The Wide Wide World of Blogging, Roman Circus or Italian Renaissance?
Bloggers are at extremes highly competitive and secretive, and cooperative and sharing. Indeed the dichotomy between the different attitudes to blogging are becoming polarised in the two extremes. Are bloggers the equivalent of gladiators in the roman arena, or are they the intellectual equivalent of the great renaissance artists and philosophers who believed in sharing and developing ideas together?
It is true that the internet offers a media for instantaneously sharing and discussing all things under the sun, but at times we are jealous and petty about the trading of ideas, calls of plagiarism and I was here first, are becoming more prevalent in the blogging community. Whilst we all want to have an opinion on a subject the very real phenomena of plagiarism is on the increase, and many lazy bloggers are utilising it to build up content. There are those, however, and I count myself amongst them proudly, who believe that there is nothing new under the sun, and that all we can offer is our own unique perspective. I take ideas from other blogs, some ideas I generate spontaneously, only to discover at some point in the future that another had already written, almost identical, articles to mine. Plagiarism is being drowned in a vast sea of people who are getting online and blogging.
Can we ever be truly original? I don’t think so, or at least only in very specialist and advanced studies, say physics or pure mathematics, and the number of people being truly original in those fields are few and far between. What we are doing, by posting our thoughts, or tips and tricks is acting as an editor to the collective unconscious. We are refining, polishing and representing ideas and thoughts which exist in the minds of millions of others. I believe that the blog is the single most important cultural invention since the printing press for the dissemination of ideas and information. We are participating in the modern renaissance, and every effort should be made by all responsible members of our community to remain free from censor and hindrance.
Image by Nejron
February 20th, 2008 at 11:11 pm
i must say the banner looks so beatiful thanks for the share.