On blogging

I am a libertarian. I want to live in a libertarian world. I am also a blogger. I started blogging because I wanted to see whether it could help bring about a libertarian world. So now, a year on, what conclusions can I draw?

Let me begin by stating some assumptions.

I believe that political victories begin with intellectual victories. Win the intellectual argument and you are half way there. I also believe that victory goes to the organised. I believe, as Napoleon Hill said, that information is not power: organised information is power. I also believe that an effective political organisation must do three things. It must:

• convert the unconverted
• keep them converted
• and give them something to do

I want to get to a situation where “we”, for want of a better term, are so well organised, have such complete mastery of our arguments, that whenever an opponent so much as dares to put forward an opposing point of view he gets ripped apart, line by line, argument by argument, fact by fact. Many readers will remember how painful it was to be a Conservative in the mid-1990s. I want that same pain to be visited on our opponents.

So, when it comes to winning the intellectual battle, how does blogging measure up?

I think if there is one thing that blogging does par excellence it is that it keeps people converted. Five years ago I met David Carr for the first time. Among the many things he said to me, one really stuck out: “I thought I was the only one.” he said. I am sure he was not alone. Not so any more. Punch in the word “libertarian” into a search engine and very quickly you will come up with sites like Samizdata.

From a situation as recent as two years ago where I had to go two weeks between libertarian “fixes” I can now get them daily and frequently more often than that. And the quality of these fixes has massively improved. With comments we are now able to draw upon the collective wisdom of thousands of like-minded people.

Blogging is also good at giving people something to do. Want something to do? Set up your own blog. Feel that’s too onerous? Fine, become a serial commenter. I believe there has never been a time when there has been a greater amount of libertarian activity. Fantastic.

Doubly fantastic because blogging gives you the freedom to publish what you like when you like. OK, so people don’t have to read it but at least there is the chance that they will. At least they can if they really want to.

But blogging does not seem to be so good at converting people. “I have met many people who have become libertarians through reading a book but none through reading a blog…” is a favourite line of a blogo-sceptic friend of mine.

I am not sure it’s quite as black and white as this. Firstly, it is certainly my perception that Transport Blog is having an influence on the debate even if a very small one. Secondly, the aggressive, bordering on the hysterical, reaction to blogs from some of our opponents in the mainstream media would tend to suggest that they are seriously rattled.

[Incidentally, I never realised, even when I was a leftie, how much lefties hate debate. Their objection to blogs does not appear to stem from the fact that they disagree with them (although they do), but that they exist at all.]

But even so I can see the point. Too many blog postings are preaching to the converted. Too many poke fun at our opponents without ever really getting to grips with what they are actually saying. There is a hell of a difference between writing for the unconverted as opposed to writing for the converted. You have to suspend your prejudices and temporarily adopt the prejudices of your imaginary unconverted but open-minded reader. And then demolish them. Bit by bit. One by one. At all times being fair and objective. In other words, it’s harder.

I think there is also a problem with what happens to blog postings when they fall off the bottom of the page. Most of them are forgotten. The good along with the bad. This is a great shame because, especially in the case of the good stuff, they represent good work that could theoretically, at least, be used again and again.

But what if they could be captured, stored and filed for easy retrieval at some pertinent point in the future? That way effort would not be wasted. It could be used again and again. And the day of our final victory would come that much sooner.

I believe that if blogging is to really make a difference then bloggers have to start paying attention to organising their output. Categories, of the type available from Movable Type, are certainly a great help but a lot of people find MT difficult to set up.

What I believe is necessary is a sort of multi-member links blog. This would be one that picks up on the much good work being done elsewhere, promotes it and categorises it for later use. That way not only does the Good Stuff get publicised when it is first produced but it is easy to reference in the future.

I believe that in the future in addition go generalist links blogs we will also have specialist links blog. This could easily be done for my own speciality, transport. It would be a site bringing together all that’s best on the internet – from blogs, to websites to news stories – and assemble them all in the same place, all neatly categorised for future use.

Here’s a diagram: