Today is the 21st anniversary of the beginning of my blogging. I originally started doing so on this day in 2005 on the platform that had been started by my university and then in 2012 was invited to join the FreethoughtBlogs collective and have been here ever since. When I started, blogging was new and it was considered to be slightly infra dig for academics to engage in it, a comedown from the forms in which they usually expressed their ideas, such as journal papers, magazine articles, and newspaper op-eds. In fact, a faculty colleague of mine in my university published his blog anonymously, out of embarrassment as to what his peers might think. But that feeling soon dissipated as the value of this form became apparent, enabling as it did the ability to very rapidly express one’s scholarly views on the news of the day. More and more faculty started blogging and some found their visibility increasing by leaps and bounds and being sought after by the media.

But as some have pointed out, blogging seems to be falling out of favor. This is partly because the audience has shifted to social media platforms that enable hot takes on the news to be disseminated even more quickly. However, those forms tend to require very short snippets mostly in the form of videos and hence are not really suitable for any thoughtful exposition on a topic, and thus not that appealing to academics.

Samuel Johnson famously said, “No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money”, expressing the commonly held view that the act of writing is so inherently unpleasant that one needs a monetary incentive to do it. But he erred in thinking that money was the only driver. Many bloggers, myself included, do not get any income from the blogs, nor do we seek it. Originally FtB had ads and that revenue was shared amongst the bloggers but the amount was pretty small and the hassle involved in all the bookkeeping was not worth it and so it was dropped. I am fortunate in that I do not need the income and so can keep this blog free to anyone who wants to read. But there have been many tangible benefits that occurred incidentally. These blog posts have formed the basis for two books and many articles that might not have ever been written if I had not taken the opportunity to test out my ideas here first.

Some writers have created accounts in Substack that often require subscriptions to read and can provide income for the authors. For me, and I suspect other bloggers who do so for free, the incentive is not money but mostly the desire to share knowledge with other people. We also have opinions on a wide range of things and seek to persuade others to our point of view on matters that we think are important. As is the case for many writers, we write because we must, that there are things we wish to say that we must get out or we feel that we might burst.

For me personally, there is yet another reason. Many ideas, as long as they stay in my mind, can remain inchoate, not well formed or reasoned. It is in the act of writing that those vague notions take concrete shape, enabling me to see where they need to be focused and sharpened with the ambiguities removed. I agree with the writer E. M. Forster who said, “How can I tell what I think till I see what I say?” Writing for me is a way of becoming clearer about what I think.

Hence it would be correct to say that I mainly write for myself. It is nice to think that there are people who think it worthwhile to spend some of their valuable time coming here and reading and commenting. But for me quality is much more important than quantity. I would rather have a few thoughtful readers and commenters than a large number angrily attacking each other. I do not care about the size of the audience or seek to try and increase it by the many clickbait gimmicks that it is possible adopt.

While there are days when I get up and read something in the news that absolutely infuriates me and I feel that I must say something immediately, there are other days (like today) when I feel overwhelmed by the sheer awfulness of what is happening (such as in Minneapolis, the war crimes in Gaza, and other atrocities around the globe) and it is too depressing and I need to step back and compose myself to provide a more measured reaction.

My goal in blogging is to create a forum where people with similar interest can engage with each other in a collegial manner. And many of the comments have been extremely thoughtful, increasing my knowledge and widening my perspective. It is surprising to me when a few people gratuitously comment in sneering, sarcastic, condescending, and even outright rude ways, far from the collegial atmosphere that I seek to create. I do not understand what drives such people. Or perhaps it is more accurate to say that I think I understand but have little sympathy for it.

For the longest time, I monitored the blog with a very light hand, not wanting to keep out people unless they committed some egregious offense against common decency. The rules were minimal because I did not want to feel that I was censoring people for views I might disagree with. But as I got older (and perhaps crankier!) I began to wonder why I tolerated such people at all. If my goal was to create the feeling of being in a room with people who wanted to engage constructively with each other, why would I allow in people who spoiled that atmosphere? It would be like inviting unpleasant people into my home for an evening’s conversation, when I knew that they would be disruptive and an irritant to others.

So now I am much more hardline. If you can’t play nicely with others, don’t come. If you insist on coming and continue to be unpleasant, I will lock the door to you. And just as I do not have to provide a reason for not inviting someone into my home other than that they make life unpleasant for me and others by behaving like a jerk, that will be my rationale for banning people here too, simply because I do not like having you here. So try to get your point across in a positive and collegial manner, not is a way designed to show your superiority to others.

So thanks to all who come and read and provide interesting and useful commentary and information. It has been a pleasure to have you here.