DUCKPOND

Don’t get me wrong, I think it is great when people comment, and usually I comment on their comments. I would sometimes appreciate comments, especially on those occasions, and there are quite a number, when I do not know as much as I would like about a subject, and am thinking “what hav’nt I included here that is relevant and important”, or when I have tried to describe something, usually some medical ailment or experience, and I am wondering , “have I described this circumstance, adequately.” In the first case that is inevitably so, and in the second there are some for whom it seems grammar is the point of writing rather than let it subtend good writing because it works for the intended reader^1..

My conscious policy is always to encourage comments. But my purpose is never to write to attract comments per se. I don’t care for those blogs, or post writers, that are written for the gathering of adherents that attack others in a spirit of religious fervour. It is better, in my opinion, to have a monologue than a discussion, and you are supposed to observe that word is close etymologically to “percussion”. Whatever political position is held, it is diminished by arguing against the person, over generalization, and all the rest of the techniques. At the same time, I realize I as much as anybody is likely to fall into these mistakes from time to time. If you point it out to me I will try and recognize my folly, or more likely try to explain what I meant to say.

My purpose is usually political, if not obviously so. For example, the title of this blog, indirectly (as least in my mind) refers to duckspeak. But mostly I write about stuff that I happen to be interested in, and I am always curious if other people are interested as well. I am not an expert on anything. But, I am not going to let that stop me. Firstly it fun to write freely, as if words were like paint on a canvas, with the option to push the boundaries, while thinking reflectively in another corner of my brain, I may have a reader. Secondly, I am one of those who has not thought anything or have an opinion until I have written it down, mostly because I am too calculated in what I say, which translates to saying as little as possible in most situations, worst still not being able to think of the appropriate thing to say.

Having set out some qualifications, there is simply the affrontery to writing something. I think, much like the Quakers in their meetings, it is the democratic spirit, in the belief that god can speak through any member of congregation, or like the Athenians when it comes to ship building we should listen to the ship builders, or in a modern democracy when it comes to citizenship, we might listen to the citizens. It is a worrying problem that while god may speak through any of us, understanding and speaking may not be directly correlated.

So for me this blog can live without comments. Realistically, I do not expect them. Generally it is true, as I have suggested before, there is a relationship between a threshold number of readers and comments. I suspect that this threshold, he says without any evidence whatsoever, might be having a minimum of 100 or 200 readers. I fall far short of the twenty visitors I aspire to in my wildest expectations. Such numbers of readers are beyond my competence, and that attention might change the nature of the exercise.

Footnote.
^1. The Federal Minister for Education is attempting to take over responsibility for secondary school curricula, currently held by the various State Government authorities. One of the quotes, that formed part of the spin, was the assertiong that some Law Schools were having to provide “remedial grammar”.

Now the go-to bloggers in relation to such matters for me are Andrew Norton and Andrew Leigh.