On the Blog Genre: Metatextual Excavations

A Dilettante’s Paradise

Why write a blog? Is there anything more self-indulgent than writing a blog? (Hint: the question answers itself) Why publish these silly little thoughts of little to no interest to anyone besides myself and a handful of thoughtful, critically-engaged humans? (thank you dear, faithful readers) Why feed the vanity of speaking in my own voice, finding my groove, talking about the constellations of thinkers, art and media that make my mind whir? These questions when spoken out loud almost sound absurd. Surely there are better things to do than spend time writing and reading these useless, attention-craving remarks. There surely are, and yet…

Why do anything? There are things worth doing for themselves, what we philosophers have called “intrinsic” value. Writing a blog can have some of that, if it resembles a work of art, which is the goal of any blog worth reading (evidently this blog is as far from that as Don Quijote was from defeating the windmill monsters). But, perhaps more important than being self-sustaining, a blog is a tool of expression for the writer and a receptacle of thought-provoking criticism for the audience. The synergy between writer and reader is the dynamism that feeds the turbine of the blog (if there are no readers then the writer may have to imagine them, it’s all good *crying emoji*).

In the last post I began tracing the borders of metaphilosophy, indicating how philosophical criticism lends itself to self-reflexivity, a movement of thought that questions its own origins, end and functions. Since this form of thinking occupies so much of my research, it is natural that I will turn self-awareness (and self-deprecation, apparently) to the activity of blogging itself. Let us analyze for a moment what is so interesting about the blog as a genre; let us blog about blogging (that sounded weird, maybe strike that from the arsenal). They say a magician never reveals their tricks, (well, I’m far too dull to be considered a magician, and these words are far too contrived to be considered trickery) so let us peel back the curtain.

Most choices in this blog are intentional (what a copout, huh), starting with the post schedule and the name. The post schedule consists of 1 post on art—that may be movies, poetry, paintings, theatre or whatever I want to write about. The 2nd week of posts will be about popular and material culture. That may be fashion, food, popular TV shows and movies, current events, etc. The 3rd week is about philosophy—the first post was broadly about metaphilosophy but there may be more specific posts about particular philosophers, ethics, aesthetics, philosophy of culture, etc. The 4th week will usually be (…work in progress…). As for the name, I wanted to convey an aesthetics of space, using spatial metaphors as framing the themes of the blog (try being more pretentious). As I conceive, thinking about art, culture and philosophy does not present ultra-rigid boundaries, which is why many of the posts will feel like a blending of aesthetic, cultural and philosophical criticism, with some minor forays into creative writing (if you can even label this as that). Everyone needs a little philosophy in their life (more on that in the future), and there is no better way to take a break from the incessant, vapid doomscrolling on Instagram than to indulge in the thoughts of an intellectual poser, a critic wannabe (hey, I’m the one who makes the sarcastic remarks here).

A blog is usually a nonfiction collection of essayistic (read, tentative and haphazard), fragmented, thought-hopping, casual reflections presented in the form of small blobs of text. These fragments can be stitched, repositioned and played with to reveal some kind of “identity” behind the author (not that it would be interesting to follow through with this). It reveals intellectual and affective patterns that show all the contingency and locality of one’s concerns (this thought is indebted to Richard Rorty).

For someone in academia, it is a liberating form of expression. Academia requires that research be thorough, painstaking, and that references always be tightly arranged. A blog allows some freedom in exploring disparate ideas while being a complete dilettante (nice way of avoiding the word idiot). A dilettante is someone who dips and dabbles in art and other areas of study but who does not claim mastery in any of them. The blog allows me to talk about topics I would never dare to write in an academic paper or future books (keep dreaming) without having done a headache-inducing amount of research before (sure, whatever you say, “author”).

Both in screenwriting and other forms of storytelling a crucial rule of thumb is “show, don’t tell.” That is not true of a blog, probably because it is a blend of exposition and expression. In a spectrum from exposition to expression, we have journalism (ideal journalism, that is, none of the clickbait garbage you see on any TV channel or newspaper these days) on one side and poetry on the other. I think criticism, which is what I am trying my best to do (and evidently failing) lies somewhere in the middle of these extremes. A blog can be formed around very specific niches; it could be about bugs in Australia. My blog is a bit more expansive and ambitious (you really need to tone it down). My blog intends to form a certain kind of pattern, a pattern that may reveal my deepest idiosyncrasies and the contingent network of thinkers that have inspired me, but it may also disclose something of value if one is willing to put in some work to think alongside me. This is the value of understanding art, culture and philosophy, of becoming educated by expanding our aesthetic, critical and cognitive sensibilities.

Talking to oneself is seen a sign of madness, but in my blog, my space, I can do whatever I want and make it make sense (keep deluding yourself). Writing tends to be a way of talking to others. That may be in conveying a narrative, in informing people of scientific results or in trying to get them to accept a philosophical argument. Writing can have multifocal and multi-perspectival purposes. It can also be expressed in a variety of different voices. The blog is writing both for oneself and for others. This blog is part intellectual journal, part brain-exercise, part idle pastime, part writing-sharpening, part informational, part expression, part snapshots of personal interests, part experimental lab for underdeveloped ideas, part whatever-else-may-become-of-it-as-it-progresses (summarizing all this nonsense: the ramblings of a grad student).

Into the Blogosphere

Wittgenstein famously remarked that you (yeah, you!) could write a serious philosophical treatise consisting entirely of jokes. Imagine what one can do with a blog then.

It is no secret that the internet has shortened our attention spans. Maybe in another time I would emulate a Borges or Woolf, trying my best to stitch words with the harmony that comes from writing thousands of pages and reading even more books (you wish). I make no pretense to be didactic or straightforward at every moment. Nowadays we want to have everything explained in 180 characters or less. On the flip side, I would never ask that the audience puts too much effort on these posts. Take anything you want and leave as much as desired. This is not a Blogosphere of Babel, a Borgesian virtual space of infinite repository of knowledge, but it tries its best to keep some variety in form and content (maybe aim for less variety).

The blog is erratic, kaleidoscopic, relaxed, micro and macroscopic, polyvocal (someone please take away the adjective dictionary). It is also extremely personal, a journey in form of journal into the mind of the blogger, a snapshot of syncretic collages of thought. It is pure bricolage, that artistic form which Rorty insisted was his only talent (don’t even dare make this correlation). The blog is a form of New Media, that which accompanies the different ways in which information has been proliferated after the rise of the internet. It is a particularly interesting genre, though, because it can be like Instagram for the mind, a curated space for freely-chosen, jumbled reflections (so, not so much like Instagram), but also it can be just some light flexing (very much like Instagram) of the mind (oh, nevermind!).

Cavell is one philosopher who sees that aesthetic criticism is also an artform. We have become used to criticism that is inflammatory, bombastic, controversial. The same principles that turned journalistic writing into click-bait misinformation machines turned criticism into a sophistic form of rhetoric, one interested only in generating buzz and, thus, more clicks (more $$). Very few spaces on the internet allow for aesthetic, cultural and philosophical criticism that is honest with itself, that is not interested in saying something for the mere sake of provocation (disclaimer: this post is more joke than it is criticism). A blog presents an ideal space for this kind of artistic, refined criticism while being casual in tone and structure. Not that the writer in question here has mastered this art (duh, far from it). The purpose of this blog is precisely to sharpen my technique, to become a better writer, thinker, critic, and consequently to bring the audience along the ride and learn alongside me the art of thinking about art, philosophy and culture.

Blogging is the ability to talk about anything and make it sounds interesting (evidently, this is not one of those instances).

What if I said the doofus on the parentheses represents the superego? (that would be b.s.)

The blog is less self-contained than a book, it is also more free-flowing, less rigid and rule-based, like jazz improvisations. The blog is also open-ended—a book may have a structure or chapters planned out—whereas you never know what the next topic will be on the blog.

One of the most therapeutic functions of the blog is that it allows the aimless author to find their voice(s). As opposed to other kinds of writing I perform, here I am allowed to be snarky, self-deprecating, cheeky and bare my soul, thoughts, and affections as I please. Bouncing from thought to thought, riding the wave of the mind (*unavailable for comment*).

There are two forces at work when one is writing. One may compare them to the Apollonian and Dionysian detailed vividly by Nietzsche in his first major book The Birth of Tragedy. Apollo is—among other titles—the god of music, and for Nietzsche he represents the spirit in Greek culture that pushes for order, rationality, calculation, parameterization, structure. Dionysius, on the other hand, is the god of wine, that which instills madness, chaos, irrationality, irreverence, passion, dance, intoxication. When the writer is laying their thoughts on the page, they are imbued with the force of Apollo, which is what leads them to edit, to lay down a structure, to construct sentences meticulously. At the same time, the writer is possessed by something, by a force which does not come from a calculated effort, but comes from the intuitive, imaginative, improvisatory side. This is the impulse that Gadamer elucidated not as our possession “of” language but our possession “by” language. This is akin to a possession by a spirit, one that is not the malefic monsters of horror stories, but the spirit of art and philosophy. Dionysius lets the reins go here, allowing the writer to be moved by language and thoughts rather than to frame them geometrically on the page. In other words, it is not only us that willfully think and frame thoughts, but thoughts are also smacked unto us, framed and thought-out. It is aesthetic-cognitive necessity.

This is a similar process which Stanley Cavell called ‘automatism.’ Cavell saw that great artworks produced conforming to certain aesthetic styles (e.g. impressionism, film noir, romanticism) did not necessarily prove the genius of the writer in mastering convention, but actually showed how there is something deeper about conventions that grips and grasps us humans. In other words, the artist becomes possessed by aesthetic necessity when making modernist art—be that surrealist, cubist, pointillist (those who can’t make art, write about it). The artist is not consciously putting point by point, but the convention is gripping them and flowing through their technique. The blog allows for joyful experimentation with both the possession of language and possession by it, both honing technique, sharpening the tools, as well as letting words flow through our blood, electrocuting our brains with jolting lyricism. As Shakespeare suggested, “though this be madness, yet there is method in’t.” The counterpoint also rings true here: though this be method (Apollonian), there is madness (Dionysian) in it.

John Cage positioning nails on his piano to generate cacophonous symphonies.

One may think of the compositions of John Cage here, an avant-garde, modernist composer par excellence. Cage’s most (in)famous piece is 4’33’’. The “music” consists of 4 minutes and 33 seconds of unadulterated silence from the pianist interpreting the piece. The pianist gets up, puts the notation in front of them, sits, unmoved in front of the piano, arms to the side, and after exactly 4 minutes and 33 seconds they close the piano and the audience goes wild in applause. To people who dismiss modernist art without trying to contextualize it, it will seem just like a dumb, all-too-easy provocation akin to Duchamp’s urinal. However, Cage is pointing to us that music becomes an aesthetic experience only when we put our minds to it, and that even the random noises of people ruffling their pockets can become music in a concert hall due to the intentionality of the audience’s act, and the conceptuality of the space channeled by the composer and performer.

Other works by Cage are left to the I Ching to compose, which is an ancient Chinese cosmological philosophy based on mathematical chance. The gist of it is that you can create a system of interpreting the world by flipping coins and constructing probability tables. Each and every note is chosen by the coin, the vicissitudes of Fortune, as well as choosing the force with which they are played. All the notes in these works (entitled Music of Changes) are egoless, pure units of chance; a mechanical, random automatism of destiny, left totally up to chaos to create the aesthetic experience of interspersing sound and silence (in this sense, a perfect blend of the Apollonian and Dionysian). Nonetheless, the performer who sits down to perform these pieces have to perform with the utmost rigidity and focus, leaving nothing to feeling, intuition or improvisation. This blog is a (vain, finite, pitiful) attempt at putting these artistic techniques to work in trying to convey something of interest and provoke some critical thinking.

Evidently, I am having too much fun (wide definition of the word) on this post, (and will have in all others: writing is painfully fun) which means it is way past the time to stop. So sit back, strap in, and enjoy the ride (or choose not to, I will 100% understand that decision, especially after this one).