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Location: Pantego, Texas, United States

Monday, February 05, 2007

I have noticed that the popular blogs on the left use a lot of vulgarity, while those on the right don't. Those on the left are also much angrier than those on the right. (I have noticed this in discussion with some of my friends who are hard left.) Others have noticed this as well. Here is a piece from the blog IAMO on the subject.

Amanda Marcotte of the popular liberal blog Pandagon was hired by the John Edwards campaign. When Marcotte's posts were subsequently scrutinized, many were surprised to see that her writing consisted solely of a combination of angry swearing and casual swearing. Those more familiar with liberal blogs were not so surprised as profanity laced rants has always seemed to be the norm on that side of the blogosphere. This may seem odd to some as it would be expected that the most popular political blogs would contain intelligent analysis of the issues of the day, and both anger and the use of vulgarity often indicative of the opposite of careful analysis. The right side of the blogosphere conforms with this, as the most popular political blogs there are seldom angry or vulgar. In fact, the only time I've seen Glenn Reynolds go off into a stream of obscenities is when I met him in person.

Now, this isn't just a moral issue, as many of the right-wing blogs are not socially conservative and it's assumed the authors have no moral problem with swearing. Thus, those who eschew vulgarity seem to do so more out of societal expectations that the liberal bloggers seem immune to. Now, there are bloggers on the right who do use vulgarity and rant and there are liberal bloggers who do calm analysis that could be read on national TV, but if you look at the most popular blogs on both the right and the left, one is left with the feeling that angry swearing harms ones credibility on the right while it's expected on the left. Obscenity by them is used in everything including hot button issues, fiscal analysis, and cat-blogging. Looking also at commenters for the various sites even drives this point home further. While swearing is more common on both sides from commenters, the left almost seems incapable of writing a sentence without using vulgarity. Were one to use Democratic Underground;s forum as an example, you'd think liberals are incapably of understanding simple nouns unless they use vulgarity.

I have read the blod Pandagon, and found nothing of value in it. It deos consist of angry tirades of vulgarity.

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