Comments on: Standing behind your words

By: Sayonara, Siegel the Smug One at Ruminate

Sayonara, Siegel the Smug One at Ruminate — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 05:33:00 +0000

[...] Whatever amount of sympathy I once had for Lee Siegel, former blogger at The New Republic, has largely evaporated after reading his smug, self-satisfied words after the fact… [...]

By: Davided

Davided — Mon, 11 Sep 2006 02:04:35 +0000

“As the author of the blog, Siegel writes from a position of privilege. He can defend his own work from the stage mike without concocting a fake claque to cheer himself.”

Ah, but this is only HALF the story, because the position of privilege is only HALF of what it was. It is true that Siegel, like any blogger, has the stage mike. But blogs with comment sections (particularly those that make those sections prominent for the sake of stickiness) are places where hecklers can grab that mike and shriek anything they please from a position of anonymity. We can argue until the cows come home about the plusses of this sysem, under which there are no more imperial columnists. But those comments sections can also be places for cowards with hidden agendas to indulge in abuse while feigning objectivity.

Am I defending what Lee Siegel wrote? No; I think he kind of lost it. But I can certainly understand how, when faced with abusive anonymous commenters (many inspired to visit his column by nasty bloggers elsewhere), a writer might feel compelled to… I mean, there but for the grace of God…

The answer is moderators. A blog can be a pipeline to the id, and poor Lee Siegel should not have had to deal with the more abusive of those posts at all. Reasoned criticism, sure–bring it on. But not name-calling.

By: Chris L

Chris L — Sat, 09 Sep 2006 01:41:27 +0000

I think you and Jack Shafer both make good points. Is it bad for an author to don a disguise, as Siegel did, and compliment himself? Of course. Is it worse than when anyone else does it? Yes… but not by much.

What I got out of Shafer’s article was a contrarian view in service of raising a good question: is our knee-jerk reaction that what Siegel did is that much worse than other anonymous commenters really accurate? I don’t so. And not because I minimize the stupidity of Siegel’s actions, but because I think people underestimate the bane that is anonymous commenting and what it does to the quality of online dialogue.

You write: “Now anytime you read anything nice posted on a blog about Siegel’s work, you’re going to be wondering, is this a real comment? Or is this Siegel playing games?”

Is this that much worse than what you have to wonder anyway, which is: is this a real comment or just some schmoe playing games, or someone with an axe to grind for no apparent reason, or someone with a connection choosing not to go on the record? In the end it makes all such comments equally valuable… that is to say, worthless.

Trying to expunge the record wasn’t the brightest move on the part of TNR either…