Andrew (of Irresistible Disgrace) has written a great series entitled “Excuses for not blogging.” It got me thinking about my involvement at this blog…
I fear my foray into the ex-Mormon/atheist blogosphere may be coming to a close shortly. Absent a second wind, I just don’t have the stamina to continue past the summer. Preparing posts and participating in their discussions is really time-consuming, and that time will be harder to come by as I start work and develop hobbies like guitar.
On a more personal note, my blogging has been a detriment to several friendships. Some theist friends think I’m too strident, and some atheist friends think I’m too accommodating. I’ve tried to strike the appropriate balance while still being authentic to myself. That balancing act has just proved to be too difficult a chore for me.
I have also been asked why I still write for the blog now that I’ve graduated from USU. The question occurs to me often. Well, the primary reason is that I don’t want to see this blog and this community die. Once other contributors become more active, I’ll gradually withdraw. But if others don’t become more active (and relatively soon), I’ll probably withdraw anyway. This is a USU student blog, and current students (aka not me) should be writing for it.
This is not a goodbye; you haven’t gotten rid of me quite yet ha ha. I just wanted to give everyone a heads-up. I plan on blogging here for at least the next month or two, and on a regular basis. So I hope you will continue to visit.
If you want to dissuade me from leaving (I’m still amenable to suggestion) or if you want write for this blog, please comment to that effect. Thanks.
This highlights another reason you should come write for Main Street Plaza: If you’re busy (or burned-out on blogging and need to take six months off to practice the guitar), it’s no problem. You don’t have to feel like the audience will wander away if you’re not stoking the fires every day. And then, if (six months later) a great idea for an article hits you, the audience is there for you.
Thanks, chanson. I’d love to write for MSP in the future. I’ll take you up on your kind offer later this summer.
I for one would miss your perspective.
I agree with chanson. In fact, if you’ve been keeping up with MSP, you should have noticed that since I wrote my post, I actually was able to write a couple articles there. When I wrote the article, I thought the “free” aspect of the community and the schedule was a negative, but actually, it’s pretty easy to lighten up a little and talk more about what you want to talk about instead of what you *think* others want to hear.
If not MSP, then at least get another blog where you can talk about whatever you want whenever you want. I still, of course, have Irresistible (Dis)Grace.
The beauty and the curse of student-run organizations (like SHAFT) is that they depend so much on the contingency of student interests. Take the Philosophy Club. We (the philosophy faculty) have decided to be pretty hands-off with it since it is a student club. If there are motivated students then they will have an active Philosophy Club, if there is insufficient student interest then it will be quiet. We had, I am told, a pretty robust Philosophy Club some years ago. But the student leaders who provided most of the energy graduated, and now the Philosophy Club is a very quiet thing. In fact, I am not sure if they do anything at all outside of the few lectures that Huenemann and I organize and simply label “Philosophy Club” events.
So, Jon, you’ll have to decide what to do. You could be an alumnus “booster” who remains very involved in SHAFT and the blog. Or you could let it go. But at some point you will have to let go and let what is largely your creation live or die on its own. The sad thing is that once these things die, it is hard to resurrect them. Hopefully you and a few other SHAFT leaders have gotten enough momentum going that the thing is pointing downhill and will survive. Who knows, maybe it will thrive. It will probably take on a different character, with different interests and kind of posts. (Depending on the tenor, I may or may not continue to read and participate). Or it might die in a year. Did other SHAFT leadership graduate?
I will miss your posts. No offense, but I won’t be following Main Street Plaza (though do email me when you post). This is not a judgment on the quality of that blog (I only just visited it for the first time) nor a judgment on the worthiness of the content of that blog. It is more a matter of my time (I don’t want another blog to check) and interests (Main Street Plaza is a blog for “anyone interested in Mormonism” and, well, I am just not that interested in Mormonism. I know enough about it to engage my students, and I don’t really care to go much further. Plenty of LDS students come to my office to try to convert me so I already talk about Mormonism far more than I ever cared to).
“But at some point you will have to let go and let what is largely your creation live or die on its own.”
I don’t mean to nitpick, but SHAFT is hardly largely Jon’s creation. Although that impression is forgivable from the blog, considering.
The success of this site itself is–by any measure–Jon’s alone.
Sorry. I recognize that SHAFT is a large student group with various leaders who have played important roles. I was under the impression that Jon spear-headed the creation of the group and was formative in the working out the group’s character. I apologize if I over-stated that to the expense of other students involvement.
I know a handful of SHAFT students pretty well. I hope that SHAFT knows that I am happy to help them in any way. Despite my obvious differences of opinion, I think it is a good thing to have a group like this on campus and I have always tried to support it as I can. Please let me know if there is anything I can do to help as the next school year gets underway. One little thing to do: email me and other PHIL profs when you have events, I always make sure to announce them in my classes.
The very first seed of the idea that would become SHAFT came from Mike Patton’s head, and I (James Patton), wrote most of the group’s constitution and mission statement. Jon got on board very early and his hard work was instrumental in making the group what it is (blog most of all, in my view). Not too mention the handful of other officers, and hundreds of people who’ve attended our events and kept interest up.
I’m not trying to brag or anything, just putting the facts out there.
Thanks for your support. It’s helpful and appreciated, especially as a faculty member.
James isn’t being nit-picky at all. I only co-founded SHAFT. And even while I am often the most visible officer, there’s a lot of unsung work done by other officers.
I can take some more credit for this site, but even then I’m indebted to Nick Venturella and others for getting the blog started and keeping it running.
I stand corrected, and I am sorry to have understated the role of other students (though I knew others had been instrumental from the very beginning).
Under the “About” link one of you could write a definitive early history of SHAFT. Such a thing might be useful to other students (here and elsewhere) since it would allow them to see what it takes to get a group like this going. USU has, at least it seems to me, a pretty lethargic student body when it comes to activism and campus life. Just one measure: walk on the quad at 4pm on a Friday – it is dead. So different than my experience at a small college. Of course, at my college there were only 1,000 students, the dorms were integrated into campus, and we did not have any students who were married with kids!
Point is, SHAFT has quickly become one of the larger and more active groups on campus, so there might be a useful model to follow in its history.
Jon – I presume that you are the primary poster here because your efforts to enlist other writers from the SHAFT group has largely failed? Any ideas as to why that is the case?
I find it surprising and sad that some friendships have suffered from your writing here. What, is it impossible to be a friend to someone who has slightly different (or even radically different) beliefs? Being interpreted as “too strident” or “too accommodating” has actually harmed your personal friendships with people? What kinds of friends are these? Goodness, are they friends at all? I am friends with Huenemann, and our differences of opinion (in religion, politics, philosophy, pretty much everything) our really far apart. That hardly holds us back from respecting and enjoying one another. Come to think of it, I don’t think I have a single friend on campus who shares all my views on fundamental questions.
Anyway, I found that the saddest part of your post … even sadder than the potential prospect of the SHAFT blog fading out. It is sadder because it speaks to the increased polarization of our society and the way in which that polarization becomes so personal. I had hoped younger people were less polarized. Perhaps this should not be a surprise in a cultural and political climate where anyone who disagrees with you (a person on either side) is labeled something nasty (bigot, homophobe, “socialist”, whatever). What a sad state of affairs.
It hasn’t irreparably harmed any friendship, no. But it has put occasional wrinkles in them—wrinkles that I’d rather prevent than continue to iron out. Their problems with my writing don’t arise out of mere disagreements, mind you. More often than not, the issue is my tone, which some find offensive. And I should note that these are indeed friends and good ones. It’s just we have different sensitivities. I often misjudge what will offend people, because it takes a lot to offend me.
I must say that I still find this odd, to get bent out of shape over the tone you take on this blog. It is not like you are way out of line in how you converse. You strike a pretty moderate tone (that is my opinion, but seems confirmed by the fact that cranks on both sides get upset with you). I have a hard time understanding how anyone could find your tone “offensive”. Sometimes some other posters on this blog strike an offensive tone, but not you.
Oh well. And what do I know? – like you I am not always a great judge of such things. Perhaps philosophers and debaters (like you) are cut from a similar cloth in this sense.
I suppose my point in saying that is this: I hope that, even if you abandon the SHAFT blog, you do not abandon your approach to religious ideas and philosophical conversation. You and I don’t see eye to eye on much – but you are not a “Hitchens Hooligan” (as I once jokingly misjudged). Consider me a friend who has no wrinkles in need of ironing from your tone on this blog. (Of course, my saying that might just be used as proof to some on the atheist side of how you are too accommodating!!
Hitchens hooligan…I like that one.
Haha, Kleiner, I seem to remember a certain post about the pope that particularly infuriated you. Oh well, dead a buried right?
Jon, I love your posts and I hope you continue as long as you feel the time a desire to do so. It is too bad that nobody else is willing to write for it, including myself. I guess I just don’t feel that I have anything to add. But who knows, maybe I will in the future.
Being a blogger is tough, and it can have a detrimental effect on personal relationships. I enjoy your perspective, Jon, but I completely understand why you may consider taking a break. I suspect you will eventually return to blogging (I’ve tried to leave it alone before, but to no avail)… and until that day, get a life (and I mean that literally)…
From one exhausted blogger to another: Good luck!
Just wanted to say thanks. Out of all those with a critical view of the Mormon faith, I think you have a fairly rational, understanding and moderate approach. That being said, Guitar>Blog on the sexy scale. Maybe you could continue by writing atheist critiques as lyrics, backed with chill acoustic vibes to mitigate the problems some people had with your tone?
Note to everyone: Don’t abandon the blog quite yet. I still planning on writing for at least the next month (probably longer). And if the officers think it appropriate, I may continue writing for this blog (though less regularly).
I really should have written more over the year or so we’ve been running the site. Part of it was time, part of it was a lack of decent ideas. Part of it was that the most prominent topic here is the LDS Church, and I’m neither really very interested nor really very knowledgeable (at least with respect to Jon). More authors would affect the mix of topics for sure, so that last one’s kind of a cop-out. My science-type posts didn’t attract a lot of comments initially, and I just sorta stopped. Maybe computer science is harder than political science?
Perhaps I’ll try to make an effort to write more during the semester or two I have left. I can’t guarantee that the audience who are here primarily because of Jon will still be interested, or not hate the gear shift or whatever. Considering that I’m paying for the domain name, I really should be doing something around here regardless. o_O
I’ll see what I can put together before the end of summer.
I for one think your science-type posts would be refreshing. So I hope you do find the time to blog here eventually.