Yesterday I mentioned that I have received e-mail from readers who prefer blogs that do not allow comments. Here is another just over the transom from a reader in Lincoln, England:
One of the reasons, but not the most important consideration, why I read your blog is because you don't permit comments. There is a surfeit, which includes me now and then, of inane commenters on the internet - enough to satisfy anyone addicted to the puerile opinions of strangers.
Blogs, or some of them anyway, are a form of vanity publishing. After all, a first rate mind with something original to say could write a book and have it published in the regular way. So why bother blogging? But commenting on someone's blog is even more vain. The commenter desires to disseminate his second-hand views and inflict his opinions on a blog’s readership without the trouble of producing a thoughtful discourse in the first place.
Commenters are parasites in the blogosphere. If I had anything original and sagacious to say, and I could say it eloquently, then I could inform the attentive world on my own blog. Regarding the impact of eloquence: Not many bloggers can retain a discriminating audience by repeatedly exploring serious topics with stylish felicity.
I would qualify the "Commenters are parasites" remark with a 'most' or a 'many.' I have received excellent comments over the years that have helped me improve my thinking. As for vanity, I admit that there is something vain about blogging, mine included. But is not all self-presentation and self-expression vain when measured by monkish standards?
There is a Greek orthodox monastery in the desert not far from here. The monks there are allowed no internet access. And that is as it should be. Whatever the value of monasticism and world-renunciation, internet access is incompatible with it. Or so say I. I would expect The Blogging Monk to disagree.
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