Squawking in the cacophony – Part Two – On Blogging.
February 9, 2010
We all tailor our communications to a particular audience; you speak differently with a colleague than with your best friend, right? Well, what happens when we shape our voices to speak to the broad audience of everybody, when everything we say is “on record”?
If your world is filled with people who are just like you, or your thoughts are of the most mundane variety, there’s no problem. But how much of your eccentric interests should be revealed in a network that includes former employers or others from a professional life?
It’s an obvious social snub if you don’t add the former boss that “friends” you. And it certainly defeats the whole idea of keeping your network open and growing. But then do I really want to talk in detail about things that in no way enhance my professional personae- perhaps even detracts from it?
I’m no fan of decorum; I tend to err on the side of bluntness myself. But I really don’t want to offend, for example, the decent Christian people who think kindly of me. If I want to rant about superstition, ignorance and religion, however, there’s people in my sphere of influence who would take offense if my comments are too specific. My goal really isn’t to piss people off.
There are people you bother having certain conversations with and there are people you deliberately leave out of that conversation. The reality is, we discriminate in our communications in both word and partner choices in order to more sharply delineate meaning.
Well I guess I could adopt a stage name again, but juggling personae is the same kind of hassle as having too many account numbers and passwords to remember- what a headache! I don’t want to have to partition my identity into neatly understood categories just for the sake of the lowest common denominator of intelligence in as broad an audience as the entire world.
It’s unfortunate; many people cannot be relied upon to put as limited a thing as my professional persona into the larger context of my whole being. Quite frankly, however, most people aren’t the sharpest pencils in the box.
But what happens to specificity under such pressure? Is meaningful discourse even possible, or are we doomed to bland or veiled communications?
