The opposite is also true. I blog, therefore I think. It is now almost two years since I started doing this. Except for one five-week period when technical problems prevented me from posting, I have done so week in, week out. The present piece is No. 94. A good time, it seems to me, to stand still and look back.
First, has blogging taught me anything? No and yes. No, in the sense that, over the years, I have published enough opinion pieces in enough papers and magazines around the world to know how to do it. Or so I hope, at any rate. For those of you with no experience in the field, here are a few simple rules.
Make sure you know exactly what you want to say, and say it. Keep it short and, if you can, snappy. Use short sentences and short paragraphs. For heaven’s sake, don’t use jargon. Above all, don’t go for academic, especially social science, writing with its endless strings of abstract, not seldom incomprehensible, nouns following each other like beads on a string. Don’t try to impress people with your learning—usually, doing so all you will achieve is bore them and make them stop reading. It is in knowing where to stop that true mastery reveals itself. Always try and find a nice picture to illustrate what you have to say.
Yes, in the sense that I have discovered that there is no knowing which of your pieces is going to be the most successful. You leave your desk, or close your laptop, thinking that you have written a particularly interesting piece. But the stats, which I look at from time to time, show you that you have missed the boat and that no one cares. You think that you have written a so-so piece—perhaps because you were not feeling very well, perhaps because you just did not have the time. But all of a sudden the stats explode. After two years it seems to me there is just one remedy. Keep typing away. Maybe you’ll hit the jackpot one day. Or not.
When I say jackpot, I do not mean money. Except that some readers have gone to Amazon.com in order to take a look at my books, so far I have not made a penny on my blog. Given the restrictions on free expression that are sure to follow if you allow advertising a foot in the door, I am not even certain I would like to do so.
Unlike many other bloggers, and contrary to the advice of some, I have not restricted my posts to a single topic or field. Many of the topics I address I get from the daily press. Others reflect issues I have been contemplating for some time past and wanted to get off my chest. A few, notably the ones about nuclear proliferation, resource wars, Russia and China reflect the things I have discussed with my students in class. For making me think, I thank them.
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As I have written more than once, I get quite some feedback. A few of the emails are offensive, even obscene. Pay attention, you yahoos out there: I ignore them and will continue to do so in the future. The rest fall into two main categories. Some readers like my pieces and ask permission to re-post them, either in the original language or in translation. Usually I go along; but not before asking my correspondent whether he (so far, no she) would like to reciprocate by posting something on my site in return. Several have.
Then there are those who want to argue, usually over some point linked to my views concerning women and feminism. Those I provide with brief answers; brief they have to be, or otherwise I won’t have time for anything else. Here and there a critique is sufficiently interesting to catch my attention and make me engage in a little more research. Whatever others may feel or think, for me the feedback is very important. Quite often it makes me think of things that have never occurred to me before; so let me take this opportunity to thank those who provide it.
Finally, why do I do it? Being a fairly well known academic, over my lifetime I have published dozens of books in twenty different languages. I have also been interviewed by numerous TV stations, radio station, magazines and newspapers around the world—so many that I have long stopped counting. Not to mention articles I myself wrote.
Generally I enjoyed doing all this. Yet nothing gives me the sense of freedom which, sitting down week by week, I have when working on my blogs. Freedom from the kind of control many editors will impose on your work. Freedom to say what I want, on any subject that comes to my mind, in the way, and at the time; and freedom to do so regardless of the laws Israeli ministers and MKs, to their eternal shame, are trying to pass.
To abuse a famous quote, give me freedom, or give me death.
* I wish to thank my stepson, Jonathan Lewy, who not only takes care of all the technical arrangements but has provided the idea behind this particular piece.