Having set up this site, I guess I'm struck by an immediate hesitancy. It's too grandiose to call it "writer's block", it's more like wondering whether there's any real point in broadcasting out into space ... and wondering whether anyone can hear you scream?
I'm struck (once again) by the huge difference between we Australians and Americans in general. The saying that "we're nations divided by a common language" springs to mind.
And in regard to the Blog factor, it's something about an assumption by Americans that everyone out there is actually intensely interested in what one might have to say. The whole American cultural attitude seems to place such a huge emphasis on the right of the individual to assert himself. And consequently, a whole nation of people are bred with the instinct to declaim their ideas on the assumption that because the individual is paramount, then every individual's ideas are paramount and must be shared.
The "Oprah-isation" of American society reaches maximum democratic fulfillment with this bloggy on-line medium - suddenly there's a way for everybody to shout, confess, share, explore, and psychoanalyse themselves, publicly and simultaneously.
Who's left to listen?
(I have also to make an apology... I use the term "American" as shorthand for the kind of confessional look-at-me Jerry Springer cultural approach that pervades much of the world. Actually, I take back the apology - know that it's not all America or Americans, but you guys invented it, nourished it, gave it money and airtime, turned people's innermost pain and public catharsis into entertainment, and turned it loose on the world.
Guess what? We like it. Or at least a whole lot of us do. Otherwise, I wouldn't be able to turn on TV in a country town 6 hours drive into outback Australia and see "I Slept With My Mother's Sister".
Given that it's a defining characteristic of American culture, it also gets under the skin and mindset of the virtual world, which has been principally spawned from the USA. I'm not saying this in a derogatory sense, just an observed anthropological view-point. And an undisciplined, opinionated, qualitative one at that!)
I'm struck (once again) by the huge difference between we Australians and Americans in general. The saying that "we're nations divided by a common language" springs to mind.
And in regard to the Blog factor, it's something about an assumption by Americans that everyone out there is actually intensely interested in what one might have to say. The whole American cultural attitude seems to place such a huge emphasis on the right of the individual to assert himself. And consequently, a whole nation of people are bred with the instinct to declaim their ideas on the assumption that because the individual is paramount, then every individual's ideas are paramount and must be shared.
The "Oprah-isation" of American society reaches maximum democratic fulfillment with this bloggy on-line medium - suddenly there's a way for everybody to shout, confess, share, explore, and psychoanalyse themselves, publicly and simultaneously.
Who's left to listen?
(I have also to make an apology... I use the term "American" as shorthand for the kind of confessional look-at-me Jerry Springer cultural approach that pervades much of the world. Actually, I take back the apology - know that it's not all America or Americans, but you guys invented it, nourished it, gave it money and airtime, turned people's innermost pain and public catharsis into entertainment, and turned it loose on the world.
Guess what? We like it. Or at least a whole lot of us do. Otherwise, I wouldn't be able to turn on TV in a country town 6 hours drive into outback Australia and see "I Slept With My Mother's Sister".
Given that it's a defining characteristic of American culture, it also gets under the skin and mindset of the virtual world, which has been principally spawned from the USA. I'm not saying this in a derogatory sense, just an observed anthropological view-point. And an undisciplined, opinionated, qualitative one at that!)
posted by michael at
8:30 PM
