem not so much to be responding to what I
write as using the comments section as a sort of chat room. The comments are almost all intelligent and
knowledgeable, but they have little to do with what I am posting.
This tendency reached a point this week that calls for some acknowledgement
by me. On the 10th, I posted
a brief 175 word comment, intended to be light-hearted or humorous, confessing
that I had been wrong in predicting that Mueller would indict some more people
last Friday. Because I have been flying
up to New York to teach each Tuesday, I have been posting less often. What is more, I have been somewhat discouraged
from posting by the apparent lack of connection between what I post and what
appears as comment. In the five days
since that brief post, there have been 55 comments by a handful of people
totaling more than 9000 words!
I will be honest. I
have stopped reading them all. I feel as
though my little on-line class has been hi-jacked, and I do not know what to
do. I even suggested to the most
prolific of the usual suspects that he start his own blog, but to no avail.
I suspect, but of course I do not know, that there are many
readers who are deterred from commenting by this development. It is certainly true that I have lost the
sense that I am leading a discussion.
Now, it is open to me simply to ignore the comments section
and go on posting, but I really do not want to do that. For me, one of the rewards of this blog has
been the sense that I was conducting a grand international seminar. And although I routinely delete comments that
are nothing more than advertisements for dissertation writing services, I do
not want to start deleting serious, intelligent comments, even if they have
little or nothing to do with what I have written.
If there actually are more than five or six readers of this
blog, I would dearly love to hear from some of you, just to know you are there!
60 comments:
I use Feedly, and your blog is a valuable one of many blogs by philosophers whose voices I value and depend on. But I don't really comment on blogs. I like to just hear what folks are saying, often on areas beyond phil. mind and science, which captures my attention.
I don't know if there is a formula for productive comments. What's most rewarding for me is r/AskPhilosophy on Reddit; it's highly regulated and has plenty of folks with expertise that contribute.
Anyway, thank you for sharing
Oh prof - we’re still here and still treasure your blog - and its comments. I don’t myself comment much ‘cos of work and timezones and all, you know. Also, those of us from outside the USA have our own political problems at the moment (I’m from Britain, and there’s a good chance we’ll all be eating rats in six months, which makes your worries about Trump seem a bit tame). Your posts have taken an unhappy turn recently, and that figures - it’s a bad time. But there have been worse, and people have kept going and kept hope alive. It’s exhausting, but that’s the way it’s always been - in fact, despair is the secret weapon of the Right. I subscribe (through RSS) to you and a few other American blogs (Current Affairs, Lawfare, etc) so that I can get a real sense of the debate over there - which, historically, is what the debate over her will be in five years time, alas. Please keep going and look after yourself! (And I like the commments as well, although I admit I don’t always read them).
I started to read you blog around the time for your lectures on ideological critique. I would not have recognized political philosophy as a matter of my concern if it wasn’t for your blog. I look forward to your posts but never read the comments on your blog.
Hi,
I receive and RSS feed from your blog and read through most of your posts. I rarely comment on blogs but I do appreciate the thoughts you give.
Just to say - I always look forward to your latest post but rarely read the comments these days.
I'm one of the chief culprits.
In my experience in other blogs, the comments tend to stray unless the blog owner actively moderates the discussion. In one philosophy blog I sometimes participate in, the blogger is one of the most active participants in the comments section and if the comments begin to
go astray, he simply asks the other participants to stick to the main topic.
Anyone who has ever observed a good discussion anywhere (except in a classroom where there is a professor who has the power of grading the participants) knows that when people are engaged in a conversation, they tend to drift from one topic to another.
I am a regular reader, via Inoreader. I rarely comment on blogs and am here for the informed and witty commentary you to proivde. Thank you!
Still here. Found your blog right as it started. You posted a guest post by me in July 2011. I think I've read every word* - biography, the many permutations of primer (tutorials, mini-tutorials, seminars, appreciations...perhaps there were other types too - for a while, the blog's architectonics got a little baroque!),the separate game theory class, political prognostications (you're batting .300), various epicurean updates (lemon muffins in Durham, something you cook in Paris that ends in an "arde" and, I think, an "iesse"), the ocassional urgent request for help figuring out how the internet works, etc.
It's just excellent stuff. More than anything else I've - shall we say - undergone, your blog taught me how to think. Also, man, can you write. I look forward to every post.*
* Except the Kant. I just can't. It's cant.
If I'm one of the culprits (I've only commented recently), then I apologise - not because commenting excessively and/or tangentially on a blog is wrong in itself (it's obviously not), but because the actual (rather than intended) motives behind it (in my case at least) are hardly likely to be pure: self-indulgence, the frustrated-smart-man's-captive-audience, vanity etc.; and because your blog is a precious resource (to me at least) - a little haven of sense and genuineness and negative capability - and it's a decent use of the word 'sin' to describe risking such a resource as sinful.
I had read your blog for a few years, and appreciated greatly your writing it - I don't know exactly why; but it's something to do with solidarity, with knowing that someone out there is fighting for something similar; and to do with how you come across.
I had in fact started to comment, I think, to express some sort of solidarity back, in an indirect way, to return the favour - to show that you do indeed have readers, and more than actually comment on your blog. That there were lots of silent grateful readers ou there. (I don't in fact live in the U.S., for all my fixation on its politics).
And so, not because you as the blogger have any right to demand it, but because I'm more than happy to oblige an unspoken invitation (and more-than-slightly mortified if indeed, as I suspect, I am one of the culprits): I'll shut up in future and return to the silent gratitude (and perhaps the very occasional topic-appropriate non-prickly comment).
I read your blog very often, but rarely comment. Please, keep posting
I read. Rarely comment because I don’t like signing into google and the topics on which I am inclined to comment are tangential to your points (e.g., your admiration for that great fraud Freud). I do cooment on the rare òegal issues as I have expertise in litigation.
I read everything you write through an RSS reader.
Okay sometimes I skim.
But anyway it's a very pleasant place to be, this blog! I feel somehow as if we're friends; as if were I to find myself in Chapel Hill I could pop by for a tea without thinking anything of it. I won't do this (I promise), but it's a nice feeling to get from a blog, and across so much age and space.
I'll say that I find comments more interesting and useful when they are more tightly focused, and that the explosion of late has been less than enjoyable to me. Very long-winded comments that are at best lightly connected to the blog posts seem to me to be self-indulgent, a bit like a guest who comes to a party and then plays his own music loudly, despite what others may want. Sometimes that works well. But when it happens all the time, it's a drag. Now, I'll admit that I sometimes make jokes or stray comments. We all do. But, to most of us I think it's clear when things go beyond that. I hope people can try and rein themselves in at least a bit. I doubt I'll be the only one who is happy if that happens.
I read every post through an RSS reader (Feedly), so don't see the comments.
I'm not sure how I came upon your blog, but I always appreciate your posts. I tend to read mostly blogs by statisticians and economists, so maybe one of them linked to one of your posts.
Thank you!
I read your blog all the time. I'm a trained philosopher and have engaged with and taught a number of your works, and moved in similar intellectual worlds (though I actually worked on and liked (some of) Hegel!). I never comment and I rarely read the comments -- but I very much enjoy your voice and insights. I hope you keep blogging!
Heretofore, a non-commenter. Read your blog every day - every few days as the case may be.
I'm here every day. Mostly for the political analysis.
Male philosophy PhD working in tech.
Keep up the good work!
Still here still reading. Thanks. I enjoy your blog very much.
I post, very rarely. And I rarely read the comments unless there is a chance I would want to post.
I'm here for your posts, and though the comments can indeed be quite good, I am happy to leave them to the side. Do keep at it; you may not always be right, as you note, but you always provide something worthy of thought.
We're out here, Professor, and we appreciate you!
Thank you for clearing the air. I have posted, maybe three or four times in the last five years, and after the last time I later read a remark espousing that you were being watched by “conservatives” or something of that nature.
It is, in my opinion, those types of political narratives that are used very skillfully to divide and censor honest attempts for dialogue.
I have looked at your ideas about ideology, but didn’t find this issue explicitly addressed, and have subsequently thought it was a tacit nod at them. It does not seem that way now, and it is refreshing.
I too regularly check out your blog.
"Please tell me you love and appreciate me, and recognize me as your Professor, leader of a grand seminar. How dare these minions hijack the comments, chattering idly about things I care not about. Control. Control and love. Those are my needs. Those are my conditions."
Hi, Paul. I suppose I am one of the few women who reads your blog (we exist!). My media consumption is driven by Feedly, so I generally don't see comments. Thoroughly enjoy your philosophic and political commentary, though, and you gave a wonderful Parisian restaurant recommendation via email. Best, Sarah.
I am a faithful visitor to your blog (and have been for about 6 years now), checking in several times a week. I find the comments section a bit tiresome, for the reasons you cite, though I will nevertheless skim through them most of the time to see if anything catches my attention.
I've posted perhaps a handful of comments over the years, but I've been following along since I first read your work in graduate school a little less than a decade ago.
Prof Wolff, I am a regular reader of your blog. It's a relief to know that you don't endorse the self-indulgent effluvium recently accumulating in the comments.
Regular Reader :-)! Tech guy from the bay area. Mostly appreciate the philosophy stuff (e.g., Kant's lectures, etc.).
Professor Wolff --
I check your blog almost daily and find it to be a valuable resource on many levels. I do not comment as much as I would like due to time constraints (I work full-time). But I always look forward to reading a sane voice in an insane world.
-- Jim
I read your blog for the politics, about which I largely agree, though I argue with you silently sometimes. I am too ignorant about philosophical history to comment on that aspect and frankly too uncaring about abstraction of that sort.
I'm glad you've finally taken up this issue. The Comments section has become a source of irritation. And I regret I've sometimes voiced that.
Otherwise, I've followed your blog for many years. I don't always agree with what you say, but I have found it and some of the Comments interesting. I hope you'll keep it going.
Professor Wolff,
I've been regularly reading your blog since 2013. I've only commented a handful of times (I was the one who offered to clean up the computer scan of your correspondence with Richard Wolff), but I have very much enjoyed following your thoughts over the years.
As you know I mostly lurk, but sometimes contribute though not elaborately. I stick to my last (a weirdly marvelous image, taken too literally). Wanna know about sourdough or Gödel?
Dear Professor Wolff,
I'm a professional legal philosopher out of Canada but am presently based in Malaysia.
I read your blog on a very regular basis. It's insightful and helpful as I work through my own thinking.
I have so far only commented once on a post. But should it be appropriate to do so in the future, rest assured that more comments will be forthcoming.
I've been reading for 10 years faithfully! Love the blog.
I have been reading this website pretty much since its inception. I have read RPW’s books on Kant and, of course, the Anarchism book. That’s how I recognized the name and starting reading the website way back when. I don’t get much exercised by politics (I’m an inveterately left-of-center Democrat, and let it go at that). The things I’ve liked best about this website are the philosophical parts of it—especially the memoirs about academic philosophy in the US down until about 1970. I’ve long had an interest in C.I. Lewis, and I think his marginalization in contemporary US philosophy is a mistake and something close to an injustice. If I remember correctly, RPW said a few years back that he thought that Mind and the World Order was one of the two works by American philosophers that deserve to be called a classic. But the other one wasn’t identified. I have long been curious about the demographics of the readership of this website. I think it’s too bad that professional philosophers (and other academics) don’t throw their two-cents in more often in the comments section.
I’ve been a regular reader of yours for the last eight years or so. I tend not to read the comments, much less contribute to them, but I’m happy to say “hi” here in response to the call.
Professor Wolff:
I am a long-time and regular reader of the blog and especially appreciate having the archives. Reading your take on the current political environment and on the relation between such ephermeral events and the broader philosophical background is one of my great pleasures, up there with browsing WV Quine's delightful book Quiddities. I miss your musical musings lately. I have commented in the past but not so much lately; it gets weedy out there. Best wishes.
Count me in as a regular reader who never posts.
Dear Prof Wolff,
Having been pointed to your blog by one of Brian Leiter’s posts many years ago (while doing my PhD in Philosophy in the UK), I have read - I believe - every one of your posts in the 8 or so years since, through academic degrees, international moves, 2 children, a divorce, various life joys and stresses, etc.
I also used to keep up with a number of other blogs (Leiter’s and others in Philosophy, various sources related to my current topic, Cognitive Neuroscience, etc.), but have slowly but steadily weeded them out, down to two sole remaining survivors - including yours (the other is Cal Newport’s take on knowledge work at ”Study Hacks”). Why do I keep reading these two, when several dozen have been purged already? Because they both give me joy, and are neither too frequent or too infrequent in their posts, nor too obviously polished by some over-zealous marketing guru with something to sell (Cal sells books and similar, but still strikes me as authentic).
I sincerely appreciate your perspective. And although it may be somewhat sacrilege to even mention it, I dare say that although we have never come close to meeting in real life, nor have I ever engaged you in discussion here in the comments or elsewhere (this is, in fact, the first comment I have ever posted at your blog), I must profess to occasionally having started to worry a little about your health and wellbeing whenever you have taken a longer than usual hiatus from posting. Purely selfish reasons: your updates are quite frequently simply pleasant pings in my working day, and many of your stories have stayed with me (I particularly enjoyed your story about your - was it? - granddaughter, and her experience with the challenging math teacher in Hungary, or your parable about health and education in the imagined country where they do everything backwards, whatever it was called...). At times, reading your blog posts reminds me a little of the NPR show The Moth.
I intended to not be too verbose, but seems I failed at that. In any case, here’s the moral: I suspect I am not alone in enjoying listening to what you have to say, even if I have never before engaged you back again, thru comments or otherwise.
In any case, I never see any of the comments, as I have set up a function that emails me your posts (without comments) as soon as you post them. This has been the only way I have engaged with your blog since years back, and what I intend to do also in the future. In other words, I guess I won’t see any potential responses to this comment either. :-)
Oh well. Keep up the good work. There are many of us listening!
Prof Wolff,
I am a regular reader of your blog. I rarely comment, but I do seriously reflect on the things you talk about here. I don't keep up with the news as well as you do, and I sometimes I find out about important recent events by reading your blog. It's hard to get the news from a newspaper when the "front page story" (on their website) changes multiple times per day. I would like to comment more often, but most of the time I would feel like I was participating in a seminar without doing the reading.
'I do not want to start deleting serious, intelligent comments..'
What a problem to complain about.
Like many people who are discouraged by daily news and the state of journalism, I seek out blogs like yours that summarize both the news and the reactions. They are short and simple to read without pop-up advertisements and interruptions.
I also like your practice of moving some important comments as part of your main blog. Thanks.
I also use public WiFi to post sometimes, hence the choice of posting as anon.
-- Best wishes,
YAAU
(yet another anon user)
I'm a fairly new reader of your blog. I find it stimulating and delightful, and I'd be very disappoionted if you stopped doing it.
Looking around in your archives recently, I came across your "Credo," and I thought it was brilliant and beautiful.
I've never read the commments. If, as you say, many of those who comment here are carrying on a conversation that has nothing to do with your blog, I don't see why it would be a problem to suggest that they, so to speak, get a room. They could start a Google group or something. (And if they didn't take you up on the suggestion, I don't see why it would be a problem to delete comments that strike you as off-topic. That's what moderators do.)
Brian
I regularly read the blog, but rarely post a comment as I generally don't have anything intelligent to contribute.
Professor Wolff,
I am a regular reader of your blog and enjoy your writings immensely, I use a service called Blogtrottr.com to receive emails of your posts every time you post, so I just see the text and not the comments. Unfortunately, I know myself better than to get involved in the comment section, as I would want to give a reply with full details and nuance and that would be my evening gone. As a 20-something, full-time employed, single and living in Oxford, there are so many other things going on here that I should be getting involved in!
Since you have called for comments, I would love to take this opportunity to let you know that it was with huge pleasure that I discovered your blog and your online lecture series about 18 months ago. I can't remember how I came across it now but I'll always remember how I first learned about you. I was 17 and studying A-Level "Government an Politics" and in one particularly dull afternoon class (we had to spend weeks learning about the exact process of British Parliamentary politics, and then how the EU works, and then how political parties work.......)
Anyway in this class, my teacher, who would never reveal his political leanings to us but always seemed like he might once have been a firebrand socialist but all the fire had gone out in him and now hew went through the motions seeing out his days in a secondary school in a neoliberal world, cynically laughing as we asked if he fancied going on strike so we could have an afternoon off. On this dull afternoon he could see I was really bored and not engaging with the learning at all so he gave me this slim book, in stark red and white, with the word Anarchism emblazoned across it and told me to shut up and read that. I finished In Defense of Anarchism that evening and it had a really profound impact on my thought. It was written in simple English and had a clear logical structure. Really an incredible clarity of logic that won me over immediately. I couldn't pick any holes in it, you hadn't made any generalisations or concealed leaps of faith to get to your conclusion that individual liberty and freedom has just as big a problem with democratic politics as any other form of rule, so I had to accept it, and I did.
I think In Defence... (and I still have that copy) influenced my political thought more than anything until I discovered Foucault at university. It gave me this concrete foundation that was something like "utopia is un-achievable, dogma just can't get you what you want, so my political thought has to be nuanced and pragmatic. My political aims have to be rooted in trying to make the world just a bit more just. Democratic politics is compromise and what's important for liberty is all the elements around elections that make up a pluralistic and open political system."
Although my other A-Level subjects were sciences and maths, I ended up going to university to study politics (you chose your course before matriculating in Britain) and after some years teaching English in China I'm now a lowish ranking civil servant.
I don't know if you've noticed but we've got something of a national project going on in Britain at the moment to "respect democracy" even if it means making us much much poorer, more divided, less influential etc etc.... The Brexit referendum and its result often makes me think of In Defense... and makes me wish more people understood the message that its simple logic is trying to deliver.
As you can see, this is why I don't let myself get started on a comment! I will end by saying that I absolutely love your lecture series and even as a politics graduate have learned so much about Marx, ideological critique and Freud from you (I wish there were more lectures on Freud!). I listened to your Marx lectures as I went door to door delivering leaflets for my local Labour party for a local council election earlier this year (and we won that seat!)
I too am a regular lurker who on rare occasion interjects a brief comment. Having read your "Defense of Anarchism" 40 yrs and greatly enjoyed it I sought you out through and google search and came upon your blog. That was 6 yrs ago and haven't regretted. You have a gift for clarity of thought and economy of word.
I think the nub of this post is a bit odd.
The blogger, in this case Prof. Wolff, is in charge of the comments section of his blog. It is functionally in this respect a dictatorship. If the blogger feels that certain persons are commenting too frequently or at too great length, he should ask them politely to cut back, and he can do that, if he wants, right in the comments section itself. If they persistently ignore the requests, he should feel free to start deleting comments.
Personally I don't mind too much a 55-comment thread that rambles around, and I sometimes -- not always -- find MS, SW, et al. quite interesting. (I was also rather flattered that MS took the time to read a post that I wrote elsewhere, and had linked to, on the PBS Vietnam documentary.) I don't read every single word of every single comment, for sure.
But for me the comments sections have generally been a fun and sometimes illuminating aspect of this blog, as they often are in other blogs as well. Whenever Wolff feels that I (or anyone else) have written something too off-topic or tangential or irrelevant or rambling or whatever, he should just tell me (or anyone else) that, right in the comments section.
Last note: I would sort of like to see Wolff engage in posts with some recent books on topics he is interested in and knowledgeable on -- say Marx (to just pick one at semi-random). I think I'd find that kind of post more interesting than the reflections on Trump and U.S. politics. Others' opinions on this may differ. But again, a solo blogger is an absolute dictator. He writes about whatever he wants, however he wants, whenever he wants, and he controls the comments section.
RPW -- a retired academic (intellectual history and history of science), I have long been a fan of yours, having read many of your books (and taught some), having attended a number of your public talks, and having followed your blog regularly for the past several years. Let me add my voice to the chorus of those who value and appreciate your willingness to continue these exchanges. The Enlightenment was always about two ideals -- moral courage and clear thinking (perhaps best epitomized in Kant's "sapere aude") -- ideals in seemingly short supply these days. Your blog provides one of the beacons for these ideals. As the sixties' vestigial expression has it, "keep on truckin'."
I'm a regular reader, and I've commented before, but rarely. I'm mostly interested in the philosophy and related posts, though I might have actually commented on the political posts in the past.
In recent months I've simply been skipping the comments entirely.
I didn't read any of the comments before responding to this post . . .
Dear Prof. Wolf,
I've never commented before, but I'm a regular reader of your blog. In fact, it is the only blog that I regularly read nowadays. I read it for a variety of reasons, but mostly I enjoy your perspective. It is erudite and learned, without a hint of superiority or snobbishness.
—One of your international readers
I relate to the blog and the comment section as though it were a classroom. The professor, any professor, is in charge. He or she has authority with regard to the blog itself, obviously, and the comment section. And as in a classroom, I think it behooves each of us, in the comment section, not to "dominate" or respond too much as it shuts other people down and tends to detract from the quality of a blog. If commentators really wish to chat, not an unworthy endeavor, I suppose interested parties could devise a way to put a Philosopher's Stone Chat Room online.
Therefore, I think the Professor is correct in making a general statement of concern regarding the comment section slipping into a chatroom. Nothing is more irritating to me when I am teach a painting class than to have one of my students strike up a conversation with another about a given restaurant in town. It is only fair to an instructor that comments be directed to what he or she is saying or doing, with allowances for spontaneity and moderate digression.
Finally, I like that I can associate a name with a perspective or set of personal experiences. A rule I would like to see effected properly would be to have the "Anonymi" use a pseudonym, even if that pseudonymization is an acronym or number or symbol or avatar or whatever as long as participants in this blog can individuate commentators. Maybe the Anonymi can choose numbers as Anonymi 3.
Perhaps I should not comment as I think I probably qualify as one of the talkative six, but I greatly value your blog as you are always interesting and often right. But I also enjoy reading the comments of the other regulars such as S Wallerstein and ‘MS’ (the last being notable both for his legal expertise and his political acumen). I actually thought that the previous thread was particularly informative as I asked a question (relating to your original post) and got a really educative series of responses. So keep up the good work and don’t worry too much if some of your regulars bang on at inordinate length. Think of it as a class-room containing a lot of mature students who (like many mature students ) are avid for learning but a bit opinionated and a bit too fond of the sound of their own voices. Tiresome as they can sometimes be they are lot more fun to lecture to than the silent young people who don’t express their opinions because they have no opinions to express.
I've been a reader for a long while, particularly for the philosophy and politics.
Of late, I have taken to ignoring the comments.
Graeme
Another long-time reader / rare commenter here. Where else can I get my daily mix of up-to-the-minute political worries, eternal philosophical worries, and the odd anecdote about mid-20th c. Harvard faculty?
Keep up the good work, and keep letting your personality shine through.
From singapore! :)
Hello Professor Wolff. I am a longtime lurker on the blog. I've learned a great deal from it over the past decade. I'm not necessarily recommending this course of action but you might take a look at atriosl.blogspot.com for one way of handling commenters of the sort you describe. On a more or less daily basis, he includes posts that function as open threads for those within his community of readers looking for an opportunity to communicate with one another rather than to respond to a blogpost.
I was looking for Richard Wolff and found you. I find your comments fascinating and will spend more time here. I am wondering your blog is of interest to the younger generation. Thanks.
Welcome to the blog
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