Allow myself to introduce myself, by way of an extraordinary statement that I almost, but not quite, believe.
By nature, blogging is inherently pornographic in the Baudrillardian sense. Blogging is an almost neurotic exposing of oneself to the scrutiny of strangers unmet. On the internet, there is too much information available; in your RSS reader, too much labor is alienated from the body of the laborer.
By blogging, you participate in creating information overload for the rest of us. I for one am daily paralyzed by the ‘whelming tide of photos and words that are aggragated and linked together. HTML marks up data. The internet displays that data. Google creates enought context to turn the data into information. But we have yet to arrive at what we’re after in, the prize gained by whacking through the paralysis and blocking the noise–knowledge. For we’re in a knowledge economy, and the wisdom gained from knowledge secures our person in this age.
So, given what I’ve already remarked, why the hell am I blogging about it?
I’m no Derrida, and this post isn’t under erasure. The above isn’t quite true, in that there is great value in the insightful blog entry. Insight points to knowledge, and since we’re after knowledge, then hope appears again for the blogger and the reader. Furthermore, blogs have the wonderful aspect of community about them, which in best form takes a bit of knowledge and expands upon it, opening up new meanings and providing more complete usage.
I keep my cards close to my chest and give you my polished thoughts, like a good little rhetorician.
By practicing this rhetoric and adroitly thinking through what is going on around me in the space of law, .NET, and computer science, I hope to avoid alienation from my labors as an application developer at a mid-size Southeastern law firm and bring a worthwhile thought to you, dear reader.
Enjoy, comment, and critique. Keep thinking—I’ll be doing the same right here.
Oh, the hanging question of the post title: I’ll keep the first two words uncommented upon, since they form part of the fun, gamey, semantic web of meaning of my blog’s name. I used software pr0n simply because it shocks the eyes a bit, and it aptly describes the way we look at what we write sometimes, getting too caught up in the awkward details and losing the thing-in-itself.
November 2nd, 2004 | Philosophy