Is Blogging or Writing Pretentious?

The other day, I was going through my dashboard when I read a piece posted by the "Arctic Patriot." In the second paragraph, he makes a rather interesting statement. When writing publicly he offers, you put your thoughts out here and assume somebody wants to read about them. "It's really quite pretentious if you ask me."  http://arcticpatriot.blogspot.com/

That is something I have never thought about yet I understand. That written thought also illustrates the power of writing and why we do it. We are conveying thoughts and ideas. We are speaking as free men using the greatest medium ever invented.

Bloggers can write about things that would never get published in your local paper. Just yesterday, I wrote a piece about morally bankrupt lawyers. Many of them are still working. Where are you going to publish something like that? Where are we going to speak the truth about scared and fearful men who are willing to look the other way any time some elite, powerful, wealthy, or connected people get investigated or arrested? 

You can't. The truth about people is seen as malicious gossip among the fearful stewards of society. We can't talk freely about corrupt people because corrupt and fearful people don't like it.

To hell with them.

We can talk about our absolutely worthless President and our ineffective and corrupt Congressmen. We can swear and post nude pictures. The internet, right now, offers the last really free opportunity to speak without edit and without interference. In fact, this medium might actually save our country. I don't think I am over stating that.

Imagine some poor AP or UP writer drone writing articles that don't really interest him. He faces deadlines and has to submit his work to some managing editor- who not only carves up his work but decides what content is fit to print. All of the media outfits are owned by the elite and financed by banks. That is the evolution of things and the reason why they are now part of the problem. Media outlets are further handcuffed by regulatory bodies like the FCC. Then the writers are subjected to the political and business philosophy of their masters. What a horrible way to live and write. Personally, I wouldn't do it.

Rupert Murdoch be damned. Bloggers can write any fucking thing we want. That doesn't mean there are no consequences- I accept the consequences when I write.

In February of this year, one of my best friends was killed in an explosion. My friend was seen as an adversary by the mortician that took possession of his body and ran the funeral. I knew all of that history. When I arrived at the funeral, of all of the things available to say, this mortician/coroner chose to ask me "if I was still pontificating or blogging." Whether that statement was insensitive, poorly timed or poorly thought our, or simply malicious is hard to say. I cannot tell you how difficult it was to suppress my instinctual desires at that moment. There were 400-500 people present. I am going to give this guy the benefit of the doubt and just assume he is an idiot. There will be other days.

I spent a career telling the truth. Being honest and telling the truth were the corner stones of my existence until there came a day and time when I could no longer be honest or tell the truth. When that time comes, and I surely hope it does not come for any of you, it is time for you to quit what you are doing or leave.

Is blogging pretentious? Perhaps. However,  I don't think writing publicly is anymore pretentious than a painter selling paintings or a street musician trying to make a buck by playing. If you enjoy what you do- people will notice. Our ability to share thoughts and ideas, to rally people, to call out irresponsible and corrupt thinking, are just some of the reasons we write. It is the reason guys like Arctic Patriot write. We all agree we have serious problems in the U.S. We don't runaway and hide or pretend they don't exist. We address those problems. If the Arctic Patriot or I thought that blogging was so pretentious and really trumped our right to engage in free speech- we wouldn't write.

But we do.

Comments

Anonymous said…
You're right.

If it were that bad, it would speak pretty poorly of me that I continue to do so.

Thank you for paying enough attention to catch that and expand on it.

AP
Mozart said…
Nice blog and I agree with your premise.

I read AP's blog as well about being pretentiuos and I took a step back, there might be some truth there given ego and what not.

However your explanation/blog was good, really good.

Thanks

Mozart
Anonymous said…
I read your blog most every day. For whatever reason you write it, thanks for having the courage to share your thoughts, opinions and research.
Brian said…
Thanks AP, Mozart and anonymous. I really appreciate your kind words.

Brian
Mark said…
Well said.

I began blogging as a way to organize and record my thoughts. I still write quite a bit, but now my mandate is to share an alternate economic universe with my readers.
Anonymous said…
I strongly disagree with even entertaining the notion that blogging is pretentious. Sure, some people can be at times, but so what? What else is new?

I wonder if Thomas Paine ever worried that he might be perceived and pretentious? He was not an elected official or an established journalist.

I'm sure most people have their own intuition on most subjects, but we actually need to hear or read things to help make our ideas more concrete and focused.

Since most of us have other things to do, we rely on other voices out there to help us sort through the craziness.

I think most people (myself included) are fairly malleable politically and can be persuaded by peer pressure and the media. I personally had this happen to me to a large degree when I lived in San Francisco for a time (before blogging).

However, blogging and the like removes control of opinion from powerful people and institutions and even friends and family. This is true freedom of ideas.

Get the ideas out there and let the chips fall where they may.
Toaster 802 said…
from the header of my pretentious new pontificating blog, Non Sibi Sed Patriae...

"We shall be told: what can literature possibly do against the ruthless onslaught of open violence? But let us not forget that violence does not live alone and is not capable of living alone: it is necessarily interwoven with falsehood. Between them lies the most intimate, the deepest of natural bonds. Violence finds its only refuge in falsehood, falsehood its only support in violence. Any man who has once acclaimed violence as his METHOD must inexorably choose falsehood as his PRINCIPLE."

Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn Honorary Vermonter and first hand witness to the terror that is socialist tyranny.

Walking in and Speaking Truth

Psalm 15:1-2 O LORD, who shall sojourn in your tent? Who shall dwell on your holy hill? He who walks blamelessly and does what is right and speaks truth in his heart;

Zechariah 8:16 These are the things that you shall do: Speak the truth to one another; render in your gates judgments that are true and make for peace;

Ephesians 4:25 Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another.

1 John 1:8 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

1 John 3:18 Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.

Speaking truth to power. It beats swallowing the propaganda of the brain dead any day.

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