My favorite line in Patrick Groneman’s account of a group of Buddhist meditators’ attempt to bear witness, by just sitting, amidst the rival armies of 9-11 protestors in downtown New York City (anti-mosque, pro-mosque, et al) is the passer-by yelling
“This is New York, don’t just sit there…stand up and say what you believe in.”
Which made me think: Isn’t that what blogging is — everyone standing up and waving their beliefs for everyone else to see?
Ideally, of course, it isn’t that. Saying something is only one part of communicating; listening is the second, and attending to the ecology of speaking and thinking — the links made up of one’s interlocutors, the things spoken of and those left unsaid, the feeling and impulse giving rise to the speaking, and so on — is the third.
Nathan at Dangerous Harvests has a good wrap-up of the debates over Socially Engaged Buddhism that have followed this summer’s symposium on that topic. (See also Fly Like a Crow.)
Meanwhile, this video, shared by Santi Tafarella, stages the encounter between the “two Americas” in a way that leaves me a little uncomfortable (because of the ethical issues the experiment raises) but that at least gives us some figures: 6 for (racism), 13 against (and willing to act in defense of a Muslim American’s rights), and 22 not willing to stand up and say what they believe, or much of anything. That’s a majority. Definitely not New York.
Blogging is all about writing a daily dairy and sharing our views with others.
Skholiast takes up the theme of this post very nicely in his meditation on blogging, philosophy, attention spans, and patience/impatience. Philosophy, and genuine thought, most certainly require time and patience, which is difficult amidst the yelling of rival demonstrators (whether pro- or anti-mosque or pro- or anti- Derrida, OOO, anthropogenic climate change, or whatever else). If the blogosphere is the passer-by’s New York, then the least we (the philosophically inclined) can do is to make it a little more… well, like Vermont.
Perhaps that’s what Semion is getting at with his “daily dairy.” (Though he might just mean “diary.”) I’ll think about it some more as I go out to milk the cows.