A Notable Lack of Perfection

 

Expressionism / Wolf Kahn/ Half Hidden

Ugo’s latest post seems to me to be pretty indicative of what is going on within the out of the way corners of the wasteland called the internet.  Now, as I have always admitted, Ugo is one of my internet crushes along with Dmitri and JMG and and a few other bit players.  But he is big enough on the web that he appears to have raised eyebrows amid our putative digital masters and has not been allowed to post links to his stuff on the Weaselly little douchebag’s platform (Facebook) or the Hippie wannabe’s shitstream (Twitter).

I have been thinking a lot about what we do here in the distant and faraway regions of the internet called Blogoland.  I tend to think of my writing as more of a diary.  I am fairly certain that Ugo thinks of the process differently after years of being an educator (I think that a lot of my respect for Ugo comes from the fact that he teaches physical chemistry, and I have never been so grateful for a grade than my C+ in physical chemistry.  Physical chemistry is where they teach you that how you thought about chemistry before was just a cute fable).  

Things are getting decidedly weird here in the internet.  Fables are being spun and “truth” is being told and a lot of folks are going out of their way to make certain that anyone who disagrees with their flavor of truth are shut down and their “platform” removed.

Because, after all, there is really only one truth, right?  There is only one correct interpretation of the incredibly complex mosaic that is the morass of information out there.  Any one who thinks differently must not only be wrong, but must be evil besides.  

Look, everyone out there makes claims of infallibility on an incomplete data set.  All information that we (I) write about come from a filtered set of information that has been swept clean of complexity.  Numbers without attribution are bandied about.  

I refer to this situation as “the way that it has always been”.  Simple, incorrect interpretations are preferred over complex ambiguous ones.  And as always, interpretations where the simple lends power are pushed harder than others.   But what everything is coming down to is a system where one side has taken it upon themselves to silence and persecute the others on their judgement.  I think that this is common to everyone who holds office.  

Good of you all to come around.  I will still try to understand the complex and see through to the levels above and below.  I won’t take sides.  I won’t demonize those who think that I am wrong.  I won’t persecute those I disagree with.  I definitely won’t silence them.  I definitely won’t participate in their genteel hatred of the other.

Luckily, I am in a little cul de sac where such things can occur.  Thank you Dreamwidth for the non-platform.