With turmoil aplenty in the blawgosphere over the past week, stemming from the discovery of settling  Rakofsky v. Internet defendants  Lori Palmieri and Martha Sperry, and from there flowing downhill at a  remarkable and disturbing pace.  No need to discuss the harm done to integrity and intellect, as it’s already been made abundantly clear if you’re so inclined to see it.

And that’s the point. Whether a writing is too harsh or too lenient, too deep or too insipid, it reflects the sense of the writer.  Readers may, and often do, disagree. That’s how thought works.  Contrary to the expectations of some lawyers who participate in the blawgosphere, you don’t get to publicly opine, display whatever you believe to be brilliant, and demand the applause of the crowds.

My pal, Kevin O’Keefe, who is in the business of selling blogs, pitches his wares as a means for lawyers to demonstrate their expertise.  What he doesn’t say is that it’s also a way to demonstrate their cluelessness or venality.  Write something great and others may think well of you. Write something awful and they won’t, and chances are pretty good that a lawyer can ruin a reputation by publicly revealing their intellectual or moral bankruptcy.  Of course, if Kevin were to talk about the downside, it wouldn’t help to sell blogs.

In her attempt to defend herself, Martha Sperry, who is a lawyer but whose internet focus is on shiny toys rather the shiny thought, wrote that she felt more “muzzled” by the criticism of her decision to settle, which required her to write about how the blawgosphere was unfair to Rakofsky, than by his defamation lawsuit.  Putting aside the disingenuous nature of her epiphany, which committed the sin of omission by desperately trying to sidestep that it came about as a means of settling the case, Sperry’s arguments created their own response.

No doubt Sperry’s muzzling claim was an accurate reflection of how she felt, likely the most honest thing she had to say in her own defense.  But it reflects a misapprehension of how speech works. Say something publicly and expect someone to disagree.  When they do, they aren’t muzzling you, but responding. That they disagree, and disagree vehemently, isn’t muzzling. It’s a reflection of the nature of public speech.  When you choose to speak publicly, you have no right to complain about disagreement. 

Similarly, there’s no right to complain about the quantity and courtesy of disagreement.  Just as a blawger’s writings reflect her sensibilities, the reaction reflects the sensibilities of others.  In my post on Lori Palmieri, one  commenter told me my post was “mean-spirited and, frankly, valueless.”  Not only do I accept his assessment, but I invite it. While I disagree, I don’t deny that my writing failed to meet with his approval, and, by his sensibilities, was exactly as he said.  That’s the risk I take when writing, inviting an disapproving reaction.

Another told me my post was “senseless and gutter bullying,”  He subsequently wanted me to debate him about it.  There’s nothing to debate. He’s completely right, based on his sensibilities, but that’s of no consequence to me.  I fully expect some to find me too harsh, too extreme, on occasion, but I take the risk when I write.  Universal approval is not my goal, so the fact that some readers think my writing horrible isn’t at all disturbing.  It’s expected. That I disagree with them doesn’t make them wrong, but merely demonstrates that we do not share the same sensibilities. Even if they can’t live with that, I can.

The flip side is similarly problematic, and gives rise to the mistaken perception of “mobbing” and “bullying,” language used by people who seek to impugn the integrity of the blawgosphere without grasping its nature or addressing the speech involved.  The blawgosphere is made up of individuals, some of whom have very different sensibilities, and some of whom share a very similar sense of integrity and relevance. 

There is no weekly meeting of blawgers, where it’s decided that a bunch will write about a particular issue or problem.  There is no mob, nor ability to create a mob. Rather, an individual will make a personal choice to write, and what to write, based on his sensibilities.  That someone else has written on the same subject, or expressed a similar view, isn’t a reflection of mobbing, but shared sensibilities.  We can’t help it that we’re not the only person in the blawgosphere to think something.

There are certainly times when it seems, in retrospect, that the totality of the blawgosphere has overdone a particular story, a particular issue, or in the case of someone like Rakofsky, a particular person.  But who isn’t allowed to write?  There’s no editorial board here to tell a blawger that a subject has been beaten to death and he’s not allowed to speak his mind. Each blawger decides for himself whether to jump in or not. We don’t censor each other, and if we tried, we would likely get our heads ripped off for it.

For blawgers who write anything remotely controversial, we can never anticipate whether the reaction will be positive, negative or snoring.  We take our chances every time we hit the publish button, and afterward we take our punches if that’s how it comes out.  We don’t cry about it, complain about it, or debate it. It is what we think, and if other disapprove, we shrug it off or get out of the game.

What we have neither right nor call to do is be disingenuous about our writing, “shuck and jive” our way around our deceptions and expect the blawgosphere to cut us a break.  Sometimes we feel muzzled because we deserve to feel that way, because what we’ve written is dishonest and we’ve been called out.  But we weren’t muzzled at all. We wrote what we wrote, and we had our way.  That more people, maybe everyone, thought poorly of the speech isn’t a flaw of the system, but a feature.  That’s how bad ideas are killed.  That’s how integrity is promoted and deception is thwarted.

And if you can’t stand the challenge, the scrutiny, the disapproval, then you have no business going on the internet and telling the world what you think.  We all have a right to speak. We all have our personal sensibility.  But we have no right to demand that everyone else enjoy our speech or share our sensibility.  If you can’t accept this, you do not belong in the blawgosphere.