A reader who is considering blogging asks me to blog about blogging. Since I’ve been at it for a few years, what have learned?
Maybe not much. Presently the site is pulling five to six thousand hits a month. That may sound like a lot, but in the blogosphere, it isn’t really.
Still, I’ve learned a few things. Consider one of my early posts, in which I did nothing but quote a pair of stickers seen on the same bumper of the same van in Austin, Texas:
#1: Stop the Dissections: Have Respect for Life.
#2: Pro-Choice and Proud of It.
Today I would write that post differently. It was short, and that’s good; sometimes less is more. But too much less is still less. All the post did was call attention to the incoherency of urging mercy toward little lab animals yet mercilessness toward human babies. Lots of readers have noticed such things. I wasn’t telling them anything new.
Besides, the post was a one-off, with no chance for development. How much more interesting it would have been to comment on why such contrary sentiments might have been combined.
The reason is that so long as anyone remains obstinate in his support of abortion, he needs a way to drown the voice of his conscience and assure himself that he is really a good person. Probably the driver of the car supported kindness to animals not despite his support for slaying little children, but because of it.
Had I written the post today, I would have made the point about conscience explicitly. That would have provided a better opening for subsequent posts to dig deeper.
But I won’t do that digging this week! Tomorrow, more about blogging.