More Virtue Thinking
In December, the great tumblelog meta-debate centered on the lack of original commentary. Now*, it centers on the presence of original commentary. Back in December, I called the whole thing “virtue thinking”. This was a reference to the Apology, by Plato, in which Socrates says:
‘Callias,’ I said, ‘if your two sons were foals or calves there would be no difficulty in finding some one to put over them; we should hire a trainer of horses, or a farmer probably, who would improve and perfect them in their own proper virtue and excellence; but as they are human beings, whom are you thinking of placing over them? Is there any one who understands human and political virtue? You must have thought about the matter, for you have sons; is there any one?’
Socrates says that he has no knowledge of the virtue of man. But there is a reason Socrates had no such knowledge: because his premise was flawed. There is no one true way to live a life. I applied this to tumblelogs, saying that just as there is no true, right way to live a life, there is no true, right way to blog, or keep a tumblelog, or much else. There are areas where there’s a correct way to proceed—science, for instance, or a game of Chess—and then there are areas where it’s up to each and every one to find his preferred style.
Blogging is very much one such area. You can and should find your own way to blog. Similarly, it’s up to each and every one to decide which types of blogs they want to follow. If you don’t want to see long commentary on your dashboard, you just don’t follow people who post long commentary. Period.
As an aside, the email from John Gruber that AATW quotes in his post is a little amusing, context taken into consideration. Daring Fireball, Gruber’s blog slash tumblelog, is one of the sites AATW links the most and one of the sites he recommends on his frontpage. It’s a mix of the short links (the “Linked List”) that AATW insists are appropriate for tumblelogs, not blogs, and the longer commentary that he insists is appropriate for blogs, not tumblelogs. I asked him what Daring Fireball was, then: was it a tumblelog, or a blog? It seemed to me whatever he answered, he would invalidate his own point by saying that a site he himself holds up as an excellent site violates his principles for tumblelogging versus blogging. It seems AATW thought so too, since he tried to have it both ways and answered “both; it’s two blogs”. As anyone who visits Daring Fireball or takes Gruber’s own word for it can see, it’s not.
Ergo, even if we looked past the category error inherent in AATW’s virtue thinking, his position is incoherent.
Others have written about this too. You could read Mills’s and Richard’s takes for agreeable opinions, or Swimming_Bird’s not so thought-out opinions on the issue.
* AATW had a longer post explaining his position, which he has subsequently deleted.
