Disappointment

Forgive me if I'm going over ground that has been extensively ploughed these past few weeks and months, but I'm getting tired of the constant petty namecalling between the political extremes of the blogosphere. Tired to the point at which, to draw a comparison with physical fatigue, those little muscles that control your eyelids begin to tic against your will, and you can no longer finish coherent sentences in your head.

In the days following the election there was the expected response from both sides - arrogant triumphalism from the right, bitter resignation from the left, which I hoped would subside in a few days. After the first week it got tiresome, and I began to skip over posts relating to politics. Now, getting on for a month after the election, I'm driven to distraction.

I read many blogs, regardless of their political position. I read the left-wing blogs I enjoyed when I was a confirmed Bushophobe, and I read the right-wing blogs I have now adopted as my kin. I read centrist blogs, the writers of which are equally baffled by the raw emotion of the extremes, and I read blogs written by those who don't care who is in power as long as they set themselves up as good targets of satire.

I've now reached the point at which I've stopped reading certain blogs. I just feel embarassed for the writers - writers of great talent, writers who can take the 26 letters of the English language in one hand, take an unformed idea in the other, and bring the two together in such a way that makes you green with envy that you have been cursed with such a limited vocabulary and clouded mind. Writers whom you assume must be ingesting some sort of perception altering drug to be able to make a point with such sparkling clarity. To watch these people descend to name-calling is akin to watching da Vinci draw pictures for Hallmark cards, and Shakespeare write the message inside.

I don't know if these writers I admire so much will be able to return to the way they were. Maybe they've gotten so embittered by defeat or smothered with hubris that they can never go back. Likely none of them will read this, or take notice if they do, but I wanted to say it anyway. I hope that one day I stumble across their sites to find that they have returned to the writing I loved.; that they can discuss politics without their customary insults. Until then, I'll stick to other writers.

But now to bed.