How can I get people to read my blog?

[bc1871]

By ‘Poly standards I would definitely be considered a foaming at the mouth conservative, and though I may sympathize with some of the bloggers points, I found the blog to be vapid and poorly written.

[Al B. Sure!]

So you don’t want people that disagree with you to post here? It’s always amusing and telling how much more illiberal liberals are than they claim to be.

This guy claims to be familiar with my postings over the years yet claims that I'm a liberal

Oh and I'm not Black, dude.

[DaShi]

Suicide seems to be a successful marketing ploy to get your ideas out there.

[MOBIUS]

You clearly didn’t read beyond the first paragraph. If you don’t have the attention span to sit down and read something for a few minutes than don’t bother commenting on it. If you want to accuse me of being ‘cookie-cutter,’ at least give me an example of something similar. I have yet to find a conservative blog that truly resembles mine, so it’s not a valid criticism. Also, just because someone disagrees with you it doesn’t make him ‘foaming at the mouth.’ But then again I guess anything outside of your narrow political spectrum must sound crazy to you Brits, being one of the most liberal (in the classical sense of the word) countries in the world. Though the BNP is making gains in the legislatures, so maybe you people are gaining some sense.



Did you read past the first two sentences of my post? I explained why I did it. I said that didn’t want to contribute to the flood of information but that I felt compelled to for once. I really don’t feel guilty about it though considering how much time I spend reading other peoples’ spew of filth put on the internet without the slightest bit of thought or even revision. I’ve read a lot on this board in particular over the past several years without ever posting, enough that I’m familiar with who you are and that I know how hypocritical your comment is. You post your thoughts on this board almost as much as anyone, so who are you to criticize me for too much writing and not enough reading? I know for a fact that I read more and write less than you. At least what I put on the internet is more unique than the views and banal observations of some run-of-the-mill Texan Republican.



If you think that I’m anti-capitalist, how would I be regurgitating the ‘same old mantra’ of right wing commentator talking points? Find me a mainstream, American right wing commentator that is ‘anti-capitalist.’ Big bad government is all they talk about, with bits and pieces on the War on Terror and being a supposed social conservative. As for my views though, I definitely DO NOT consider myself an anti-capitalist--you must not have read my essay closely enough. I strongly believe in free markets, I just don’t blindly worship them the way many do in contemporary politics. Just like most people did from the 1930s to the mid 1960s, I believe that a healthy state and prudent regulations are necessary for the long-term stability of the market and to appease the working class (vital to the stability of any society). Remember, Republicans in this era grew to accept the New Deal and agreed with the measures taken by the government during World War II that nowadays would be considered ’socialist’ by many Americans today. But unlike contemporary conservatives, I am an American and a Christian first, then a capitalist. I specifically state why I don’t deserve a label like ‘anti-capitalist’ or ‘socialist’ in section V in the third and fourth paragraphs. As is apparent in much of the essay, especially section V, I think socialism is our greatest enemy.

As for why I came, it wasn’t to advertise my blog. I didn’t expect anyone from here to read it, and from what it looks like, no one did, save for you and Bugs ****ing bunny skimming it. I came here because it’s one of the forums I read sometimes and I thought I might be able to get some tips on how to advertise it. I’m not a spammer, I’ve come here off and on to read occasionally over the past decade or so, though I‘ve hardly been here in the past 5 years. If you don’t believe me, well, your username used to be Albert Speer and you’re a black guy from Philly. For years you had a picture of Malcolm X as your avatar, and I believe at one point you had a Mos Def quote as your signature. As for being a DL, not true, I’ve never posted here and never really wanted to get involved in any of these discussions, I just read them on occasion for amusement and to see what these left-leaning liberal Europeans have to say about some current issues. Since I live in the states I don’t get exposed to that point of view. Check my IP address if you don’t believe me. And who here posts like me? I’d love to meet him, I’ve been looking for like-minded people on the internet but am having a hard time finding them.



Here’s a direct quote from my essay, section V paragraph seven: “This becomes apparent in Islamic countries such as Iran in their refusal to embrace liberalism. Because it does not form a part of their history and tradition, they can easily see its flaws from an outsider’s perspective, no matter what growth rate it brings. Many of these countries choose a government that keeps their people from morally disintegrating, one that reflects the values of the people, as opposed to a liberal government that attempts to remain above values and ideology. Though they are our enemies, we must commend them for their moral fervor and consistency in their politics.” First, it is the Muslims that decided they wanted to be our enemies, not the other way around. Had they decided to be our allies as brothers in the Abrahamic tradition and in the fight to keep religion alive in this world in the face of modernization, I would’ve welcomed them with open arms. However, that is unrealistic, and they come from an old, fallen empire that is enraged at our success and their failure. But they are certainly not our only enemies, China worries me more than any nation in the world: thanks to neoliberalism, unregulated capitalism, and people who see green before they see red, white, and blue, they own all of our debt and could destroy our currency if they needed to, and Russia is an empire on the rise. But I digress.

Again, I refer you to section V, paragraphs three and four. I am NOT a socialist, section V makes that very clear. Just because I am not totally indoctrinated in the neo-classical synthesis does not make me a leftist or socialist. Remember, the libertarians are a recent phenomenon…when Milton Friedman started writing in the 1960s even the Republicans thought he was crazy. Just out of curiosity, would you consider Franco’s Spain or Portugal’s Estado Novo to be “Christian socialist?”

As for the rest of your post, in the words of my favorite authors, Rudyard Kipling, “What is popular is not always right. What is right is not always popular.” Also, I would modify your definition of liberalism. If I had to sum it up in a phrase, in the most basic sense, in the most basic sense ‘a political-economic philosophy characterized by the individual being the unit of analysis.’ Individual rights, proceduralism, capitalism, and eventually, democratic practices come from such a system.



Except that I’m not anti-semitic. It is true that a lot of wealthy Jewish bankers played a role in this financial crisis just as the one in 1929, but they weren’t the only ones and it had more to do with systemic problems anyway, as I wrote in my essay. It would be unfair to single them out. In fact, I’m very supportive of Israel, they are one of our most important allies in the war on terror.



So you don’t want people that disagree with you to post here? It’s always amusing and telling how much more illiberal liberals are than they claim to be.



So whoever disagrees with you is a nutjob? The key word in your post is ‘skimmed,’ and I’m sure your skimming didn’t last more than 30 seconds. Don’t rabidly attack something you haven’t even taken the time to read a small portion of just because you think you‘ll disagree with it. It just makes you look intellectually incompetent, close-minded, and mean-spirited. If you want to read my essay and make actual criticisms to specific arguments, please do so, I’d love to discuss it with you. Otherwise, don’t insult me and call me crazy without even referring to anything in my essay. At a lot of sites you’d get banned for your remarks. You must have a pretty depressing life if you have to be a condescending pr*ck to random people on the internet.



Heraclitus, thank you very much. You’re the only person that seriously responded to my question in the original post, and for that I‘d be honored if you read my essay. I’ll try linking my blog to other blogs, but the problem is I’m having a hard time finding people with similar views. For me, paleocons don’t believe enough in the military and foreign policy. Neocons believe too strongly in liberalism and small government for my tastes (but I guess I’d be open to suggestions, do you know of any good neocon blogs?). Libertarians are my worst enemy, and it looks like there’s too much of that on the Steveosphere. Does anyone have any suggestions on how I can find like-minded allies?



As for the rest of you, no one has any suggestions on getting the word out about my blog other than putting pornography on it? What a sorry state of affairs we are in thanks to liberalism. The faith people have in it amazes me sometimes. How more aren’t horrified is beyond my understanding, and the ones that try and raise the alarm bells are considered raving lunatics.

Yep, if this is only your second post, you're going to fit in well here...

[Heraclitus]

Heraclitus, thank you very much. You’re the only person that seriously responded to my question in the original post, and for that I‘d be honored if you read my essay. I’ll try linking my blog to other blogs, but the problem is I’m having a hard time finding people with similar views. For me, paleocons don’t believe enough in the military and foreign policy. Neocons believe too strongly in liberalism and small government for my tastes (but I guess I’d be open to suggestions, do you know of any good neocon blogs?). Libertarians are my worst enemy, and it looks like there’s too much of that on the Steveosphere. Does anyone have any suggestions on how I can find like-minded allies?

You sound very much like a Hawkish variant of a Bunchanatie. Or perhaps someone who would admire Bismarck?

I never drunk the libertarian cool aid, though the Minarchists do have a very important point. Sometimes it is better to live with a suboptimal situation that to have the goverment try fix it. Also markets are the best thing we have for many things, the loss of information and perverse incentives in planned or semiplanned economices are problems that may be unfixable. I am off put by agressive foreign policy because of how easily it is hijacked by domestic and foreign Empire builders (buisness and otherwise). The Neocons at time to me seem just hawkish pro-Israeli ex-hippies that like to use guns and bombs to "enlighten" brown people and spread the Liberal revolution elsewhere. They hold nothing for me. So I suppose that we have some ideological common ground.

Another site you may be aware of is Alternative Right Kurtagic, Godfried, the Chatolic apologist (I can't recall his name right now) are often pure gold there. The site seems to have lost some of its quality recently, but I'm still hoping for a resurgence considering they still have top notch contributors and are a young site.


As to writing. I suggest you use lots of graphs and pictures. Try also to break down your posts to small coherent entries. Walls of text don't really work anymore in todays climate. However if you like long prose, why not write up a book or booklet and put it under CC and available for free?


Also on the odd chance that you aren't a sock puppet, welcome to poly. Heed my warning: Only the strong and pigheaded surivive here.

[curtis290]

Based on the fact that you think America is on the decline and that only the ideas contained in your one-post blog can save it from Jew bankers and sex, I surmise that you are an old douchebag who wants to take the world down with you before your no-dick body gives out and even the nurses won't listen to you. WELL I WON'T LISTEN. THE ONLY PEOPLE WHO THINK CAPITALISM HAS FAILED AND WALMART IS EVIL AND THE SKY IS FAWLING ARE THE PEOPLE WHO CAN'T GET ANY! YOU CAN'T GET ANY! FEMINIST! It seriously sounds like you owned one of those authorized Mac retail stores that you thought you could retire on before those Jews at Apple came along and forced you off the map five years ago. THEY HAVE A BETTER PRODUCT! YOU HAVE AN INFERIOR PRODUCT! THEIR STORES ARE GOOD LOOKING

By the way if the media is so evil how do you want help spreading the word about your blog? DO YOU THE MEDIA NOT REALIZE WE ARE THE MEDIA?

I’m assuming you’re not being serious, so I’ll keep my answers very brief. First, the word ‘Jew’ does not appear in my essay. Second, I just graduated from college and am 23, I’m not elderly; however, talking with older people about politics has been formative to my political beliefs. Third, if you think the global economy is doing just fine and that markets have shown us that they always know best over the past few decades, than you haven’t been paying attention. Fourth, the media is an industry that is dominated by vast corporate conglomerates connected with international banking interests. Most of the world’s major newspapers and television stations are controlled by a small group of these highly concentrated conglomerates. Since the primary function of a corporation is to make a profit, the mass media resorts to whatever sells, often relying on shock value. It has no ideology or value system and it is a culture characterized by moral relativism and liberalism. This is what most Americans are brainwashed with on a daily basis, and it has greatly contributed to our cultural decline.

The internet, however, has provided a free outlet with which to distribute information, and it is the one way someone like me can be heard. However, television is still the most powerful and relevant form of entertainment and has the greatest influence on how we perceive the world and understand our own lives (I’m not referring to just the news, I mean television in general). The fact that someone has a blog commentating on the cultural decline does not change the fact that even though most of our population is religious there is hardly any religious programming on the air. The liberal culture of mass media means that television tries to be ‘above’ religion, or at least has it far in the background. And remember, it is nearly impossible to get anyone to find out about my blog, that’s why I made this post in the first place.

This sentence is 24 karat comedy gold.

I’m not sure what you mean by this. Al B. Sure called me anti-capitalist, and I have a few paragraphs in my blog that explicitly state why I shouldn’t be called an anti-capitalist, so I referred him to those two paragraphs and told him exactly where he could find it. I don’t see what’s so unusual or funny here.

This is also an example of entertaining-crazy. Take notes. Also, if you expect people to do more than skim something written in such a tedious style, you're a delusional egotist. The internet's chock-full of people with assorted grumpy/alarmist opinions, and many of them, like you, choose the "lobotomized Nietzsche lost his thesaurus" writing style.

How am I a ‘delusional egotist’ for thinking that some people might want to actually sit down and read an essay? It shouldn’t take anyone more than 20 minutes to read the whole thing thoroughly, and no more than 5 to skim it. That’s what people used to do: they read. But thanks to the information age, no one has the attention span to read a coherent essay. No one can seriously explain their viewpoints in a three paragraph blog post, that is, unless they are very simple-minded and don’t have much to say. Since you’re probably used to making 2-3 sentence comments on various threads on an internet forum and reading other peoples’ one paragraph comments, you’re probably not used to reading an essay. But I hope that some people are, and I’m trying to find them. If I had handed this out in a pamphlet before the internet was mainstream, I’m sure many more would have been able to read it. It was only a decade or two ago when people had the attention span to actually read things.

As for the lobotomized Nietzsche comment, could you specifically point out where my language was needlessly complex and pedantic? Or offer any sort of serious criticism other than “he uses too many big words”? I’m open to any suggestions, but all you’ve done is thrown empty insults at me that make it sound like you can’t understand what I have to say and that you’re insecure about that. Try to stop being so bitter, it might make your day better.

I like this guy. He's crazy in a new kind of way I find entertaining. Specially the anti-porn stance. What a riot!

As long as you took some time to read what I had to say. I don’t expect many to agree with me, but if I can at least let a few people know that some of us are angry with what is happening to America, I can feel at least a little bit validated. As for porn, the internet is ridiculously saturated with it. I remember reading that one in three websites are porn sites. Never before could anyone access pornography with such ease, and the result is we have thousands of Americans who are addicted to it. And there’s nothing we can do about this in a liberal society that worships the freedom of information to an extreme.

By ‘Poly standards I would definitely be considered a foaming at the mouth conservative, and though I may sympathize with some of the bloggers points, I found the blog to be vapid and poorly written.

Thank you for your criticisms. But could you be a little more specific? I’m struggling with the writing style, I’m so used to writing academic papers that it’s hard for me to do anything else. Whenever I try to ‘dumb it down’ I just feel like I’m making it even more poorly written and even longer than it already is. If you have any specific criticisms I’d be most grateful.

This guy claims to be familiar with my postings over the years yet claims that I'm a liberal

Oh and I'm not Black, dude.

My apologies. I thought you were Albert Speer for some reason. I saw Al B. Sure, Philadelphia, and a long ago join date and I jumped to conclusions. As for whether or not you’re liberal, I bet you are. Stop thinking of how the term ‘liberal’ is used in American political discourse. It doesn’t make any sense. I’m referring to liberal in the classical sense; in other words, what the word actually means and how people in the rest of the world use it. Just about everyone on Apolyton is a liberal other than the occasional Marxist. I defined liberalism earlier in the thread as “in the most basic sense ‘a political-economic philosophy characterized by the individual being the unit of analysis.’ Individual rights, proceduralism, capitalism, and eventually, democratic practices come from such a system.” So yeah, I bet you’re a liberal. If you’re not though that really makes things interesting and we’ll have to talk more about it.

Yep, if this is only your second post, you're going to fit in well here...

Thank you. I have a feeling though from this reception that I won’t be. But ideas won’t spread without persistence.

You sound very much like a Hawkish variant of a Bunchanatie. Or perhaps someone who would admire Bismarck?

As for Buchanan, he’s kind of an idiot, but I sympathize with his views, and he’s one of the few American politicians to strongly criticize neoliberalism. I guess you could call me ‘hawkish’ because I do believe in an aggressive foreign policy. And Bismarck is definitely one of my all time favorite leaders. Most thinkers don’t like to reveal where their inspiration comes from and who their influences are, perhaps because they want their ideas to seem original, but I don’t really mind.

My all-time favorite American political thinker is the late Samuel Huntington. Political Order and Changing Societies was profoundly influential to me. He was an old school, European-style classical conservative. He’s the one American conservative who was much more concerned with culture and order than the market, probably because he predates the Friedmanite revolution. He’s the one who was willing to admit that capitalism and economic development, when they occur very quickly, inherently lead to disorder and chaos. He believed that the degree of government was essential to political stability and order, and he didn’t buy into the absurd notion that getting rid of government and letting the market work its magic was the best route to take for developing economies. While everyone was frantically declaring the end of history and that markets and liberalism had achieved supremacy, he came out with Clash of Civilizations, reminding people of the inherent incompatibility of different cultures with one another and with liberalism. And while neoliberalism was in its heyday, he came out with Who Are We?, a defense of the concepts of the nation-state and of the importance of culture.

My other favorite is Harvey Mansfield. His devotion to the classics is a beacon of hope within the multiculturalist academic establishment, and he’s the rare kind of old-school conservative that rejects the empirical trends of the social sciences and academia’s faith in rationality and progress, calling for more attention to ancient political philosophy. I strongly agree with him that thumos is very lacking in contemporary politics, and it’s an idea that has strongly influenced my beliefs in regards to foreign policy. I don’t mention it in my essay because I don’t want to copy his ideas and because I cannot articulate it nearly as well as he can.

I never drunk the libertarian cool aid, though the Minarchists do have a very important point. Sometimes it is better to live with a suboptimal situation that to have the goverment try fix it. Also markets are the best thing we have for many things, the loss of information and perverse incentives in planned or semiplanned economices are problems that may be unfixable. I am off put by agressive foreign policy because of how easily it is hijacked by domestic and foreign Empire builders (buisness and otherwise). The Neocons at time to me seem just hawkish pro-Israeli ex-hippies that like to use guns and bombs to "enlighten" brown people and spread the Liberal revolution elsewhere. They hold nothing for me. So I suppose that we have some ideological common ground.

As for markets, I won’t disagree with you. I firmly believe in them. However, I don’t buy into the dogma that less government (both in terms of size and regulation) is always better, nor that markets always know best. This has been the ideology around the globe of the past 30 years, and it’s why we’re in the midst of a global depression. I believe in a strong state that provides jobs and regulates the economy to keep it stable. The part of the economy that needs regulation the most is the financial sector. It must remain small and it must serve main street before itself. And this doesn’t lead to slow growth rates. America from 1945-1965 saw amazing growth rates with a very small and tightly regulated financial sector. And India and China, the fastest growing economies of the past few decades, have small, tightly regulated financial sectors. Their objective is to provide capital to the real economies of these countries, NOT unsafe leveraging and speculatory behavior to gain large, short-term profits.

But most importantly, I think that economic efficiency is not nearly as important as our culture or our foreign policy. I believe that the economy can and should be sacrificed for the good of these things, as long as it doesn’t squeeze the working class too hard (something that government policy alone can ensure). In the words of my 95-year-old grandfather, “our culture has gone to hell” and I agree with him wholeheartedly. And I believe that this is a direct result of liberalism and capitalism, and that the state has to do something about it. I think it’s our last option. I may be a radical idealist, but I have to believe that something can be done. If I didn’t than I’d be downright depressed.

As for foreign policy, I definitely sympathize with your views on the Neo-cons. Many of them were previously New Deal liberals or even Marxists who I believe sold out for money, power, and fame (the latter comes from their ideological uniqueness). They have too much faith in liberalism and they believe the purpose of foreign policy is to spread liberalism. I don’t share their faith in liberalism and its appeal to people of other cultures (they seem to think it’s an inherent part of the human condition to believe in liberalism). I do appreciate their desire for greatness and military grandeur, and you and I differ in our views to empire-building. I think it is one of the primary purposes of the nation-state.

Another site you may be aware of is Alternative Right Kurtagic, Godfried, the Chatolic apologist (I can't recall his name right now) are often pure gold there. The site seems to have lost some of its quality recently, but I'm still hoping for a resurgence considering they still have top notch contributors and are a young site.

As to writing. I suggest you use lots of graphs and pictures. Try also to break down your posts to small coherent entries. Walls of text don't really work anymore in todays climate. However if you like long prose, why not write up a book or booklet and put it under CC and available for free?

Thank you for those suggestions. I looked at Alternative Right yesterday and read a great piece on Carl Schmitt, one of my all-time-favorite political thinkers. When I have more time I’ll be sure and look at the others. As for my writing, I thought about adding graphs, but it would require even more text and economic analysis in my already lengthy essay that focuses a lot on economics for my taste. You are right that it would be better to have smaller entries and that no one wants to read a long essay. This was my plan from the beginning. Most of my posts will be very short and cover very specific topics. However, I just had to write one essay that explained my political beliefs, one long essay that could summarize my views on the state of things today. That’s where that essay came from, I need it for myself. I need one long essay that can summarize my views on everything. And I’m surprised that more people don’t do that, no one wants to sit down and write their own testament. It’s very refreshing to me to have on essay where I can point people to and say “here’s what I believe.” It took a long time, and it’s a little disappointing that no one will take 15 minutes to read something that I spent weeks on. Oh well. Also, what is ‘CC’? I’d love to publish it as a pamphlet for free. Anything I can do to get my ideas out there.

Also on the odd chance that you aren't a sock puppet, welcome to poly. Heed my warning: Only the strong and pigheaded surivive here.

Sock puppet? I sure spent a long time on this stuff to be pretending. I find it amusing that when one is radical here people assume he’s pretending, especially in light of the amount of Marxists here (at least they were here in the past). I guess that this is such a liberal forum that an anti-liberal critic must seem too extreme to be “for real.” Thank you for the welcome, and from what it looks like, I will have to be exceedingly pigheaded in such a liberal environment. I won’t be posting here too often though as I’m going to be very busy, I’m starting my first day as an AP government teacher tomorrow.

Also, who wrote the quote in your signature?

[Elok]

On reflection, while I'm pretty sure I disagree with you on basically everything, I have been a bit of an ******* and owe you an apology. I'm sorry. Wiglaf is something of a "gag" poster and generally should not be taken seriously.

How am I a ‘delusional egotist’ for thinking that some people might want to actually sit down and read an essay? It shouldn’t take anyone more than 20 minutes to read the whole thing thoroughly, and no more than 5 to skim it. That’s what people used to do: they read. But thanks to the information age, no one has the attention span to read a coherent essay. No one can seriously explain their viewpoints in a three paragraph blog post, that is, unless they are very simple-minded and don’t have much to say. Since you’re probably used to making 2-3 sentence comments on various threads on an internet forum and reading other peoples’ one paragraph comments, you’re probably not used to reading an essay. But I hope that some people are, and I’m trying to find them. If I had handed this out in a pamphlet before the internet was mainstream, I’m sure many more would have been able to read it. It was only a decade or two ago when people had the attention span to actually read things.

Well, that's the thing: there are thousands of people out there with strong opinions. Actually, "thousands" is a gross understatement. This is the age of the pundit. We get hit by opinions left, right and center wherever we go. In such a climate, you're going to have to work to stand out and make people want to read you, because the competition is intense. And while it takes time to elaborate ideas, you can certainly express things more succinctly than you have. Start with a condensed summary of your opinions and use later posts to develop specific topics, e.g. the military, "culture wars," Christianity and capitalism, etc. What you've got there is a sprawling manifesto. By breaking it down into blocks, you'll allow readers with less time to digest it in pieces and respond to specific ideas.

As for the lobotomized Nietzsche comment, could you specifically point out where my language was needlessly complex and pedantic? Or offer any sort of serious criticism other than “he uses too many big words”? I’m open to any suggestions, but all you’ve done is thrown empty insults at me that make it sound like you can’t understand what I have to say and that you’re insecure about that. Try to stop being so bitter, it might make your day better.

You throw out a lot of sweeping assertions and generalizations without support, as though you view them as self-evident: "The pursuit of happiness for oneself, which means the accumulation of wealth, has become the prevalent ethos in this country." "The white collar background is characterized by the greater presence of the market and economic transactions in their daily lives, and they are much more likely to revert to hedonism, atheism, and perversion." If you're aiming to be an intellectual heavyweight, or even respected, you're going to have to support those kinds of statements. Surveys, statistics, what-have-you. As it is, you have the long wind of an Economist special report (which will turn off casual readers) without the facts and figures somebody more serious would demand.

If you're gunning for more readership, I'd suggest this isn't the best place to start (and I'm not just saying that because I'm a moderate who hates theocracy). The Poly OT is 90% glib wiseasses, which is why my first response was a wiseass remark. Try making the rounds of right-wing boards and blogs, post some comments there and have your blog linked in your signature.

[curtis290]

On reflection, while I'm pretty sure I disagree with you on basically everything, I have been a bit of an ******* and owe you an apology. I'm sorry. Wiglaf is something of a "gag" poster and generally should not be taken seriously.

Hey, don't worry about it. I think the people who are most opposed to me ideologically are the moderates. If you are an ordinary liberal (not the way FOX News says liberal, I mean in the classical sense of the word) who believes strongly in individualism, secularism, and the free market, than I must seem absolutely bats**t crazy to you. Anyways, I was equally condescending and owe you an apology as well. It's very rare that you'll find people who apologize on the internet, since social skills aren't required in such a "place," so my hat's off to you. It's so hard to not be overly confrontational and an ******* on the internet because nothing is face to face. Though the atomization of the individual has always been getting worse and worse at a faster rate, the recent advancements in communication and information technology has caused this process to increase exponentially. Communication isn't face-to-face anymore, we're always chatting on facebook or texting each other. I think human connection is becoming harder and harder in this lifestyle. But since liberals have a blind faith in progress and technology, without ever examining the human impacts these have on societies, it's not something they want to discuss. In my opinion this is one of the most important roles for the church in modern society. It's an institution that doesn't worship technological advancement the way liberals do. They actually question its uses and are concerned with how these technologies impact humans no matter the 'comfort' and 'convenience' they bring.

Well, that's the thing: there are thousands of people out there with strong opinions. Actually, "thousands" is a gross understatement. This is the age of the pundit. We get hit by opinions left, right and center wherever we go. In such a climate, you're going to have to work to stand out and make people want to read you, because the competition is intense. And while it takes time to elaborate ideas, you can certainly express things more succinctly than you have. Start with a condensed summary of your opinions and use later posts to develop specific topics, e.g. the military, "culture wars," Christianity and capitalism, etc. What you've got there is a sprawling manifesto. By breaking it down into blocks, you'll allow readers with less time to digest it in pieces and respond to specific ideas.

You're completely right. It's another problem of the information age: there is so much of it out there that it is impossible to be heard, and we're bombarded with so much information that we have a hard time focusing on one thing. I realize that it's going to be hard to get people to read my essay. I plan on writing several mini-essays on more specific topics that people will read. I just wanted to have that one essay because I wanted to have a manifesto that summarized my beliefs. I'll do what I can but I have very little time. This new teaching job is very, very time-consuming.

You throw out a lot of sweeping assertions and generalizations without support, as though you view them as self-evident: "The pursuit of happiness for oneself, which means the accumulation of wealth, has become the prevalent ethos in this country." "The white collar background is characterized by the greater presence of the market and economic transactions in their daily lives, and they are much more likely to revert to hedonism, atheism, and perversion." If you're aiming to be an intellectual heavyweight, or even respected, you're going to have to support those kinds of statements. Surveys, statistics, what-have-you. As it is, you have the long wind of an Economist special report (which will turn off casual readers) without the facts and figures somebody more serious would demand.

This is very true. I didn't bring in data because that would require a lot more analysis, which would turn the essay into a short book. Maybe I will do that someday, but not yet. Moreover, this is a theoretical, not an empirical essay. As for the sentences you mentioned, yes, those are possibly the weakest in that they could use some more support, especially the second one.

I will say though that I believe that the pursuit of happiness for the individual is the ethos in this country. It says so in the declaration of independence, and since we are the most liberal country in the world, I believe this is our ideology. We are a nation of immigrants from Europe who came here searching for better lives, and our history is marked by pioneers who headed westward searching for a better life. Of course in these days, for the most part, people cared very much about their families. But that's no longer than case as the forces of capitalism and liberalism have atomized the individual to a greater point than ever before. Divorce used to be taboo and now it is the norm. People used to always live with their families, now, for the most part, they move away from their parents for job-related reasons. The liberal idea is to be the author of your own life, and nowadays that is essentially your career. That influences where you live, what kind of house you live in, who you marry, who your friends are, where your kids go to school, and what you do with most of your time.

As for 'professionalism,' it has been steadily becoming more and more our religion, but has really taken off in the last decade. Now we have people that pay thousands of dollars to send their kids to elite pre-schools so they can get a head start on going to an elite college. There are high schools now that cost over 40,000 a year in tuition. Back in my parents' generation and especially in my grandparents' generation, they weren't very career-oriented. Mostly they didn't go to college, and they usually went into the same profession as their parents. There was nothing wrong with working in a factory or on a farm, it was considered good, honest, hard-work. Now that kind of work is considered a 'failure' and that we should always be striving for something more elite. Having been to both poor public schools and wealthy private schools, I can say that the ethos in the wealthier schools is one of the pursuit of wealth/a career. The kids have an enormous amount of pressure on them to 'succeed,' and those who cannot find a prestigious career out of the almost infinite amount of professions in our complex economy, he (or she, nowadays, the girls are forced into careers) is considered a complete failure. They work 80 hour work weeks full of classes, clubs, and extra-curriculars in pursuit of college and eventually, the perfect career.

As for the remark about the market becoming more and more a part of our daily lives, yes, I should have backed that up. However, I think all that's necessary to support that is the recognition that consumption has greatly increased over the past few decades, especially since the mind 90s, and so has debt. So this to me indisputably shows that the market has a greater presence in our lives. But I think this is an inevitable part of capitalism. The more an economy develops, the more it enters the daily lives of its people. Let's compare different eras. If you lived in 1840, you were probably a farmer. Sure, you'd grow your crops and sell them at a local market, but the market didn't have the same presence in their lives. First, the market you sold your crops at was very local, you didn't have to compete with crops from the rest of the country, and certainly not from other countries. Markets back then were much more regulated (not in terms of the number of regulations but more in terms of the effect). Protectionism was the norm, "free trade" was only advocated by the few who benefited from it and wanted cheaper manufactured goods and access to better processing industries, usually the south. Anyways, you probably built your own house, you didn't contract it to some building company. You made a lot of your own things and you fixed them when they didn't work. You were truly self-reliant in the sense that Republicans pretend to value.

Fast forward to 1950. You probably don't live on a farm, but some did. You don't grow your own food, you buy it at the store, which gets it from large wholesale businesses, who buy it from farms. You have lots of things--your own house, which you bought (it was built by a construction company), a car (you bought it, it was made by a auto-company, which buys raw materials and parts from other companies and assembles them into a product), a refrigerator (again, manufactured). If any of these things didn't work, you could probably fix them, but you might have to hire someone else to do it. You probably have some sort of "career," meaning when you graduated from high school you had a whole bunch of professions to pick from, and you had to choose one. Still, family tradition played a role in this.

Fast forward to the 2000s. You have a career that has a huge impact on your life (as I said before, this influences a lot of things, where you live, what kind of house you live in, who you marry, who your friends are, where your kids go to school, what you do with most of your time, etc.). You have a lot more things. You have a house that you probably can't afford, but thanks to lax regulations and a credit glut, the bank gave you a variable interest rate mortgage. You've taken out loans for other things as well, maybe your car and to send your kids to school. You're completely in debt up to your eyeballs, so you have to work hard to pay it off. It's definitely an important part of your life, one that affects how you live it and your decisions. You have tons of consumer goods, many more than the 'consumer age' of the 50s and 60s. You have a big car that you have to pay an absurd amount of money to fill up with gas. You have a few televisions and you watch a lot of TV. Much of what you watch are advertisements, so you're brainwashed into the consumerist culture all of the time. The TV is your main source of cultural imput and greatly influences how you interpret the world. And almost ever station, other than the occasional public channel that no one watches, is run by one of the vast media conglomerates, who obviously only have profit in mind.

You also have a computer and the internet, which is full of advertisements as well as being a very strange place where you spend much of your time. You prefer chat rooms and forums to spending face-to-face time with people in the flesh. [look at this forum, I feel bad for the people who spend hours here instead of hanging out with people in the real world] You have cell phones and text people frequently. You probably don't live near your parents and you probably don't get along too well with them either. Instead of taking care of them, you contract that out too, sending them to a nursing home. Your wife also has a job, so you contract out the housework to a cleaning lady, probably an illegal immigrant. You probably have a nannie too, or at least a babysitter, or you use daycare, so you contract out the childcare. And there are extremely high expectations for your kids, they need to find careers that make them a lot of money, and this will be their primary aim in life. They will spend much more time on this than anything else, and even if they do belong to a church, their real religions is professionalism. So you have to spend lots of money and send them to an elite private school. And no way they're getting married soon, it's not the olden days, you do that once you're established yourself professionally. So they'll have lots of relationships and premarital sex before they settle on their 'soulmate,' whom they will divorce, scarring their children.

See what I mean here? Now if you think these trends are fine, I understand, you're a liberal who believes that this is progress. But I don't think that you can deny that they are occuring. We live in a liberal, market society, and the more our economy develops, the more it becomes a part of our lives, the more it dictates them. One of the few authors to discuss this is Karl Polanyi, who I quoted at the beginning of the essay. Although he's a socialist, I strongly believe in what he has to say about society becoming more and more and appendage of the market. And he wrote that book (The Great Transformation) in 1944! That was before these processes really started accelerating, before the TV, the growth of the consumer society, and the information age.

If you're gunning for more readership, I'd suggest this isn't the best place to start (and I'm not just saying that because I'm a moderate who hates theocracy). The Poly OT is 90% glib wiseasses, which is why my first response was a wiseass remark. Try making the rounds of right-wing boards and blogs, post some comments there and have your blog linked in your signature.

I wasn't really looking for readership since I know no one here would want to read what I have to say, mostly I was looking for tips on how to advertise my blog. Although it makes sense for me to argue with liberals, since they are my ideological opposites. And if I could change the perspective of just one, I'd feel validated. And I agree with you about Poly OT, but I just don't get it. I use internet forums to discuss ideas with people. You can put everything in print and you have access to a huge community of people with which you can discuss these ideas in a much more intellectual setting than everyday conversation. Where else can I have an argument with a conservative, a liberal, a Marxist, a Christian, a Muslim, an American, a Candadian, a European, all in the same place, discussing the same topic? Where there are plenty of smart people who are willing to sit down and read something? It's a golden opportunity for intellectual discussion, but no one seems interested. Most people just want to socialize here, which I guess is fine, but I mean, wouldn't you rather do that in person? I'd use a forum for intellectual purposes because of the unique opportunies it brings. There are a few threads that attempt to do so, but most responses are no more than a few sentences, and the level of debate and discussion is low. Usually everyone just resorts to name-calling and condescension, and I don't think people really learn or challenge their own viewpoints. I don't see what's the use in writing 20 meaningless posts a day, why not just write one good one, where you take the time to develop a thought? I guess this desire is archaic in the information age, where everyone is ADD. And I bet no one read this post in its entirety. Even though I spent over an hour on it, no one will take five to ten minutes to read it.

I'll see what I can do about going to right-wing blogs. They're saturated with libertarians, my biggest enemies, but hopefully there will be more of an opportunity for discussion there. I don't really get along with most American conservatives, they're all really liberals at heart (just a little less so than the standard American liberal Democrat) and they worship the free market more than their own religions, to which they claim to be devout followers. Anyways, any suggestions on how to find good right-wing blogs? Other than typing in 'right-wing' blogs on google?

[C0ckney]

i too feel strongly that history is best viewed through rose tinted glasses.

[Elok]

Okay, I actually did read all of that post, though it hurts my eyes a little. You might try smaller paragraphs--not less said overall, just break it into smaller bits to be easier on the eyes.

I think you're over-generalizing in many cases, and in some spots I don't even get what you mean; for example, I didn't marry my wife out of career considerations. My big problem at the present is that I don't have a career, or prospects for a career. I suppose you're saying that's the problem, but really a lot of it seems the inevitable consequence of technological progress and increasing education. The world was a lot less complex "back in the day," but that's because back in the day they didn't have computers, airplanes, decent medicine, telecommunications, in many cases indoor plumbing...you can't turn back the clock now, so it seems pointless to complain about it.

There are actually plenty of people, liberal and conservative, complaining about the impact of "social media" on social behavior. I'm the wrong person to talk to about that, since as an Aspie I rarely socialize in the first place, but I think a lot of the concern is overblown. It's a weird and, to me, baffling way of living to constantly check Facebook status or send text messages, but I haven't read anything indicating that people, young or old, have lost actual social skills as a result. If people feel lonely and electronics aren't doing anything for them, they'll have a face-to-face talk with somebody. If they don't have somebody, they'll find somebody. It might not be a perfect existence, but if rural American life was all that great William Jennings Bryan would never have had a career.

I believe this place is so snarky primarily because we're a fairly closed, static community. We get maybe one or two new, active members per year. The rest have been around for a while, we've gone over a lot of the major topics of discussion, and we all pretty much know what everybody thinks. For example, if I criticize the wealthy, DinoDoc will jump down my throat, while mentioning gay marriage will cause BK to appear and tell everyone that gay sex causes cancer of the booty and anyway gay people don't know how to be monogamous. Actually, when BK's active he invariably shuts down any attempt at serious discussion by jacking threads onto his pet issues. That's another reason.

[DaShi]

It's all about presentation, not substance. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/03/ma...1&ref=magazine

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Except that I’m not anti-semitic. It is true that a lot of wealthy Jewish bankers played a role in this financial crisis just as the one in 1929, but they weren’t the only ones and it had more to do with systemic problems anyway, as I wrote in my essay. It would be unfair to single them out. In fact, I’m very supportive of Israel, they are one of our most important allies in the war on terror.

You quoted my "This is just a jew-baiting away from...." and yet completely failed to grasp the significance.

[Cort Haus]

I read your post, Curtis. All of it.

As C0ckney said, the past isn't quite as wonderful as you paint it. Even Karl Marx recognised that Capitalism was ultimately progressive. That isn't progressive as in people having too much sex - that's progressive in that people live better, healthier, and less painful lives - which they do. Not all people of course. In my city, the 1840's were brutal and horrific for most ordinary folk, which is why Marx, who witnessed it all, thought that something better must follow the capitalism that he saw. What happened is that the pain of early industrialism did eventually create better living conditions.

I'm not saying that there aren't specific problems with the way things are now, but those ancestors of ours would probably swap their lives for ours in an instant, given the opportunity.

[Thoth]

i too feel strongly that history is best viewed through rose tinted glasses.

It looks even better if you're thoroughly drunk. If you look at it when sober, you begin to realize what a sordid mess it all was.


Unfortunately, reading the news tends to work the same way.

[DriXnaK]

I don't think I've ever seen someone write that much before in their posts. I read one sentence and decided I was bored of it already.