Sherry Chandler

Paranoia strikes deep…

Oh dear, I do seem to think in sixties song lyrics. Can’t say much for the depth of my intellect, I suppose.

Anyhoo, what I started out to say here is this:

No matter what the outcome of John Edwards’s run for president, his campaign has certainly started an earthquake that has sent tremors throughout the (shudder) blogosphere. Start with Atrios’s defense of Amanda Marcotte — a post that I’ve been trying to put up here for weeks.

So I guess you might start with me, because I keep censoring myself over this one, and I censor myself because, no matter how much I defend the faithful in this blog, I do seem to stir controversy when I criticize, and so I find myself saying to myself, “no sense in prodding the bull” (take that as a pun if you will):

I tend to try to have a “don’t be an asshole needlessly” attitude when it comes to dealing with religious beliefs that no one is trying to impose on me, but there’s no requirement for people to share that attitude. Beliefs cloaked in religion shouldn’t be granted automatic immunity from scrutiny, and nor should the sometimes powerful institutions run by people, not angels or saints, around which the various religions are organized. While genuine bigotry exists against people of various faiths which is the equivalent to the kind of bigotry which exists against gays or African-Americans (involving unfair symbols or stereotyping rooted in historic oppression, assigning unshared beliefs to an entire group, etc…), mocking or having contempt for actual religious beliefs isn’t by any reasonable definition “bigotry.” It’s simply heated disagreement, and as with disagreements about politics, or sports, or whatever, sometimes people who disagree with each other use mockery and insults in their discourse. Religious people may think that their beliefs about religion are on a different level than these things, but, you know, I don’t really agree with that.

But Atrios is a political blogger. He cut his teeth on opposition and controversy. Other political bloggers/writers have spoken out on this controversy, notably Katha Pollit (Your Blog Will Come Back to Haunt You) and Amanda Marcotte herself.

On a related note, my friend Jeff Hess of Have Coffee, Will Write posts this chart based on a recent Gallup poll and asks “Why do you think Americans view Atheists as the least desirable (in the poll’s universe, at least) of possible candidates?”

At Pocahontas County Fare, Rebecca finds Marcotte & McEwan unreadable for stylistic reasons. I have to confess that I read neither Pandagon nor Shakespeare’s Sister. But I agree that blogging lends itself to self-indulgence. I tend to prefer bloggers who don’t natter on.

Rebecca’s concern is that Big Brother Will Be Watching Someday:

…This was the same reaction I had to John Edwards’ discarded bloggers–too rambling to bother with. These writers have more readers than I by three orders of magnitude, but if I bail out, there must be others.

…

“Circumspect” is my watchword, but I have commented on troll websites (thinking they were legitimate; the topic “Appalachian culture” seems to bring out the worst in some people), joined hobby and pet Listservs, and let slip a few personal details. A few months ago I blogged about my newest part-time job, and within hours got emails from my new boss and the university IT department. I had said that I was pleased to be working there, and that refreshments at the Faculty Development Day were outstanding. If I’d known they were watching, I would have emphasized intellectual matters and downplayed gastronomic matters.

Rebecca is also concerned that this tendency of employers to check up on you through Google can lead to some errors and so, as a pre-emptive strike, she points out all the Rebecca Claytons she is NOT. I wonder how that Sherry Chandler who seems to be a real estate agent in Texas might feel about being confused with me. Or the one who seems to be on the Council for Historic Metamora (Indiana).

And, admittedly, it gave me a few minutes pause to think that my boss might be covertly reading what I post here and I did a quick mental check whether I’d said anything too condemning of the medical profession and its hand-in-glove relation to big pharma.

As for my “career” as a poet — well, hard to damage what hardly exists.

Still, in the end, I have to agree with Sour Duck’s Melinda Casino. She undertook some soul searching when she found herself censoring her Valentine’s Day post:

A phrase has been used in the past week: You are what you blog. It’s a warning to people to think before they put their writing online.

I agree that people need to carefully consider the consequences of their words, and take responsibility for what they’ve written.

And yet — something rankles.

You are what you blog.

No I’m not. I only share certain parts of myself, and even those parts are heavily edited. You are not what you blog, and to limit people that way is to induce fear, paranoia and further self-censoring. It’s to assume we’re walking stereotypes: you’re the feminist blogger, you’re the neoconservative, you’re the Catholic blogger, you’re the atheist, you’re the progressive blogger.

I’m not sure what I think about the controversy over the John Edwards campaign blog. On the one hand, Edwards (or his handlers) should have known that the Swiftboaters would be after anything they could find. On the other, I hate Swiftboating and hate to see it succeed. Edwards should not have hired these two women if he didn’t want to stand up for them. I’m appalled that the citizens of this country think that atheists can’t have morals. Or that you must always speak reverently of anything that labels itself “religious.” Obviously, you shouldn’t say everything you think. And yet I despise the tendency in this country for employers to vet applicants’ financial, drug-use, and now speech history.

I do not want to live in a society where you have to watch what you say.

Related posts:

Deeper into paranoia

The Beast in US

The Solid South

Gypsy Hypnosis?

Public faith (with Romney)

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