It's been kind of a crazy 2.5 years or so. New wife. New son. New Country. Four new stepdaughters. First mother-in-law. An encounter with the police that didn't make me want to vomit and take a shower. A profoundly uninspiring dalliance with the dark side of gender politics. I've even had accusations of criminality and malfeasance leveled against me. All and sundry (take that N.) seem to have changed. Some touchstones have stayed the same, though not many. Different blogs, different platforms. Different formats. lot's of trial and error, only to find myself where I began, so to speak, though with a few new bells and whistles. A slew of changes that would make anyone's head swim, or drown.
I've been examining and re-examining just about everything, from why sentences are customarily capitalized (has to do with antique typesetting), to the roles of logic and epistemology in my own thinking. As per usual, I have landed roughly in the moderate area of most things, though not others. Here are some highlights, in roughly ascending order of importance:
1. I'm tired of pressing the shift key in obeisance to the arcane custom of capitalizing the first letter of every sentence, even though i know you guys seem to love this particularly small touchstone. (striking a blow against something, who cares what?). this apparently comes from the problems first encountered by Gutenberg and others with typesetting and bleeding ink and paper, but (a) i'm lazy, and (b) i'm saving keystrokes. so, i'll be dispensing with that forthwith, propriety be damned.
2. i won't be capitalizing the letter 'i', either. in this day and age, no one is that fucking important. well known doesn't equal importance, and being the tiny little speck of stardust that i am, i won't be pretending otherwise.
3. there is a decidedly biased bent online in favor of two horrid little things: giving credence to poseurs because they have sycophants, such as the MRA vlogger 'integral math', who for some reason or other has a quibble against how i pronounce the word 'integral' (i accent the 'e' rather than the 'i', because of a stutter that despite my best efforts doesn't want to relinquish its hold on me), and who famously demonstrated his mathematical prowess by fucking up some arithmetic (which i pronounce in the customary fashion), and to the usual bullshit move of claiming expertise in areas where none is to be seen, proven, nor had, like feMRA vlogger, and right wing libertarian Karen Straughan, aka girlwriteswhat? or for that matter, people like rebecca watson, of skepchick fame. becky, for whatever reason, has decided not to substantiate her allegations in the elevatorgate pseudo-scandal, with anything remotely resembling what i like to call 'evidence'.
i'd like to take this opportunity to send a big fuck you with a kiss to the Modern Language Association's stylesheet (and to The Chicago Manual of Style, amongst others), requiring a 'works cited' page. i'll be returning to the old school bibliography, thank you very much, which you'll find on this blog, as soon as i get around to it-which should be in fairly short order. i'm tired of having to go over and over the same ground. either you're a reader and a thinker, or you aren't. i'm more than happy to pander a little to the readers, and give them a heads up on what i've read, which is where my conclusions come from, in exchange for expecting you to do your homework. if you're going to join the discussion, read the relevant materials. or don't. either way, the next move belongs to you, dear reader. the bibliography will grow (as i recall the titles of long ago read texts and suchlike), and be as complete as possible, so you know where i'm coming from, which has the happily intended side effect of allowing me to read some really great stuff from when i was still a wet behind the ears undergraduate student, something i've been meaning to do for a very, very long time. i'll also be including links to gutenberg.org when available and so on, so yay(!) for all of us.
4. one thing i learned from the dark side of the internet: labels mean next to nothing. no matter what you call yourself, or what others call you, you're either someone with whom a discussion can be had, or you aren't. if you aren't, there's no point in directing anything toward you, save the occasional insult. nor is there a point to wasting my time, or yours. for that reason, "discussion" with true believers of any kind is otiose. you will either be swayed by evidence, or you won't be. in either event, you either arrive at reason through your own efforts, or you don't arrive at all, and again, the next move is yours.
5. lurkers lurk and trolls troll. if you just do the reading, and habitually abstain from commentary (with an occasional lapse, as it were), welcome aboard. if you wish to comment regularly, again, welcome aboard. if you're not interested in honest discussion of the issues, there's the door. i'm more than happy to give you the bum's rush. if you're a bum.
6. i won't allow pseudo-arguments, no matter how much traction they've gained in pop-culture, except when i need to make a point. for example: bitch all you like, but (a) i'm not a misogynist for using the word 'bitch', and (b) i'm not 'silencing' you by banning or editing your comments, or by deleting them if i choose to do so. the internets is a very, very big place, and if you want your voice heard, and you think you haven't been afforded that opportunity on my blog, start your own freaking blog. you're free to do so wherever you like. i won't be cajoled into allowing comments that begin something like this: "let's see if you're really about freeze peach...". in point of fact, since i publish this blog, and run it, it's my own little fiefdom. if you'd care to join the hunt, feel free to gear up. Just keep in mind that your comments are subject to my approval or disapproval, as the case may be. the same goes for banning people and suchlike.
7. unlike the artwork that i do, i'm not 2D. that is to say, on this blog, i will write about a great many different topics, since a great many different topics interest me. i'm an "online atheist", but i'm also a slew of other things. i run my own art studio, i cook, i'm a journeyman carpenter, i practice what you youngin's now call "MMA", (though i've been doing it since Bruce Lee was making movies). other than that, i'm not much of a sports fan, i love to cook, i'm both a stepfather and a father now in my own right, and so on. so i'll be writing about those things as well as offering opinion and commentary on atheist issues. don't expect a one topic, party line type blog. moreover, since i'm all these other things, don't be surprised if there are days when i don't write a post. i've got shit to do, just like you do, though i will strive to write as often as possible, since it seems i'm now a writer as well- which is just as well, since that's what i went to college and graduate school for.
8. the internet is a very, very big place. you know how to read, even if thinking through a position is fairly new to you. it's not my job to convince you of anything. the moment that Matt Dillahunty made the claim that the truth doesn't matter (regarding elevatorgate), i decided that there is no point in arguing with anyone about anything-not that i'm giving up on having discussions, mind you, it's just that there is no reason to think that any amount of arguing will make a difference to the individual who is hell bent on remaining ignorant. again, i'm firmly of the belief that one either learns on one's own, or one doesn't learn at all. it is the rare person who can learn from someone else's mistakes rather than committing the same mistake one sees others commit. it isn't my place to teach you the skill set that allows you to do that, and honestly, i don't think it's possible to teach it, even if i could identify its constituent parts in my own thought process. therefore, i'm not going to argue with you. END OF STORY.
9. really, truly, AFAIC, this is a clean slate, so to speak--though of course, haters are always gonna hate, but that's OK. i'll be migrating all the old articles that i think are worth keeping to this blog, irrespective of their topics, and deleting the rest of my blog posts. it's the internets, and anyone wishing to remind me of what i said during some long ago discussion, and prove it, should have already gotten their shit together and screencapped the relevant quotes, and if you haven't, meh. we are all the sum total of what our experiences are, and that's all there is to it. i refuse to play 'gotcha' with rabble anymore--and there's a lot more rabble than reasonable out there. that's the reason for jumping on my wayback machine and reminiscing over incidents long past in this post, a final heads up to the haters, and a recognition of whatever mistakes, missteps, and sundry (take that, N.) imperfections and so on that belong to me, and to which i somehow belong. the past two or so years have been a HUGE learning experience for me, and there you have it. ikonografer 2.0.
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