Uncategorized | April 06, 2004

Most of us who post for Inside the Missouri Review are new to blogging, both as writers and readers. Consequently, each of us (there are fourteen of us, give or take) has a different perspective on posting–what it means, what we should offer. Some of us provide great outside links, others of us write posts that are closer to essays, though without the furious revision. We’re a mix; we probably have no coherent blogosophy (I’m not referring to blogs about philosophy), no mission other than to let you know what we’re reading, writing, and thinking. Broad categories, I know.

Of course, most blogs don’t really have mission statements. In fact, the blogosphere in many ways seems like a new home of generalist thinkers. Of course, there are great literary blogs (Maud Newton and MoorishGirl among them), but even these and others have bloggers who write about literature, politics, art, sports (the latter seems rare on many, but still), and other topics with insight. There are, of course, a number of very focused blogs out there, but I’m often impressed with blogs that move beyond the central focus.

Only a few years ago (and even still now), one knock against blogs was their seeming self-indulgence, the transfer of private journal thoughts to the public sphere. This is a fine comment about a lot of blogs, but the growing legitimacy of blogs as a form of social discourse can’t be denied–James Wolcott recent wrote about blogs in Vanity Fair, and even Noam Chomsky has a blog. Liberal/leftist/democratic (I’m not sure of the preferred terminology at the moment, since they all mean so little) blogs have become an impressive force in bringing together like minds and also in investigative reporting–the anonymous Atrios and Daily Kos (not anonymous) often provide in-depth commentary and reportage that demonstrates how valuable blogs can be.

Now that’s I’ve developed a form of blogorrhea, I’ll end before I become too blognoxious (though that last joke probably goes over the edge).