A commenter here who goes by the handle “Dissent” has a blog called Pogo Was Right, referring to a simple cartoon that says more than all the posts I will ever be able to write, and a sister blog called Chronicles of Dissent.  In referring to a post of mine, Dissent called my writing style “take no prisoners.”  This gave me pause.

An entire army of blogolators exists to tell others how to blog.  How to blog to get business.  How to blog to get famous. How to blog to get rich.  How to make your blog last forever.  Of course, blogs are still at the youth stage, unclear what they will be when they grow up.  It’s an age of uncertainty, self-doubt, searching for answers.  Blogolators are people who have personally achieved nothing, and so teach others how to be successful, having figured out that the only purpose to blogging is to create an industry where people believe they need someone of dubious merit to teach them how to accomplish something that can only grow organically.

It had never occurred to me before that I had a style. I sit down and write, and from where I sit, each post looks different.  Some are more humorous than others.  Some are relatively thoughtful for a trench lawyer.  Some are sentimental.  Some are just plain goofy.  They are whatever flows from the ol’ digits at any given moment.  As Shakespeare wrote, I don’t know what I think until I see what I write.  I’m often as surprised to see what my post says as you.

There are, however, some basic premises to my writing.  If I have a point, I try to make it.  If it’s unclear, and sometimes it’s very unclear judging from the comments, then I have failed.  I sometimes try to convince myself that I made my point too subtle, rather than I just blew it.  It makes me feel better to pretend that I’ve been subtle rather than sucky.  Sucky makes me feel bad.

There are times, however, when I just go for the jugular.  It’s the killer instinct in me, primal and vicious.  I’m not necessarily proud of it, but it’s who I am.  People have accused me of being sensationalistic, writing unduly provocative posts to attract readers.  I never write to attract readers, and no post has ever been unduly provocative as far as I’m concerned.  At most, they are just the right amount of provocative.  And if they are provocative, it’s because that’s how I feel.  There is no ulterior purpose here.  None.

But do I “take no prisoners?”  I suppose I don’t.  It’s not that I have anything against prisoners, per se, but I wouldn’t know where to put them and, frankly, have no desire to take care of them.  I don’t even like pets.  True, I have a cat that we keep outdoors as a mouser.  I call it “cat”. But I don’t feed it, and still it stays here. 

Is there a purpose to taking prisoners?  If a subject is of sufficient interest to me to write about it, then why would I be concerned about how others will react?  Anyone who writes about things that matter to them, with the concern for how others will react, will end up satisfying no one and nothing.  Their point will be watered down, lest it offend the prisoners, if one can find a point in it at all.  It no longer reflects the writer’s position or view, but rather the need to appease others by writing nothing that a reader might find troubling.  Milquetoast writing.  Milquetoast thinking. The first rule becomes offend no one.  The result is say nothing.

Why bother to write if you’re afraid of what you have to say?  You won’t feel any satisfaction, and no one will care to read it.  No one has ever complimented a beige wall.  Whether you’re thoughts bring in the cheers of those who agree with you or the jeers of those who think you are the most demented idiot on earth, at least you have thoughts.  Cogito, ergo sum. 

I recently had an email exchange with a lawprof who felt deeply hurt by things that were written about his ideas.  He informed me that they were too harsh, too rough, too disrespectful.  Ironically, he wasn’t referring to things I had written.  He was on the verge of giving up blawging, finding it too vulgar for his sensibilities.  Of course, if he wants vulgar, he should cruise some non-lawyer blogs, where the language and ideas are so crass that they make me cringe.  I don’t cringe easily.

My response was to stop being a baby and fight back.  Just because some of us take no prisoners doesn’t mean you can’t win the battle, or even the war.  I draw from the same arsenal of words available to everyone else (except for the few that I make up, but then there’s nothing stopping you from making up a few of your own).  The only consideration is to make sure that you get your point across.  If that means taking no prisoners, so be it.  If no one gets your point, you have only yourself to blame.