Blogs and the battle for

ideas: personalities and issues

Blogs and the battle for

ideas: personalities and issues

Me = UsMe = Us

You = ThemYou = Them

Personality = Issue

Personality = Issue

Leaders = FollowersLeaders = Followers

• Bully Pulpit

• Propaganda Bullhorn

• Democracy Wall

• Think Tank Sandbox

• Witness Stand

Political Purposes

To sum it up, the Revolution failed because it was badly led; because its leader won his post by reprehensible rather than meritorious acts; because instead of supporting the men most useful to the people, he made them useless

out of jealousy. Identifying the aggrandizement of the people with his own, he

judged the worth of men not by their ability, character and patriotism but rather by their degree of friendship and kinship with him... —Apolinario Mabini, La Revolucion Filipina

Bully Pulpit

—Jesus! Jesus! Jesus! How horrible. How ugly! He looks like a fur seal... Yes, yes, a fur seal

with a mustache!Let us describe the fur seal... I mean, the

friar...He seemed meek; but after he had been

ordained and sang his first Mass, after five years in the country, eating bananas and

papayas and after his appointment as parish priest... he has become so smart that he is

now very rich...—Graciano Lopez Jaena

Fray Botod (Encarnación Alzona’s translation)

Propaganda Bullhorn

Anybody can stand up on a street corner and call the President of the Philippines an

incompetent old fogey, a power-mad oligarch, the assassin of Philippine democracy, the defender and protector of corrupt officials.

People say it every day. They shout it loud... in modes and styles of infinite variation. Some are scholarly and discreet; others are coarse

and brutal; some descend to vulgar personalities; others soar to constitutional heights. but they all have the freedom to

denounce and ridicule...—Claro M. Recto

Democracy Wall

Everybody engages in business in our country except ourselves. It is sufficient that the

foreigners praise to us imported merchandise and run down the native products for us to hasten to change without reflecting, that

everything has its weak side and the most sensible custom is ridiculous in the eyes of those who do not follow it. If this practice is

continued, we shall be a people without character; everything in us will be borrowed,

even our very defects. —Jose Rizal

Think-Tank Sandbox

I beg you to accept that there is no people on earth who wouldn't prefer their own bad

government to the good government of an alien power.

—Mahatma Gandhi, 1933, after the massacre at Amritsar

Witness Stand

Political Roles

• Observer

• Explainer

• Proposer

• Exposer

• Attacker/Defender

My Rights

• I am the master of my standards.

• I am the arbiter of my content.

• I can be as opinionated and as biased as I wish.

• I can limit my reading.

Your Expectations

• You should explain your standards to me.

• Arbitration needn’t be arbitrarily handled.

• Your opinions and biases shouldn’t pretend to be objective.

• You should link to what you praise or denounce.

Where You and I Meet

• Bandwidth is for everyone.

• All blogs are created equal.

• Not you, or I, but everyone else decides who to read.

• No blog is an island.

• At the end of the battle, both sides must rebuild.

Perils of Groupthink

• Arriving at consensus “through suppressing dissent, doubts, or searches for alternatives once certain decisions grounded in overriding attitudes have been made.” (Robert Pois and Philip Langer, Command Failure in War: Psychology and Leadership, p. 177-78)