"We'll all talk like ----"
Daniel Henninger on blogs and disinhibition.
I think that Henninger exaggerates the effect of blogs in disinhibition. It's a cultural movement that's been goin on since the 60s. As a high schooler in the early 70s (among the vanguard in a rural school), I engaged in a level of psychological exhibitionism that led most people to conclude that I was freakin' weird, and none of my teachers were effective in helping me deal with it (those who helped; some just thought I was freakin' weird along with everyone else). Nobody said, "Here's what you are doing. What are you trying to do with it? Is it effective in that? What else could you do?" It took quite a bit of life experience to teach this Gemini that knowledge is power, and that giving away all knowledge of yourself is disempowering. And those of us of that generation who didn't learn that lesson completely passed the "soul streaker" meme on to our children.
As for the Net, this has been in play for longer than the blogosphere. We learned early on that we could say things online that would get our noses busted if uttered f2f. I've been pretty circumspect here, because I blog where I eat, and because f-bombs are not a form of intellectual argument. But when you've done your homework, and somebody deliberately blanks out on your arguments, there is a place for the f-bomb.
Then, we have reality TV. How could somebody open their personal life to an entire nation? And the gay movement -- and before somebody accuses me of telling people to go back into the closet, let me say that one of the most useful concepts I ever learned from a gay person was that of the flaming straight: that if it's offensive for gay people to wear their sexuality on their sleeves, it must be equally offensive for straight people to do so. And a lot of cultural gayness is soul streaking; yeah, it makes it easier to find a date if your signals are clear, but really, what business of ours is your love life? And finally, there's the surveillance society. Given the amount of information already available on each of us, it's not strange that some conclude that there's nothing left to hide.
Here's what this is all about: people who accomplish don't have to expose themselves. They keep on accomplishing, and people notice. People who don't/can't/won't accomplish find themselves in the position of a grade schooler saying, "Look at me, Mommy!" They so want Mommy to love them, but Mommy is gone, and there's a lot to look at, and why should we look at somebody being pathetic? Have some dignity, willya?
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