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Just a quick note at the end of a very long week to say that my appreciation for OpenLeft has grown in the last few weeks, primarily because there is something very important that differentiates this community from most of the blogosphere: This community seems to understand the difference between criticism and vitriol.
Criticism is healthy and necessary - as a professional writer, I can tell you that there is nothing more that I value than substantive criticism and critique. It makes me better at what I do.
Vitriol, by contrast, is criticism without substance. Typically it is totally ad hominem: "This article has no point," "I don't know why they let a terrible writer like you write," "You are a millionaire pundit who knows nothing," etc. Put another way, vitriol is criticism/critique/debunking not of the substance of what was originally written, but an attack on the writer in a substance and fact-free kind of way.
Most of the interactivity on the web is vitriol, not criticism - that is, most of what happens on the web is someone posts a researched piece with facts, and then the majority of commenters who oppose the piece refuse to take the time to respond with contrasting facts (ie. substantive criticism), but nonetheless feel the need to respond in some way, so they respond with vitriol (For a typical, if banal, example of the latter, see some of the comments over at the Ft. Collins Coloradoan in response to my latest column).
The problem is that vitriol doesn't help advance anything - it doesn't make the writer of the original work any better, nor does it further any discussion of substance among the community. Vitriol, in short, doesn't just have no value - it has negative value. It's a toxin that destroys everything around it.
Criticism is the opposite - it advances everything: it makes writers better and it furthers discussion of substance so as to move a community towards enlightenment and education. Criticism, by the way, can be completely harsh - it can be toughly worded, tenacious, biting and even nasty. And usually, that doesn't take away from its value - as long as it is substantive, well-documented criticism, and not substance-free vitriol.
Though we've all devolved into vitriol at times (and sometimes, in my own case, too quickly), I think the OpenLeft community innately understands the difference between criticism and vitriol. It's not that we don't give each other shit - we do, and we should. But we mostly give each other criticism, not vitriol, which is pretty rare in the blogosphere.
Perhaps that's because we trust the intentions of each other more in this community than in others - trust, after all, breeds mutual respect. Or perhaps it's something else. I don't really know, but what I do know is that I'm sure this is what makes this site so valuable - and so different. And I'm thankful for it.
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