Green shoots
Nov. 15th, 2010 11:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
j4Back to those blasted fragments. I have decided I am simply going to work through them in alphabetical order, and make a decision to either post them (with or without prior reworking), move them (in some cases they shouldn't really have been filed under potential blog posts, because they're just lists of things or drafts of work stuff -- moving them into a more sensibly descriptive location is a good start) or delete them. They're not like fine wines, they're not going to improve with age. I've deleted three or four this evening, mostly lists of things that I've forgotten what they were for, or things I've actually already posted anyway.
Several of the fragments consist of a URL (usually a link to news stories) followed by a bit of commentary/response. In some cases I think I was planning to write a longer response; in other cases I think I just wanted to feel I could reply, but didn't actually want to comment on the story itself (because the people who comment on news stories are always crazy, and by joining them you've already lost the argument, whatever argument you were having and with whom, even if you didn't think you were having an argument). The way the "right to reply" and "have your say" culture have changed the nature of debate and discourse is another story, an article I've half-started in my head ("I have often thought of writing a monograph on the subject..."), but now isn't the time for that.
So, without further ado or context, a recent-ish fragment (October 19th, apparently); I have very little memory of writing it, and am no longer quite sure where I was going with it. (Posting it and simultaneously half-disowning it: having my cake and eating it, I suppose. But I'm eating cake for two, so I think I can get away with that.) Unedited except to make the URL into a link.
Several of the fragments consist of a URL (usually a link to news stories) followed by a bit of commentary/response. In some cases I think I was planning to write a longer response; in other cases I think I just wanted to feel I could reply, but didn't actually want to comment on the story itself (because the people who comment on news stories are always crazy, and by joining them you've already lost the argument, whatever argument you were having and with whom, even if you didn't think you were having an argument). The way the "right to reply" and "have your say" culture have changed the nature of debate and discourse is another story, an article I've half-started in my head ("I have often thought of writing a monograph on the subject..."), but now isn't the time for that.
So, without further ado or context, a recent-ish fragment (October 19th, apparently); I have very little memory of writing it, and am no longer quite sure where I was going with it. (Posting it and simultaneously half-disowning it: having my cake and eating it, I suppose. But I'm eating cake for two, so I think I can get away with that.) Unedited except to make the URL into a link.
http://www.dothegreenthing.com/blog/unconsumption_does_not_think_you_are_ridiculous
The problem with using advertising to sell "things which are actually good" (let's assume for the moment that we've solved the problem of defining 'good') is that advertising is at best amoral (and at worst immoral, cf the tobacco advertising industry). If you're on a moral crusade, is it OK to use amoral/immoral tactics -- or do they cheapen your message? Does the end justify the means? The church seems to have already had this bout of conscience-wrestling and decided that it's fine to mimic commercials to get their message across, and in doing so it has stepped off a pedestal (admittedly one which it had already been more or less knocked off).
By putting yourself in the advertising marketplace, you're admitting that you are _no better_ than anything else that's out there -- if you're happy to let the market decide then you're abdicating your moral high ground. Brand value may go down as well as up -- one day people will buy your message, the next day they'll see a better advert and buy a coke instead.
