bare naked mud wrestling ... titties ... the point of it?

friends:

you ever wondered about the point of bare naked mud wrestling, involving young ladies with ample bosoms.  besides the obvious point, that it is fun to watch, even if not to be a participant.  but, what larger point is being made by the activity.  why?

well, i am feeling that way this day about political blogging.

i am a small potatoes blog.  large blogs will have more readers drop by in a day or two that i have experienced in a year and a half.  i would like to think, however, that what i do contributes in some small way in the overall effort to maintain our freedoms and our liberties.

but, today i am discouraged.

and, that is because i think the blogging is more like bare naked mud wrestling than it is an activity with a point to make.  oh, they is lots of accusation and counter accusation and heated disputation over this or that arcana, ... , but the why of it all, what difference it makes in a political, social, and, more importantly moral, ethical and philosophical plane seems to get pretty short shrift on a day to day basis.  people, and i mean bloggers, seem (somewhat naturally i suppose) to focus on the dramatic events of the day, without adding much context in a larger sense.

in other words, why? gets thrown by the wayside.

little bloggers like me sort of live and die off of what are called links.  that means bigger bloggers nod at us, give us an attaboy, and suggest to their regular readers to give little guys a look.  on an ordinary day, left to my own devices, my readership runs in the 10's.  not thousands, the 10's.  a link from a front liner blog, however, might mean as many as 2,500 person drop by the blog in a day for a look, and a read.

yes, it is ego gratifying for several days.

but, more importantly, some of my ideas and insights get a wider circulation, which is really the point of my entire involvement in this activity.  and, when it seems to me good ideas go unrecognized, (and, admittedly, we are talking about my ideas here, or at least i am talking about that, and that is the point!!), it is frustrating.

so it is on the dostoevsky pieces, my comments on them, and on the emma goldman piece.  bupkis.  i cannot get bupkis on those pieces, no attention at all from the bigger blogs.  i would love for these pieces to be read by a wider audience, but as a small blogger i do not have the reach i think that these pieces deserve.  they seem to me, trying to be as critical and objective as possible, to be well written pieces: hell, fyodor mikhailovich dostoevsky wrote two of them!!!

and, with regard to dostoevsky, they are wonderful excerpts, because they give us dostoevsky's views on free will in the individual, and the countervailing tendency of societies to want to suppress that free will, sometimes this being of evil dimension.  in the excerpt from what is commonly known as the "grand inquisitor's" scene from the "brothers karamazov," the grant inquisitor, the cardinal of seville, lays out the justification and inducements used by almost all totalitarian states to exert total control over their subjects, at the expense of their liberties.  the inquisitor tells g_d/jesus incarnate, that he has given manbread and sin in exchange for man giving up free choice, and that man is happier and materially better off because of it.  the grand inquisitor tell g_d that piety and rectitude may appeal to a small group, but that g_d will never be able to compete for the mass of people since he has withheld from man the guarantee of bread, and has demanded that man be accountable for sin, since it is a matter of choice.

friends, this is important stuff, now as when dostoevsky wrote it.  and, they don't seem to be teaching dostoevsky very much any more, though the inquisitor's view gets plenty of airtime.  admit it, which have you done more in the past year, read dostoevsky, or look at heath ledger's bottom or brittany spear's breasts?

in my view, that is what contemporary radical leftist thought offers society, e.g., the freedom from consciousness about sin, and material well being, in exchange for giving up liberties and free speech.

i think it a valid and valuable insight.  perhaps not original (anybody who has ever read dostoevsky, for instance, has been exposed to it), but one worth repeating and one worth considering by the public.

and, i can get no blogger to give me a link.  they are indifferent to the point i am making.

in my view, unless we have some idea what it is we are fight over and about, unless we can have some notion of the larger issues involved, such as freedom & liberty versus collectivist total rule, ... , then we really don't know what the fight is all about.

and in that case, it is reduced to watching bare naked young ladies with ample bosoms and precious little good sense, roll around in the mud, and occasionally satisfy our prurient interests.  in my view, there is nothing wrong with that, but it is not political discourse.  and, in my view, political discourse without some view towards the ultimate ends of political life, and political life, is not political discourse.  it is watching pulchritudinous young ladies get muddy.

john jay @ 08.13.2009

Comments

[Orlando]

John,

You are the best web essayist I've read on the web. I'm saddened to see you go unappreciated. I am one of those regular 10s of readers. Thank you for your authorship.

Sincerely,
Orlando

[john jay]

orlando:

thank you very much for your very kind remarks.

i guess i better keep writing, in that case.

again, thank you. it is very much appreciated.

john jay

[Davin]

I personally do not think you are merely one of those 'pulchritudinous young ladies getting muddy' but rather a nightwatchmen pointing towards wisdom in a age that has too little concept sadly of wisdom.

You have become apart of my brain food menu, and are up there on my personal list with Pam at atlas.

Keep on keeping on eh,

Davin

[john jay]

true religion jeans outlet:

i appreciate your letter.

especially since i wrote it. laughing. but, at least you went to the trouble to copy/excerpt it, so your letter stays.

even if it is, more or less, me writing to me. but, hey, i agree with me!!

laughing.

so, you stay, this time.

john jay