perfidy

I'm not talking about Terri Schiavo, nor am I talking about the Pope (who, being Polish and therefore tougher than leather probably has a good twenty years left in him no matter how grim things seem now). I'm talking about the passing of sometime Ministry commentor Patton of Opinion8.net from blogging. Disgusted by the dorky slap-fights generated by the Schiavo affair (about which he posted in typically thoughtful manner), he's done.

But like Mr. Lileks, I've grown weary of it. Always one to check the pulse of his audience and act on it, Ace (also linked to your right) created "The Flame War Thread". The purely made-up invective slung about on that thread was cathartic enough (though I didn't participate) to distract me from the sinking feeling that, for some time to come, commentary on the internet is going to be dominated by precisely the form of crap of which Lileks despairs.

I'm with Lileks. Watching otherwise agreeable folks arguing as though they know the answer to an utterly unanswerable question has convinced me that it's not worth waiting for the invective to quit flowing. A bunch of folks whom I thought could rationally discuss their way to agreement, or at least to a polite consensus on how to avoid unpleasantness, have proven to me that my judgment was flawed. Too many folks, though thankfully still a minority, are taking this "new medium" thing way too seriously, becoming pompous and pronunciatory, and seem actually to believe their own shit.

While Lileks will be back sometime later in April, I won't, other than as a reader of the excellent sites listed to the right. Mr. Lileks' piece triggered the realization for me: I just don't care to add to the chum already in the water. I've never had pretense to knowing it all. Damned if that doesn't put me out of place in the slice of the 'sphere I've been hanging around. Some other day, in some different forum, about different subject matter, perhaps, but no more for me in this one. The internet will soldier on just fine, even absent my sporadic commentary, just as the creators intended.

Many thanks to those of you who've been kind enough to read, comment, and link.

I hope he decides at some point in the future to return. He doesn't write much, but he writes so well. Good luck to ya, you Ohiotexan jerkwad.

With affection,
The Ministry