I have been working my way through 2010. I'm about a third of the way through.
I wrote at greater length, which I noted before, but this time I also noted that my commenters replied at greater length as well. I assume there is some correlation, that most people are less-willing to write more than a few sentences about a few sentences, or even a link to a long essay. If they wish to reply at length, they would be more likely to do it there. Only on the posts where I took overlong to make sure I had closed off the escape routes - a regular five-part essay every day, and often as tedious - did all of you feel you could reply in like manner.
I do wonder if other factors were at play. I often repost things that cause me to think This is still true, or even more true. I'd like to show that this idea or problem has been around a while - or indirectly brag that I saw this coming years ago. Perhaps you were writing at greater length because the ideas were newer then and we were all more curious to explore them. We are briefer now because we have planed and sanded them a bit. Or sadly, more likely, because we feel we have thought enough and have Our Opinion now. On that score, it may be worth looking again at things from 2010 that we think are a bit tired now.
There are other things that I tended to post and are filtered again into what I repost. I will talk about those as we go. Soon I will intentionally post a set of very short statements from that time, just so you don't get worn out.
For now, this one still seems largely true, and perhaps has ever been. Political Faux Pas.
Remember to comment here, not there.
Out thinking naturally progresses from deliberation to verdicts, so men naturally become more dogmatic as they age. They don't have to be obnoxious about it, but their opinions are settled and have little interest in arguments and propositions they have rejected. In anticipation of retirement I have been clearing out my university office and drastically culling my office library. Tossing a few hundred books into the dumpster made me think of all the rubbish I have read, but young Smith had to read it to decide that it was rubbish. This narrowing of interests and sympathies tends to make my prose more pithy.
ReplyDeleteI also think the internet selects for pithy prose. We plow through a longueur in a book because that is less bothersome than getting up and finding something else to read. In the internet, the relief for boredom is only a click away. This is terrible for mental discipline, but it does select for pithy prose.