BLOG: By Love Of Good
I’m a little late to the party, but Blaise Cronin, SLIS Dean and Rudy Professor of Information Science at Indiana University’s School of Library and Information Science is so arrogant and contemptuous that I had to comment. He denies the validity of people’s opinions, and their right to express themselves in blogs saying that the majority is banal and uncouth, but what right has been bestowed upon him to make this blanket judgment?
The fact that he condemns all blogs in the title of his editorial is the first slap:
BLOG: see also Bathetically Ludicrous Online Gibberish
Okay so I had to look up bathetically.
Main Entry:
ba•thet•ic
Pronunciation: b - the-tik
Function: adjective
Etymology: bathos + -etic (as in pathetic)
Date: 1845
: characterized by bathos
- ba•thet•i•cal•ly \-ti-k( -)l \ adverb
Main Entry: ba•thos
Pronunciation: ba - thäs
Function: noun
Etymology: Greek, literally, depth
Date: 1727
1 a : the sudden appearance of the commonplace in otherwise elevated matter or style b : ANTICLIMAX
2 : exceptional commonplaceness : TRITENESS
3 : insincere or overdone pathos : SENTIMENTALISM
--Merriam Webster Dictionary
Once I knew how I was being insulted, it was easier to get outraged. His whole stance on blogs, especially personal blogs as being narcissistic and trite really irked me. His elitism is so pronounced and acerbic that I wonder how he can even function in everyday society. Does the sight of a strip mall make him start foaming at the mouth? If he’s the type of professor that populates Indiana University then I wouldn’t want to go there. And please notice that I’m not saying it is.
I had to guffaw when I came across this phrase--“crassly egotistical”. It’s so nice that he supplied the words to describe how I think of him. And hold on just a sec there, dude, “Librarians, of course, know better.” What do you think you mean by that? I do know better but what I know is probably not what you want me to know.
The fact that I have a blog should say enough on the subject without going all meta on you and telling you why I like blogs in my blog, but I just had to comment on this guy because arrogance can be highly entertaining.
Oh and the response is even more fun than the original pieece. Find it here.
The fact that he responds to the bad press of his editorial in such snarky and pretentious language really just amazes me. He uses ten dollar words like he’s actually getting ten dollars for each one he writes.
Oh, the hypocrisy! They promote free speech, he says, but only if they like it, he means, and the reason bloggers took offense was because you called us bathetic. I wonder how many of his colleagues had choice words for him when he made himself their mouth piece.
I find it funny that he thinks ‘Hapless souls’ was the most offensive phrase he used, but he doesn’t address any of the more virulent language he employed such as in this question, “Why do they choose to expose their unremarkable opinions, sententious drivel and unedifying private lives to the potential gaze of total strangers?” Whoa man, maybe I’m writing this entry for my family who live in another time zone to read. Would you deny my family the right to know what’s going on with me?
I was going to go through a lot of different examples of how to answer the above quoted question, but the fact that Cronin gives absolutely no examples of what he’s talking about, no references, nor context to his words makes arguing him a pointless endeavor. Even when he ‘responds’ to the bloggers who bashed him in the follow up essay, he does not offer any links or reference to what he refers to.
I just have to shake my head at the whole thing. Yes, there are some blogs out there that I don’t like, but I’m not going to say, “They are sententious and unremarkable” no matter how much I dislike them because you cannot label something like that. Definitive statements that result from personal aesthetics will always be wrong, but an opinion expressed by a personal aesthetic isn’t wrong. If you get what I’m saying, then I’m probably preaching to the choir, if you don’t, leave a comment, and we’ll see what happens.
The fact that he condemns all blogs in the title of his editorial is the first slap:
BLOG: see also Bathetically Ludicrous Online Gibberish
Okay so I had to look up bathetically.
Main Entry:
ba•thet•ic
Pronunciation: b - the-tik
Function: adjective
Etymology: bathos + -etic (as in pathetic)
Date: 1845
: characterized by bathos
- ba•thet•i•cal•ly \-ti-k( -)l \ adverb
Main Entry: ba•thos
Pronunciation: ba - thäs
Function: noun
Etymology: Greek, literally, depth
Date: 1727
1 a : the sudden appearance of the commonplace in otherwise elevated matter or style b : ANTICLIMAX
2 : exceptional commonplaceness : TRITENESS
3 : insincere or overdone pathos : SENTIMENTALISM
--Merriam Webster Dictionary
Once I knew how I was being insulted, it was easier to get outraged. His whole stance on blogs, especially personal blogs as being narcissistic and trite really irked me. His elitism is so pronounced and acerbic that I wonder how he can even function in everyday society. Does the sight of a strip mall make him start foaming at the mouth? If he’s the type of professor that populates Indiana University then I wouldn’t want to go there. And please notice that I’m not saying it is.
I had to guffaw when I came across this phrase--“crassly egotistical”. It’s so nice that he supplied the words to describe how I think of him. And hold on just a sec there, dude, “Librarians, of course, know better.” What do you think you mean by that? I do know better but what I know is probably not what you want me to know.
The fact that I have a blog should say enough on the subject without going all meta on you and telling you why I like blogs in my blog, but I just had to comment on this guy because arrogance can be highly entertaining.
Oh and the response is even more fun than the original pieece. Find it here.
The fact that he responds to the bad press of his editorial in such snarky and pretentious language really just amazes me. He uses ten dollar words like he’s actually getting ten dollars for each one he writes.
“I write this critique of personal blogging as dean of a school where academic freedom and freedom of speech are constitutive of what we are and what we do. And I do so at the express encouragement of a number of local colleagues who have been dismayed by the manifest intolerance of sections of the blogosphere when confronted with views antipathetic to their own.”
Oh, the hypocrisy! They promote free speech, he says, but only if they like it, he means, and the reason bloggers took offense was because you called us bathetic. I wonder how many of his colleagues had choice words for him when he made himself their mouth piece.
I find it funny that he thinks ‘Hapless souls’ was the most offensive phrase he used, but he doesn’t address any of the more virulent language he employed such as in this question, “Why do they choose to expose their unremarkable opinions, sententious drivel and unedifying private lives to the potential gaze of total strangers?” Whoa man, maybe I’m writing this entry for my family who live in another time zone to read. Would you deny my family the right to know what’s going on with me?
I was going to go through a lot of different examples of how to answer the above quoted question, but the fact that Cronin gives absolutely no examples of what he’s talking about, no references, nor context to his words makes arguing him a pointless endeavor. Even when he ‘responds’ to the bloggers who bashed him in the follow up essay, he does not offer any links or reference to what he refers to.
I just have to shake my head at the whole thing. Yes, there are some blogs out there that I don’t like, but I’m not going to say, “They are sententious and unremarkable” no matter how much I dislike them because you cannot label something like that. Definitive statements that result from personal aesthetics will always be wrong, but an opinion expressed by a personal aesthetic isn’t wrong. If you get what I’m saying, then I’m probably preaching to the choir, if you don’t, leave a comment, and we’ll see what happens.
posted by Vampire Librarian at 8:27 AM
4 Comments:
He sounds like a complete wowser and has probably not had a root in donkey's years. Probably has a small dick too.
Anyways, while he's talking about exposing unremarkable opinions and sententious drivel he's throwing stones. He will shortly disappear up his own arsehole.
A root incidently, is a shag or bonk. Which is why Australians always giggle at the mention of root beer. In sufficient quantities, all beer is root beer.
"Whoa man, maybe I’m writing this entry for my family who live in another time zone to read. Would you deny my family the right to know what’s going on with me?"
Your quote sums it up for me. By blogging I was able to keep up with friends around the world. I'm not pretending to write literary masterpieces. What an idiot that prof was. As another librarian, I am disappointed that he has such an elitist view.
Yers. And what about all those mil bloggers? 20 year old soldiers wanting to mark a tiny mark on the world before they go back out into the firing line. And bloggers who're blogging to de-stress from hideous fucking jobs at the Double Meat Palace and Call Centres R Us and Corporate Hell. And emergency services workers dealing with the great unwashed on a dailing basis wanting to bang a few heads together in an effort to prevent another Darwin Award.
Okay. I'd better stop now. My blood pressures going up. But let's find this Prof Wanker's address and go round there and superglue his face to his arse. That would definitely get my blood pressure back to normal :)
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