Tim Ireland, Guido Fawkes, and the Public Sphere

So… what are the rules?

But this is a fist fight! There are no rules!

Tim Ireland and Guido Fawkes are currently embroiled in a fairly unpleasant flame war that has enlivened large swathes of the British blogosphere. Guido, as you probably already know, has risen to fame on the back of his blog, in which he airs the dirty linen of politicians up and down the country for all to see – whilst simultaneously chickening out of being legally liable for anything he prints by hosting his blog off-shore. His shit-stirring and tittle-tattle has, unsurprisingly perhaps, attracted the attention of the mainstream media. He is thus able to, with some justification, claim to be Britain’s most widely-read blogger.

Tim Ireland, understandably, has serious misgivings about Guido. In particular, he despises Guido’s attitude towards using blogs as a platform for debate. As with most bloggers, Mr Fawkes reserves the right to delete comments he deems unsuitable. Unfortunately, however, as Ireland points out, this includes comments that try and respond to the broader political points made by Guido. If you’re not prepared to make poo jokes or gay jibes, it seems, you’re not welcome. Worse still, according to Ireland, Guido deliberately changes the ordering of comments and inserts his own responses after the event, so that all debates on his blog are skewed towards Guido’s viewpoints.

Up till now, the defining point of the British blogosphere, in opposition to its American counterpart, is that it has focused largely on discussing issues and trying to broaden out media discussion, rather than engaging in muck-raking, slander, and the worst forms of hackery. Tim Worstall, when writing in The Times to promote his anthology of 2005’s blogging, made the comparison between blogs and 18th-century coffee houses – allowing a wider community of the politically interested to form, discuss issues among themselves, and thus widen the range of discussion and possible solutions from those that are normally parroted among opinion-formers.

It’s a model that’s very similar to Jurgen Habermas’s concept of the structural transformation of the public sphere. Habermas saw the democratizing forces of the 18th century – as seen in the American and French Revolutions, and the growth of Parliamentary supremacy in England – as springing out of a newly created “public sphere”. New institutions like the coffeehouses and printing presses that spawned popular newspapers allowed a wider participation in public affairs, allowing affairs of state to be discussed by private (ie non-governmental) persons. A greater scrutiny of public affairs was therefore allowed, and the nature of political affairs was changed forever, heralding a new wave of popular political participation.

So far, so good, you might think. After all, the British blogosphere has managed to develop with remarkably strong sociability, and a surprising infrequency of flame wars. One of the main reasons for this has been the conventions that have developed among British bloggers. Allowing comments on posts – and thus allowing your arguments to be challenged – is virtually de rigueur; trackbacks, too, enable readers to follow arguments that have been taken up by other bloggers elsewhere. The mere fact of the steady proliferation of blogs, and the increasing awareness thereof, demonstrates a widening popular involvement in national political discussion. Never mind that bloggers are largely drawn from a specific stratum of the population – people up and down the country are developing their political thoughts in writing, and engaging with others across the country as they do so. That has to have an effect on politics, right?

Not so fast. A crucial part of Habermas’s theory rested on the public sphere as a remarkably unmediated realm of discussion. The public sphere was successful insofar as it allowed ideas to be judged on their merits, rather than their supporters – the public sphere was a democratic institution freed from early modern hindrances such as deference. This ideal was never seen in reality. Indeed, two decades of work by historians has gone a long way to debunking Habermas’s myths.

The coffeehouses and salons quickly became partisan institutions – Whigs did not mix with Tories; they drank among their own friends. To be taken seriously by either side, you first had to prove your worth as a person, rather than being able to bound in with a wonderful idea that would be readily accepted by all. Even in newspapers, where the use of pseudonyms was widespread (and, so, the depersonalisation of discussion should have been complete), names were chosen largely to tell readers the political background of the author. Nor were all the democratizing influences alike. Discussion in newspapers was filtered through editors; the printed word was considerably different in scope to an argument over a warm cup of tea. Historians have come up with the concept, therefore, of “competing public spheres” – accurate enough, but only if the public sphere is seen as somewhere where debate takes place. The concept of intelligent, rational debate coming to the fore only occurred within small sub-debates; for an idea to be of truly big importance, then you still had to have powerful champions.

And that is, more or less, the situation the blogosphere finds itself in today. For all that Time magazine declared YOU to be the person of the year 2006, the problem the blogosphere has, politically speaking, is that there is no mechanism within it that makes sure it is the top ideas that rise and influence public debate. As much as Tim Ireland may like the idea, not everyone blogs by the same rules. And while ad hominem attacks inform bloggers’ opinions as much as the content of posts, that won’t change. We shouldn’t really think of the ‘blogosphere’, rather several ‘competing blogospheres’ – all of which have their own conventions for debate, their own political biases, and, ultimately, their own audiences. All clamouring for attention, but not trying to shape debate in the same way.

The problem is that blogging isn’t boxing. We haven’t all signed up to the Queensbury rules; there isn’t a smartly bedecked referee ready to step in and give someone a standing 8 count if things aren’t quite going to plan. The beauty and the beast of blogging are tied up in the freedom of the medium. Ireland’s desire for rational discourse through blogs is laudable – and they certainly have a great potential to shape the way that we think about the world and the issues that affect us. But the blog is little more than a medium, and as with all mediums, they are value neutral. Electricity gave us the lightbulb, but it gave us the electric chair, too. The car increases our ability to visit far-flung relatives, but it allows criminals their speedy getaway. Blogs are part of the same theme – it’s what we do with them that counts.

Of course, there’s a lot we can try to ensure that our own blogosphere punches above its weight. There’s much that Ireland recommends that will help make British blogs politically relevant. But even if most of the blogosphere adopts codes of best practice, it’s not going to change the fact that it’s not what is done internally that counts, but how able the blogosphere is to convince the public. And it’s certainly not going to do much to stop the existence of sites like Guido’s. We might want a nice clean fight, but we have to guard ourselves against a punch to the balls.