No more "carnivals"
I have a mission now. Probably won't be able to hang the "Mission Accomplished" sign anytime soon, since I let the world of corporate blogging steal too long a march on me, but this mission has one goal:
Promote individualism in blogging.
Concomitantly, I will also work the reverse:
Fight corporate blogging.
Bear with me here.
The "blogosphere" works as the world's best information source because it is made up of millions of individuals, blogging individually. When bloggers assemble their work onto corporate blogging sites, for whatever reason, blogging suffers as the last resort of individual expression (and it really is, admit it).
I watched as individuals invited and searched out contributors to their blogs, and made up collective posts from these other bloggers, and gave those posts a generic nickname. Those posts became known as "carnivals". I don't object to them. I began to write one myself, right here, and cross-posted it on my main blog. "Carnivals" are a good way to get a lot of information in one place.
Then, along comes a blogger, naming himself Conservative Cat, who wants all the "carnivals" to be linked through his site. Offers "convenience", says the dude. It does, really. If you like the "carnival" format, he links to many of them, so all you have to have is his one URL, and you can find most of the "carnivals".
Most of them, not all of them. You won't find Carnival of The Curmudgeons there, because I refused to post it there. My "Carnival" was a vehicle for accumulating fine writing written by, or in the style of, Curmudgeons. It took me about 3-4 hours a week to compile, but I probably won't compile another, because the very idea of "carnivals" has been hijacked by Conservative Cat, who has a big enough ego to want the entire genre of writing to go through his site.
I was wrong to put the title of "Carnival" on my posts, because I didn't invent the term, and failed to research who did and then give proper due. I apologize for that.
Conservative Cat owes us an apology, too, unless HE INVENTED the term "Carnival" (a claim he has never made).
He has no moral claim for what he wants to do, and lacking such a claim, is just another corporate collectivist, improving his own fortunes by dint of the creative work of others, without offering adequate recompense.
If any of you "carnival" writers or even "carnival" readers come across this post, you might be as surprised at it as are the two good bloggers commenting in the last post.
If those two guys knew me AND my philosophy, they wouldn't be surprised.
There are two forces at work to obliterate individualism, which is the source of creativity. Those forces are the forces of collectivist government and collectivist corporate greed. Most consider corporate greed to be a necessary evil of capitalism, but that is the one point I disagree with Ayn Rand on. She writes of individualist giants in the Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, but she fails to condemn the force that works hardest against individual creativity, corporate collectivism.
Many corporate leaders have tried to harness individual creativity to pull corporate wagons, and some have done better than others, but none have succeeded. None of the creative individuals in those corporations will tell you that they are as satisfied working for the corporation as they are when they are working for themselves.
Support of collectivism is why we are taxed. Support of collectivism should NEVER be the reason why we write creatively.
Promote individualism in blogging.
Concomitantly, I will also work the reverse:
Fight corporate blogging.
Bear with me here.
The "blogosphere" works as the world's best information source because it is made up of millions of individuals, blogging individually. When bloggers assemble their work onto corporate blogging sites, for whatever reason, blogging suffers as the last resort of individual expression (and it really is, admit it).
I watched as individuals invited and searched out contributors to their blogs, and made up collective posts from these other bloggers, and gave those posts a generic nickname. Those posts became known as "carnivals". I don't object to them. I began to write one myself, right here, and cross-posted it on my main blog. "Carnivals" are a good way to get a lot of information in one place.
Then, along comes a blogger, naming himself Conservative Cat, who wants all the "carnivals" to be linked through his site. Offers "convenience", says the dude. It does, really. If you like the "carnival" format, he links to many of them, so all you have to have is his one URL, and you can find most of the "carnivals".
Most of them, not all of them. You won't find Carnival of The Curmudgeons there, because I refused to post it there. My "Carnival" was a vehicle for accumulating fine writing written by, or in the style of, Curmudgeons. It took me about 3-4 hours a week to compile, but I probably won't compile another, because the very idea of "carnivals" has been hijacked by Conservative Cat, who has a big enough ego to want the entire genre of writing to go through his site.
I was wrong to put the title of "Carnival" on my posts, because I didn't invent the term, and failed to research who did and then give proper due. I apologize for that.
Conservative Cat owes us an apology, too, unless HE INVENTED the term "Carnival" (a claim he has never made).
He has no moral claim for what he wants to do, and lacking such a claim, is just another corporate collectivist, improving his own fortunes by dint of the creative work of others, without offering adequate recompense.
If any of you "carnival" writers or even "carnival" readers come across this post, you might be as surprised at it as are the two good bloggers commenting in the last post.
If those two guys knew me AND my philosophy, they wouldn't be surprised.
There are two forces at work to obliterate individualism, which is the source of creativity. Those forces are the forces of collectivist government and collectivist corporate greed. Most consider corporate greed to be a necessary evil of capitalism, but that is the one point I disagree with Ayn Rand on. She writes of individualist giants in the Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, but she fails to condemn the force that works hardest against individual creativity, corporate collectivism.
Many corporate leaders have tried to harness individual creativity to pull corporate wagons, and some have done better than others, but none have succeeded. None of the creative individuals in those corporations will tell you that they are as satisfied working for the corporation as they are when they are working for themselves.
Support of collectivism is why we are taxed. Support of collectivism should NEVER be the reason why we write creatively.
posted by Rivrdog at 9:18 PM
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