Sound The Alarm
I failed to live up to the goal (or, rather, mandate) of a post every other day. My understanding is that there is a team of strong-armed men standing in the wings, bluntening their clubs, intent on drawing at least a post's worth of blood. If only I were a hemopheliac, this would all go so much quicker.
Dorm Adventures had it's heyday, I suppose, but everything deteriorates with time. My Summer life is boring, but not as boring as this webspace might suggest. There are happenings, goings-on, musings and maybe even a parable or two, but I am unable to share most of them with you.
The readership has been dwindling since the New Year, and I understand why. There was, perhaps, once a time when part of the readership followed Suite 3100 primarily for the purpose of enjoying themselves; now, I believe, those who still come here are here for the sake of their relationship to me. (SurrealGertrude, stand proud as the exception)
In short, by failing to attract readers who don't have a very specific social connection to me, I find that the things I can say here are outnumbered by the things that I can't. And maybe this is just my systemic self-consciousness looming dark over my blog-window, but so much has been cast aside for fear of what my mother might think, or what Bridget might think, or Marina, or Carl, or even Brody.
Censorship perturbs me. Politically, it should be done away with; by putting limits on the production of media, they control what is available from the top down, keeping obscenity away from the places children are likely to go. But why not forget the Puritans, lift all limits on the production of media, and instead work on a system of limiting access to obscenity? Of course, in my opinion, a child who is looking for pornography deserves to have it; the legal age for purchasing all media materials should be the age at which you know what you're buying. If a kid knows what Playboy is, it's already too late to protect him.
But, for the sake of pertinence, I'll let go of the previous paragraph. The issue at hand is Social Censorship, which is far more complicated.
Do I believe that there should be things that I'm not allowed to say? No.
Do I believe that everyone has a right to get angry at me for the things that I write? Yes.
The problem, of course, is that I project my own paranoias into other people. I know that nobody is restricting my tongue (or, I guess, my fingers), but the fear that they will react in a negative way translates, in my mind, into disallowance.
And then comes the (inevitable) moment of identity crisis. How do I reconsile the fact that I'm afraid to write over 50% of the things that I think/do? Doesn't that mean that something has gone terribly wrong?
I know this hasn't been the most-straightforward post... I'd like to think that you'll brush this off and forget about it, but I won't know until you do.
-Alan
Dorm Adventures had it's heyday, I suppose, but everything deteriorates with time. My Summer life is boring, but not as boring as this webspace might suggest. There are happenings, goings-on, musings and maybe even a parable or two, but I am unable to share most of them with you.
The readership has been dwindling since the New Year, and I understand why. There was, perhaps, once a time when part of the readership followed Suite 3100 primarily for the purpose of enjoying themselves; now, I believe, those who still come here are here for the sake of their relationship to me. (SurrealGertrude, stand proud as the exception)
In short, by failing to attract readers who don't have a very specific social connection to me, I find that the things I can say here are outnumbered by the things that I can't. And maybe this is just my systemic self-consciousness looming dark over my blog-window, but so much has been cast aside for fear of what my mother might think, or what Bridget might think, or Marina, or Carl, or even Brody.
Censorship perturbs me. Politically, it should be done away with; by putting limits on the production of media, they control what is available from the top down, keeping obscenity away from the places children are likely to go. But why not forget the Puritans, lift all limits on the production of media, and instead work on a system of limiting access to obscenity? Of course, in my opinion, a child who is looking for pornography deserves to have it; the legal age for purchasing all media materials should be the age at which you know what you're buying. If a kid knows what Playboy is, it's already too late to protect him.
But, for the sake of pertinence, I'll let go of the previous paragraph. The issue at hand is Social Censorship, which is far more complicated.
Do I believe that there should be things that I'm not allowed to say? No.
Do I believe that everyone has a right to get angry at me for the things that I write? Yes.
The problem, of course, is that I project my own paranoias into other people. I know that nobody is restricting my tongue (or, I guess, my fingers), but the fear that they will react in a negative way translates, in my mind, into disallowance.
And then comes the (inevitable) moment of identity crisis. How do I reconsile the fact that I'm afraid to write over 50% of the things that I think/do? Doesn't that mean that something has gone terribly wrong?
I know this hasn't been the most-straightforward post... I'd like to think that you'll brush this off and forget about it, but I won't know until you do.
-Alan
posted by Alan Orlanski at 4:06 PM
7 Comments:
I, the Anonymous Reader, find your posts pretty entertaining in general... I also know a little about your system, enough to know that your name is a pseudonym, though I'm guessing that probably the people that know you know who you really are.
As for censorship... meh. If you could say something when the majority of your readership encompassed strangers, surely you can say it when your readers are mostly your freinds.
we (yes, the both of us) withdraw the mandate. each has her own reasoning, but we've come to the common conclusion that if you're to the point where you post about not being able to post.... well, it's just not so much fun.
Why, Alan, would you be afraid of what I think?
I've seen you at your worst. I'm still around. Is there anything you could really say in here that would cause any great problems between us?
No. And I, unlike you, am interested in your relations to people I don't know well or at all.
So speak.
HA! You seem to be getting a fair amount of attention out of a post that was written under great duress. Think about that a bit, will ya?
*much love*
i lost the game and need to go poop.
quite a fine point about censorship, setting the appropriate age as the time at which a person knows what s/he's getting. that sounds dandy to me. and thanks to mr. crabshack, i just lost the game. i was doing REALLY well too.
no kay, you're still safe. Electronic notification works the same as verbal notification. You have a half hour of safe time starting from when you read my post, not from when I posted it. Your record is therefore unblemished.
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