Hahaha

Well, here's an opportunity to discuss some blogging philosophy.

So, I found something funny while strolling through the real blogosphere. Observer summary here. Source of controversy here (possibly Not Safe For Work (NSFW)). Temper tantrum here.

Basically, some lefty blogger called some black Republican running for some office a Simple Sambo, complete with picture with photoshopped blackface. Some Democrat in some other race pulled his ads because... uh... well, that's the sort of thing you don't really want your name next to. The blogger's defense is "It's okay because I'm black," as if the fact that maybe it's morally okay, according to nuanced detail including information that isn't immediately available, can be relied upon when defining your associations. (Whether it's morally okay because he's black is a different issue I don't particularly care about)

What's funny, though, is that he considers his critics to be ignorant because they don't know he's black. As if all the criticism he's getting includes an implicit assumption that he's white, and if they only knew, they'd realize "Oh, man, then that's cool, that's cool." He doesn't even seem to understand that people might be pissed at his picture even if they knew he was black. The error is theirs.

I bring it up because here's a great example to discuss my own blogging philosophy. I post thoughts which I think are acceptable, but I don't assume that it follows that if anyone finds them disgusting, they've failed to accurately understand something. Many of my comments are quite disgusting from the perspective of many moral belief systems, and I wouldn't bother to defend myself from someone who said as much, because there's nothing to defend.

I'm also not going to lose sleep over someone getting pissed, because frankly, it's the reader's problem, not mine. I'm a true moral relativist, after all, so I figure that individuals are responsible for their own belief systems, and can't go crying when their belief system hurts them. Pick a better one. I recommend mine. Not only do you get to laugh at dead people, sad people, and crazy people, but you still get to judge people as morally disgusting. It's efficient, convenient, and harmless.

posted by Beetle Aurora Drake 10/27/2005 11:34:00 PM #
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