This post is dedicated to Geraldine Doyle
I’ve really been enjoying the end of year posts, be they Top 10s or New Year’s Resolutions or whatever. This is my version of an end of the year “reflective” post. If you hate philosophy, skip down to the list below.
Some ethical theories are based on rules or principles. For example, W.D. Ross has his famous list of 7 duties, including fidelity, reparation and gratitude. Aristotle was a bit different. You can read everything Aristotle had to say about ethics and find very few principles.
Aristotle’s idea was to consider what human beings are like, and then think about what the best kind of life for our kind of beings is. Rather than listing rules to follow, he thought about which character traits — he called them “virtues” — would lead to the best human life. He thought that any kind of thing or activity could have characteristic virtues (and if you’ve taken my ethical theory class you may have heard way too much about pruning tools. SORRY!). You just had to start with a conception of a thing’s function, then think about what it would mean to do that function with excellence.
A virtue is a good trait that leads to (and is constitutive of ) a thing’s excellence. Aristotle thought that virtues had a unique kind of structure, which has come to be known as the “doctrine of the mean.” Each virtue had two characteristic vices, a vice of deficiency and a vice of excess. So, for example, if courage is a virtue, the vice of excess would be foolhardiness, and the vice of deficiency would be cowardice.
So how do we know when we’ve found the mean? It wouldn’t be right to say that Aristotle thought we should “aim for moderation” in everything. For one thing, there is no moderate amount of murder or spite. Instead, we have to have in mind our goals or vision of the good, we must use our practical reason, and hopefully we have in mind a kind of exemplar — someone who is really good at the activity in question — to refer to.
I sometimes think about blogging in these terms, although I readily admit the fit is not perfect. The good I am aiming for in the blog is to provide a contributing, sometimes unique, voice in the conversation about (mainly) romance novels. I also definitely have my blogging exemplars.
I don’t have any specific resolutions or goals for the blog for 2011. But here are a some extremes I am going to try to avoid:
- Balance between 100% focus on quantity versus 100% focus on quality of posts
- Balance between caring too much versus caring too little about what others think
- Balance between writing new content for this blog, and enjoying others’ content (as well as Twitter and other social media)
- Balance between reading what everyone else is reading and reading what nobody else is reading
- Balance between a fast loading clutter free blog versus having a slow loading blog with lots of user friendly features
- Balance between having no schedule and having too rigid of a schedule
- Balance between feeling free to say what I think, even when it is unpopular, versus making unwise comments that are not worth the grief they may cause me (i.e. picking my battles)
- Balance between putting marginally written content out there versus obsessing over it with frequent edits and rereads
- Balance between ignoring the fact that there is a whole blogopshere out there versus running myself ragged all over the blogosphere
- Balance between being afraid to take up another blogger’s post here versus taking every issue here and not engaging with the original blogger on her turf
- Balance between never bothering to do anything to make my posts stand out versus doing things specifically to catch attention
- Balance between reviewing well known or major press authors versus debut or small press authors
- Balance between reading books that are comfortable versus reading books that stretch my boundaries
- Balance between my preference for text-only posts versus most other people’s preferences for images
- Balance between wordiness versus morse code brevity
- Balance between responding to every single comment, email and tweet versus rarely, if ever, responding
- Balance between never noticing cool things on other blogs or learning from other bloggers versus comparing my blog in an unhealthy way to other blogs
- Balance between content rich, complete posts versus crowd-sourced posts that invite reader participation
Like most people, I lean more heavily on one of another side of each of the above pairs. Aristotle says that if you know that about yourself, you should try extra hard to lean the other way.
Obviously, this will be a special challenge for #15!
Related posts:
Being a libra, I always look for balance. But usually end up going back and forth between extremes.
Re #7, I think you do such a fine, nuanced tightrope act of covering the controversial topics without going grey or engaging in gratuitous “put up your dukes, I can fight ya” (comment loosely borrowed from The Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz).
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I believe Benjamin Franklin was also a believer in moderation. As was Siddhattha Gautama, the Buddha. Ambitious balancing act.
I wish I could learn this in life generally, let alone blog comments. Sigh.
P.S. I think you strike many of these balances very well.
@heidenkind: LOL. Sometimes that works, although I don;t think it is what Aristotle had in mind.
@Janet W: Thanks Janet. I try. I don;t want to get to the point where I am afraid to post certain things. But drama for drama’s sake? Just no.
@Julia Rachel Barrett: All the smart people were.
@Liz: I am good at it in real life, actually. It’s what makes me a competent ethicist, I think. I have a harder time on the blog.
Your posts don’t need to be image-heavy IMO. We come here for the content, which is consistently excellent! Yours has been my favorite blog this year.
I would like to lurk less in 2011.
I agree you don’t need lots of images as the content is what we come here for. I find a certain peace in reading such a visually clean site. Peace isn’t the right word, and I’m not saying never use images; your use of the cover images in the Crusie reviews definitely adds to them, even if only ‘what were they thinking?’. I think what I mean by ‘peace’ is that I can relax into consideration of what you write, I feel that you have sufficient confidence in what you are saying that you don’t need to gussy it up with visual furbelows.
Balance between a fast loading clutter free blog versus having a slow loading blog with lots of user friendly features
I vote for the clutter free variety otherwise I’d have to use a reader to visit the site. I come here for the excellent content and conversations. Anything that takes away from the content is a negative. I don’t mind waiting for pages to load but when moving around the pages becomes difficult then that’s too many bells and whistles.
This is a fabulous post. I found myself identifying with it on so many levels. I’m glad to know I’m not the only one searching for that balance….In blogging and in life.
Your writing is not wordy! I should know: I teach composition.
@Pam Regis:
I did not realize you do the Lord’s work.
@Jill Sorenson: @Jazzlet: @AQ: @Rebekah: Thanks!
I do feel like we are such a visual culture, especially the youngsters, that I should have at least one pic, but I am obviously more into the text myself.
Hi Jessica – This is my first visit here, but your post resonated with me, so I had to drop you a comment. With regard to so many of your points above, I’ve been drifting to the extremes, and it is such an unhappy place to be. It sucks all of the joy out of being a blogger, so I will keep these thoughts in the forefront of my mind as I go forward. You express yourself beautifully, and I’ll be back!
Oh, and I also second (or forth or fifth at this point) the notion that a clean site is infinitely more appealing than the clutter I see on most book blogs.
I love the clarity of this site. This clarity is found in both the look with it’s minimalist use of pictures and jumping, dancing things and how you use words. It is also found in the pauses you take (such as this post) to reflect on what you and your readers are doing here in blogland. Please keep on doing what you do!
@Rebecca: Thank Rebecca! I really enjoy DSB! I know that I have no talent for graphics, and would not be able to balance having a lot going on visually with a clean look. I admire those who can do it.
@Merrian: thanks!