On Why We Don't Blog Anymore

Respect What You Have Lost

Literally because there is too much else which can fulfill a need for a second or two of complex interest before passing. I have to leave all devices in another room simply to be able to read a book these days. My fortnightly reading of Private Eye (Other satirical magazines are NOT available) is punctuated by quick dives into the Internet to check a name or fact. On top of this I think that my mind has become rewired (like a Taxi Driver doing The Knowledge) to work better with short, complex images and phrases to the extent that longer prose does not quite sink in as it used to to. 

This is of course a bad thing and we have to do something about it. My first action should be to delete my Facebook account. I have been considering this for sometime now and the recent revelations regarding the obviously immoral harvesting of data have just made this more likely. Facebook is just too darn distracting. The design of its pages is flaky, and pretty much set up to drag the eye over whatever bit of information is to be promoted. It is micro-propaganda, the insipid feed of nudges in what is considered the right direction. We need to return to long reads which is why (after prompting by some in the family) I am hoping to return to proper blogging. 

Yesterday a friend of mine mentioned the fact that Molly Ringwald has invoked #MeToo in reference to John Hughes and The Breakfast Club, However, my friend had not read the New Yorker article which Molly Ringwald had written. The article is here. It was not a spittle-flecked denouncement of John Hughes, but rather a nuanced and well-structured analysis of the whole issue. It refers to the three films that MR and JH did together and examined the areas which would be a problem today. The article was not designed to express outrage but rather to point to complexities. Drama and literature are more often designed to be entertainment rather than moral lessons. These complexities can not be expressed in a Tweet, a platitudinous, moralising or motivational statement in Facebook or a single image in Pinterest. All you can do in this new media is express outrage, your disagreement, how upset you are with a point of view. 

There are things in the world which deserve simple, black and white outrage and it is sad that these things don't make the cut for Twitter/Facebook etc. Think what they might be as they are far more important for the future of the world that most commentary we see these days.

See you soon.