Frank Paynter, whom I sat at a table with at the Session led by Dan Gillmour on Citizen’s Media, blogged this about the Session of Respectful Disagreement led by Dave Winer.
Transparency and accountability, Stan Brown, a lawyer, suggests as basic values. I think maybe passion and creativity are as important or more important than “T&A.” I get quite passionate about this. I think it’s a good example of respectful, but charged disagreement. The discussion moves on to others who also have something to say so once again I’m not the center of the universe. Damn… coulda swore I wuz.
I remember liking that suggestion. The passion aspect seems to capture well what people like about blogs. Lots of opinion.
Question is asked: Does the blogosphere contribute to the polarization of public perspective or does it have a mediating effect?
I remember that one, too. Seems that it (the blogosphere) pretty much reflects the culture, which is pretty darn polarized.
I expressed to Frank, as I got up to leave at the end of the session, that I was feeling a bit apprehensive about the Faith-Based blogging session, which I felt obligated to go to, since if it was to be dominated by the type of blogging that it seemed its discussion leader was doing, it was going to need some alternative expressed.
Frank told me a little of his Quaker tradition, and how he is not so comfortable with the “who has faith and who doesn’t” that seems to go on in “religious blogging”. I nodded my head in agreement. He said something to the effect of : faith is not so “transparent” in a lot of people, who nevertheless are passionate, truthful, and purposeful people (my paraphrase), and mentioned Dave Winer, Doc Searls, and David Weinberger. I again agreed. He also said that faith is something you just BE; that you live.
Did I mention that I had a good time at Blog Nashville this weekend? This was one of those exchanges, brief though it was, that made it a unique time. And seeing all these faces to go with all the blogs I’ve been reading for 3 years, that’s kind of exciting.
So, Frank’s identifying of Passion and creativity; this is the essence of blogging for me. When I am not feeling so “passionate”, often a reaction to a story linked by another blogger will cause the coffers to fill. I also know that this is where “Faith-based” blogging has gotten its thunder. But, as Frank expressed, to section out “Faith-Based” almost seems a condescending to the blogs that are full of passion (and I think; no, I KNOW, FAITH) but are not what would be identified as “religious”. As one who blogs a lot of theology and Church, a good many of my favorite blogs are not “theological” in the overt sense. I operate under a “deep ecunemism” assumption: that God and his call upon individual human lives (and the communties to which he calls them or gives to them) is that thing that drives people, whether or not they feel this is a thing that comes to them from outside themselves or not. In fact, there are many people, who, for GOOD REASON, reject Christianity or religiosity (due to abusive, insensitive, very “un-actualized” people and the insitiutions they build and inhabit).
My own journey has schooled me in the language and narrative of the story of God’s people, but I steer clear of the abuses and narrowing instances of that story; those instances where faith is dominated by doctrinaire, pious, largely non-compassionate people. BUt even they are not outside the reach of transformative experience that turns them toward the truth.
Thanks, Frank, for putting it the way you did, and making me think about it again. I mentioned to Frank briefly that a fellow I ma reading lately (Hauerwas) talks similarly, and says that the job of the Church is to BE the Church.