Nick Lewis: The Blog

In response to my earlier post, Katharine from Cut to the Chase brings up some very compelling theories on what causes the stark inequality of press attention for female bloggers.

We seem to basically agree about the no-girls-allowed-in-the-AV-club-effect. However, after reading over Katharine’s points, I realized that I had grossly oversimplified the matter. Anyhow, I wanted to highlight and discuss these points in detail. (note: bold text denotes Katharine’s words)

a) politics especially is seen as "dirty" business and there's still a certain stereotype about women in "dirty" discussions, projects, businesses, etc.

- I’d mostly agree that this is a significant factor. However, I think that this “don’t curse around the lady…” quasi-paternal attitude is perhaps irreversibly ingrained the majority of men born before 1950ish; and these days, is only perpetuated by those who fall under the labels, “traditionalist”, and “conservative”.

David Weinberger informs us that the first BlogHer Conference will occur this July, in Santa Clara, CA. This "first of its kind" conference hopes to provide an opportunity for the female blogging community to meet in person.

Politics is a strong and slow boring of hard boards.

First, a general chat on states.

Politics is any kind of leadership in action (Class, Status, Party: remember, social clubs and grad school cohorts can have parties, just as states can). For this lecture, we will understand politics as the leadership or influencing the leadership of a political association, today (1918) a state.

The decisive means of politics is violence.

A state is defined by the specific means peculiar to it, the use of physical force. The state is a human community that successfully claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory. Politics, then, means striving to share power or striving to influence the distribution of power, either among states or among groups within a state. The state is a relation of men dominating men by means of legitimate violence (you already know the three ways it can get legitimated, so I'm not telling you). Leaders may arise on those three foundations as well.

How do the politically dominant powers maintain that dominance? Organized domination calls for continuous administration, requires that human conduct be conditioned to obedience to the power-bearers. It requires control over the material goods necessary for the use of physical violence. Thus, it requires control of the personal executive staff and the material implements of administration. All states may be classified by whether the staff of men themselves owns the administrative means, or whether they are separated from it (necesse. for bureaucracy).

This is perhaps my favorite of all of George Orwell's political essays. I strongly encourage even those with a blogger-sized-attention-spans to read it. For me, at least, there is no piece of writing which has had a more profound impact on the way I see the world.

By George OrwellMay, 1945 

Somewhere or other Byron makes use of the French word longeur, and remarks in passing that though in England we happen not to have the word, we have the thing in considerable profusion. In the same way, there is a habit of mind which is now so widespread that it affects our thinking on nearly every subject, but which has not yet been given a name. As the nearest existing equivalent I have chosen the word "nationalism", but it will be seen in a moment that I am not using it in quite the ordinary sense, if only because the emotion I am speaking about does not always attach itself to what is called a nation -- that is, a single race or a geographical area. It can attach itself to a church or a class, or it may work in a merely negative sense, against something or other and without the need for any positive object of loyalty.

By "nationalism" I mean first of all the habit of assuming that human beings can be classified like insects and that whole blocks of millions or tens of millions of people can be confidently labelled "good" or "bad." But secondly -- and this is much more important -- I mean the habit of identifying oneself with a single nation or other unit, placing it beyond good and evil and recognizing no other duty than that of advancing its interests. Nationalism is not to be confused with patriotism. Both words are normally used in so vague a way that any definition is liable to be challenged, but one must draw a distinction between them, since two different and even opposing ideas are involved. By "patriotism" I mean devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life, which one believes to be the best in the world but has no wish to force on other people. Patriotism is of its nature defensive, both militarily and culturally. Nationalism, on the other hand, is inseperable from the desire for power. The abiding purpose of every nationalist is to secure more power and more prestige, not for himself but for the nation or other unit in which he has chosen to sink his own individuality.