Shelley, Steve, Stavrosthewonderchicken, Jonathon, Dorothea and others are involved in a fascinating conversation regarding truth in blogging. That is (and I hope I get this right) if someone who writes a blog entry does not stick the "factual" truth of a situation are they being dishonest.
If I've followed it correctly it all started with a post by Jill regarding "obliqueness" in writing. That is talking about one thing as means of really talking about something else that isn't obvious to one's readers. Or as Jill puts it:
When my partner tells me he's unsure about our relationship I write about protesters rallying for peace. When I don't know whether we're partners or not I write that I'm tired. When he leaves me I write about civilian casualties and how untrustworthy and partial reports of a war can be.
In my view I guess it comes down to whether you (the writer) view blogging as an act of journalism or one of literary writing (this is not to say there can't, or often isn't, an overlap between the two). Journalists for the most part at least try to stick to the observable and reportable facts whereas literary writers are free to pursue whatever technique works best for geting their message across.
Some people live in a world of complex inter-relationships that they see and comprehend at a pre-conscious level. they can draw seeminly disparate ideas or facts together to create something new and revealing about their lives. It is as though they live in a world of metaphors, because they see the relationship between two seperate threads in their lives that on the surface have no apparent connection, they are able to use one to talk about the other. This can not be considered dishonest for that connection exists for the writer. Whether the writer has the talent to give the reader enough information so that they too can make the connection is another matter entirely and should not be connected with the question of intellectual
honesty.
Others live in a very literal world always moving from A to B, seldom leaping to F before arriving at C. For such a person metaphor can be a difficult or at least distracting concept. It doesn't address the describable "truth" of a situation but instead seeks to cast light on that 'truth" from a new direction.
It is I think the difference between artists and enginneers (yes I knowthere are crossovers between the two).
Part of this discussion will always come back to a discussion on how can we ever "know " someone we only know from their online presence. Well I think the answer to that, no matter how literal they are in their writing, is you can't. No more than you can get to know, say Hemingway, from only reading his novels. You can make suppositions but that's all they will ever be. No matter how much of myself I decide to put in here you will still not know the real me. The media is self limiting.
For that reason I think it is unproductive to demand writers stick to "the facts" when writing their blogs. What is important, at least to me, is that they find an effective method of getting their message across. If they can get their message across effectively, which in essence boils down to capturing my attention, then I don't care, nor do i try and determine, whether they are telling the literal truth about their life, the truth as they see it about their life, or a complete fictioalization. THen again we have the problem of perception. How I see my life and the events within it, their interconnections etc. is not going to be the same as someone else involved in the same incident. Anyone who has lived with someone else for a long period of time can well attest to how differently two people see the same event. When it comes to reporting on something truth is a matter of perception, it is malleable in the detailsand what really matters is can I get you to see it the way I saw it regardless of whether you agree with that perception or not.
Anyways I'm waaaaay over my head in this discussion and I would recommend you follow the links above and make yoyur own views known or just read a damned fine discussion for the hell of it. :-)
Posted by The Dynamic Driveler at April 17, 2003 02:20 PM