Geras vs. Kamm on Blogging

Further to my post on New stories and Blogs, Norman Geras (who writes in defence of blogs) has kindly posted an article on Aquinas on blogging which gives a link to various posts in which he defends blogs (political blogging in particular):

• Blogging as a democratic resource - a response to a post by Oliver Kamm


• In defence of political blogging - a further response to Kamm's views


• Blogging sui generis - yet another response to Oliver Kamm


• Long live the blogosphere


• The culture of the blogosphere - a response to Joan Smith (post no longer available on the Indy's blog). More responses to her on The Dailey Ablution

I'm with Norm on this one, his arguments are much more persuasive. Kamm uses a political blog to put forward his arguments, so one can assume that the arguments he uses against political blogging do not apply to him - very much a case of special pleading. If my assumption is false, why does Kamm write on a political blog? [Note: Kamm is not against all blogs, he makes this clear in an update at the end of this article.]

This isn't to say that Kamm's views are totally off beam - I think there are instances where (as Geras points out) the behaviour of some bloggers and commentators to blog is nothing short of appalling (e.g. an anti-Semitic post on Cif which I will not link to even if I had time to find it again). Norm points out that this is a failure not so much of blogging, but the standard of behaviour expected on them (a lot less than say a public meeting).

But isn't this an argument of free speech? If an argument on a blog is poor, relying on poor or no evidence, can we not use a blog to shoot it down? I quote Geras "And no one is forced to be a consumer" - you are free to ignore blogs.

More links to this issue:

• Daniel Finkelstein responds to Kamm.


• Stephen Pollard responds to Kamm.


• Mr Eugenides has a very short reponse to Kamm.


• Anonymous reponse to the Kamm/Geras dialogue.


• Calcum Carr responds to Kamm.


• Quaequam Blog responds to Kamm.


• Jon Worth responds to Kamm.

Footnote: the post was in response to is Philosophy good for the soul?, which is where the reference to Thomas Aquinas in Norms blog comes from.