Pride and Blogging
David Bayly does an excellent post today on blogging and it's temptations.
"Not only are numbers important to bloggers, the more you blog the more you want other bloggers to link to your blog. The result is a self-referential series of quid pro quos wherein we mention other bloggers positively and link to them so that they will in turn mention and link to us. More often than not, this circularity is accompanied by rather obsequious expressions of praise from smaller blogs to more noteworthy bloggers in the apparent hope that the more prominent blog will link back to the lesser-known blog--a form of vassal-lord status in which the vassal blog renders fealty and honor and lord grants a place in the penbumbra of his blogging glory.
Thus you find a certain circularity to many blogs. They become self-reinforcing systems of mutual admiration.
Because pride is a constant temptation to bloggers who pay attention to links and stats I've made certain decisions about my approach to this blog. First, I'm no longer checking our stats. If I don't know how few people view this blog each day, I'm not disappointed and my pride isn't bruised if we decline (and bruised pride is still sinful pride). Conversely, if I never see how many are reading the blog, I won't be as likely to derive pride from increased numbers."
Of course, by linking to David, I am reinforcing the circularity, bowing as his vassal, and bolstering my pride.
That, and preaching to myself.
NECESSARY ADD ON: Evangelical Outpost's Joe Carter adds his "confessional" two cents here.
"Not only are numbers important to bloggers, the more you blog the more you want other bloggers to link to your blog. The result is a self-referential series of quid pro quos wherein we mention other bloggers positively and link to them so that they will in turn mention and link to us. More often than not, this circularity is accompanied by rather obsequious expressions of praise from smaller blogs to more noteworthy bloggers in the apparent hope that the more prominent blog will link back to the lesser-known blog--a form of vassal-lord status in which the vassal blog renders fealty and honor and lord grants a place in the penbumbra of his blogging glory.
Thus you find a certain circularity to many blogs. They become self-reinforcing systems of mutual admiration.
Because pride is a constant temptation to bloggers who pay attention to links and stats I've made certain decisions about my approach to this blog. First, I'm no longer checking our stats. If I don't know how few people view this blog each day, I'm not disappointed and my pride isn't bruised if we decline (and bruised pride is still sinful pride). Conversely, if I never see how many are reading the blog, I won't be as likely to derive pride from increased numbers."
Of course, by linking to David, I am reinforcing the circularity, bowing as his vassal, and bolstering my pride.
That, and preaching to myself.
NECESSARY ADD ON: Evangelical Outpost's Joe Carter adds his "confessional" two cents here.
posted on 7/07/2005 | permalink | more bloggy goodness
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2 Comments:
People admiring one another isn't all bad, is it? Seems like a happy state of affairs in a world not always suffused with pleasant things like admiration.
Glenn,
Your point is well taken. We do live in a world sore lacking in "showing due honor". Made and being renewed in the image of God does do something in the way of restoring our dirty selves and we should be willing to acknowledge that when we see it.
On the other hand, we depraved bloggers walk a fine line between appreciating one another as made in the image of God and appreciating for the sake of being "blogspotted" to borrow a term from Phil Johnson (oops, now he'll see his name on technorati).
It is in this latter realm that David's post hits home.
Do we need to live in fear of pride and thus never show appreciation? Certainly not. We should examine our motivations for all things we do, giving honor without the expectation of return and in this way sacrificing our name for the sake of theirs.
Phil. 2:4: do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.
2Cor. 5:9: Therefore we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him.
Shaun
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