Showing the pictures

Stop me if you’ve heard this one. A man goes to a psychiatrist’s office. The psychiatrist shows the man a series of ink blots. “What do you see when I show you this picture?” says the psychiatrist.

“A man and a woman having sex”.

“This one?”

“Man and woman having sex”.

“How about this one?”

“A man and a woman having sex”.

“And this one?”

“A man and a woman having sex”.

“Don’t you think about anything other than sex?” remarks the psychiatrist.

“You’re the one showing the dirty pictures” responds the man.

The Left Blogosphere is fuming about an article in the Washington Post from which one could reasonably take away the conclusion that the Left Blogosphere was entirely and exclusively about rage and venom. There have been several different reactions to the article. Note: as a rule an angry retort is probably not the most effective method of convincing people that you’re not entirely and exclusively about rage and venom. It’s an unjust world.

The first reaction is “Tu quoque”. For example, Glenn Greenwald notes:

There is no question that there is anger and even some extremist rhetoric on the Left. But no sane person could deny that one finds the same type of mindset on the Right, but to a magnitude that is incalculable. The real difference is that, to find rank hatemongering on the Right, one need not go digging into the 300th Comment on a blog or the most extreme postings of a relatively obscure blogger, because this type of limitless rhetorical attack has been a staple of the mainstream Right for more or less two decades now.

The Right’s best-selling author calls liberals traitors and urges that they be beaten with baseball bats and attacked with bombs. Its most popular radio talk show host — with his 20 million daily followers — has spent the last 20 years urging that liberals be deported and praising the kidnappings of his political opponents, while other favorites on Right-wing radio routinely call for the imprisonment of leading Democrats. Similarly, some of the Right’s favorite commentators have urged that those who espouse liberalism be tried for sedition, or worse.

One favorite right-wing commentator has written two books – one devoted to showing that liberals are mentally ill, and the other defending the internment of innocent American citizens in prison camps. The Right’s leading elected officials and pundits just in the last couple of years have repeatedly taken to threatening federal judges who issue opinions they dislike.

The other typical response is that it’s justified. That response is typified by this post from Shakespeare’s Sister at Ezra Klein’s place:

I am bloody angry as hell because the Republicans are in control of Washington, but it’s because of what they’re doing in their leadership role, not simply because the Democrats are not in control or because conservatives are nasty. I blog because their leadership is thoroughly incompetent, corrupt, untrustworthy, and beholden to corporate and conservative Christian interests that are bad for me as a worker, a consumer, a believer in the separation of church and state, and a woman who values her bodily autonomy—and bad for the LGBT community, the poor, the ill lacking healthcare, undocumented workers, public school children, and lots and lots of other people, not to mention bad for our civil rights, the environment, national security, the economy, our international reputation, etc. etc. etc.

Or, you’re the one showing the pictures.

There’s another possible response and I’m surprised that I haven’t seen it yet: so what? Yes, there are those in the Left Blogosphere who are angry. That’s how how you get noticed in the blogosphere. Yes, there’s plenty of room in the blogosphere for reasonable, rational, temperate posts and there are any number of such blogs in the Left Blogosphere. Josh Marshall and Matthew Yglesias leap to mind. Or Eric Martin. Or Ezra Klein.

But, in general, it’s a good way to languish unread.

As of this morning the #2 blog in TTLB Ecosystem is Michelle Malkin’s and #3 is Daily Kos. Both blogs operate largely on outrage. You can defend the outrage, explain it, or justify it but what’s undoubted is it is there. And it cultivates a following.

To his credit the #1 blog in TTLB Ecosystem, Glenn Reynolds’s Instapundit is not primarily fueled by outrage.

For the record I read roughly equal numbers of Left Blogosphere blogs, Right Blogosphere blogs and centrist blogs. I find the latter the most congenial and am most likely to leave comments on them.