Blogging anxiety and post-naive abandonment

2007-12-05T17:44:37Z

As we all know by now, there are manifest anxieties associated with the practice of blogging. The most common one being the stress of feeling as if one hasn't "updated" the blog recently. Biella Coleman offers the non-intuitive theory that not updating is a virtue. (She kindly refers to the moribund state of this blog as an example.) Another perennial issue is those who throw off the burden of blogging and declare that while it caught their interest for a time, they are done with it, such as Peter Krapp's recent "Top Ten Reasons I Don't Blog Anymore". Inspired by a common theological turn, I think of this as a "post-naive" blog declaration. Marcus Borg, a liberal theologian, argues that many people will go through three phases of religious belief: naivete (a superstitious child), critical (a skeptical adult), and post-critical naivete (an open heart). (Neil Gillman has noted a similar theory of transition in Abraham Heschel's "situational thinking," Gabriel Marcel's "secondary reflection," and Paul Ricoeur's "second" or "willed naivete".) Therefore, I often expect that after the initial flush of excitement with blogging, subsequent anxiety and abandonment, there will come a time when the "post-critical" blogger will post again without worry about site statistics, updates, and ego. On another "blog," (though it had daily content, photos, audio programs and such before blogs, flickr, and podcasts), I've asked the robots to please pass on by ("User-Agent: * Disallow: ") and presently post to it about once a month. I'm quite happy with that.

Joseph Reagle

Blogging anxiety and post-naive abandonment