Is blogging a lesser form or writing?

Yesterday I had a bit of a chat with a friend of mine who I would consider quite intelligent. He has lots of neat ideas and constantly shares them with me and other people. I asked him whether he ever blogged and recommended that he do it if he didn’t. His response was interesting. Depressing and a bit harsh but still interesting. He said “I never can think of blogging. It is akin to vomiting on the web. The problem is there are too many voicing their opinions and most often they stink, or are amateurish.”

I won’t identify this friend because I don’t think he would want that. If you look at his statement about blogging then you might be able to understand why he would be against being identified. Reading between the lines it is very easy to assume that it is a privacy matter and he prefers to maintain privacy.

But that is not all there is to his short, but very harsh, critique of blogging. Taking out his first two statements, (“I never can think of blogging. It is akin to vomiting on the web.”), let’s look closely at the second two points:

1) “The problem is there are too many voicing their opinions…”: I find this assertion interesting to say the least. How can one understand, quantify or rate how many opinions are too many to be voiced? My personal belief, which just may be very American, is that anyone who has an opinion has a right to voice it. Society is much the better for voiced opinions. And with blogging you can shut out these opinions, if you prefer not to hear them, by simply choosing not to read the blog postings! Don’t want an opinion from a blog? Cool! Don’t read it.

2) “…and most often they stink, or are amateurish.”: I don’t agree. Though many blogs do stink I would not say that “most often” blogs stink. And most bloggers are amateurs when it comes to the world of writing. But that having been said, every blog is different and exists for different purposes. Some are for businesses. Some for information dissemination. Others are simply journals of the authors’ daily lives. Blogs don’t need to be elegant. They just need to be able to communicate. Some blogs might need polish, but it doesn’t take Einstein to know that 99.9999999999% of the bloggers don’t have Pulitzer prizes. No one should expect blogs to be more than what they are.

I am a little disheartened at my friend’s opinion of blogs. I find them to be great pipelines of ideas. I am more than a little disheartened in the standard he believes he has set here. The truth of the matter is that blogs do matter. They are a very grand avenue in the sharing of ideas. And though I think my friend’s idea about blogging stinks, I would love for him to start blogging about his other ideas. I think a whole world would open up to him.

About Gary Dale Cearley:

Gary Dale Cearley is an American author, columnist, polyglot and businessman who has lived in Asia for two decades. He is a graduate of the Defense Language Institute, the University of the State of New York (Excelsior College) and the University of Oklahoma. He works in the field of international business-to-business networking and his passions are all things language, history and libertarian politics. Gary Dale is also an avid reader and book reviewer. You can reach Gary Dale directly by clicking here.

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