[troutie] and the problem of blog ethics

Troutie's avatar

UPDATE: From a paranoid comment by Mutley, it appears that some think there is hidden meaning in this post relating to the matter which closed yesterday. For those with short memories, I stated that nothing of that nature would appear on the front page in any form.

It hasn't but some people obviously seem to want to divine meaning into what is a straightforward post. so, as they say in the films, any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental [and unfortunate].

Now, let's get on with the post in peace:

Tom Paine writes of real friendships and online friendships.

We certainly need a way in English to distinguish real friends from "blog friends," "Facebook friends," "LinkedIn" or "Second Life" friends.

While this holds water, especially in Second Life where nothing is as it seems, I do think that blog friendships do not always have to end in grief. Through unfortunate circumstances, I found myself, in May, outside my infrastructure of work, home and friendships and thrown onto the world of blog friendships in a very real way.

Such a thing is going to be fraught, whether a blogfriend or real life friend but as for the question of whether I was the same person in both personae - I'd like to think that there were no major shocks on this score for them. An example is Andrew Allison whom I met up with in Hull and we got along possibly better than we even had in the blog world.

It seems to me that there are kindly people and there are snakes in each of those worlds Tom mentions but perhaps the blogosphere affords us the chance to expose the snakes more easily and yet less effectively. in the end. Nothing like looking into their eyes for confirmation, I suppose.

Aaron, of Tygerland addresses another issue:

Our impeachment of President Clinton was another example of placing the wrong political emphasis on personal matters.

Well, yes and no. Whilst the Clinton impeachment was a political beat-up, what about this following situation?

Imagine there is a collection of bloggers, say Pajamas Media or Ethical Bloggers or whatever, whose criteria for being one of them obviously includes it being a fine blog but they also require the ethical standing of the blogger to be high?

Imagine that Adolph Hitler is gassing Jews just now, with assistance from his henchman, not unlike Saruman and Wormtongue and yet he runs a blog which is about food, especially about trout in butter sauce. It's an excellent blog, ethical, knowledgeable and his answers to commenters are reasoned. He goes around visiting other websites and striking up blog friendships under his pseudonym Troutie but checking out, through seemingly innocent questions, if they have any Jewish connections.

He's invited to join a blog community and all is well until someone puts his real life persona together with his blog persona. Now comes the ethical dilemma, doesn't it? Troutie puts to the collective , through his connection with the head honcho, that a person's real life persona should be no criterion for membership - that the sole criterion should be the quality of the writing.

He is booted out though because of his support of the BNP and all hell breaks loose. The libertarians say he should have been allowed to remain in, even as the body of the 3 millionth Jew goes into a ditch, stating that even his mother loves Troutie and his mates like him and don't want him to go.

The other side says he is a monster, full stop, period and shouldn't be in the collective.

Interesting dilemma.

More tangentially, Tess of the d'Urbevilles confesses her baby to Angel. Leaving aside whether that's a crime anyway, she says she is the same person now as before he knew that. Angel replies that :

You were one person then. Now you are another.

Does what we know of a person make that person different to when we didn't know? Should friendships have left Troutie protected?

UPDATE: We were discussing this matter and someone came out with the idea of what is private and what is public, a la Monica Lewinsky. There is clearly a private life and a public life but where is the crossover point? If a father has a son and the son inadvertently blurts something out about the father, that is now in the public sphere.

Similarly, if two people meet each other around a table in the bar, then it is fair game for anyone there to comment on this. They then move into a private relationship which, as both claim it is private, is private. But if he is mistreating her, then the pact is broken and it goes back out into the public sphere when she tells of it.

Now, back to the contention in the quote above that private life should not be a consideration for any role one goes for. Well maybe but what if the couple are murdering babies or whatever? Should that be taken into account? Does that make it now a public matter?

So in a collective, it is all well and fine to say private life is no consideration but is that so when that private life is for nefarious purposes which hurt others? I was thinking of Myra and Ian here and Charlie Manson.