Friday, October 13, 2006

Colmar's Regression

Colmar won't let anyone post comments on his blog anymore. I guess he doesn't want us to interfere with his angry detachment from the so-called "mean green meme" or with anyone else's. Why else would he suddenly delete previous challenges to his posts and disallow any future ones?

It can't be because he was swamped with comments, challenging or otherwise. He barely received any, and most of the few he did receive were mine questioning his exclusive reliance on profoundly conservative sources such as Instapundit, Ann Coulter, and Thomas Sowell for indubitable political, economic, and social "truths," and his caricatures of liberals and Democrats.

For instance, he insists that the Republican Party is the party of truly progressive ideas of people like Newt Gingrich, while the Democratic Party has been "hijacked" by Al Sharpton and Harry Belafonte. My comments questioning these claims are gone. So is my more recent comment taking issue with his likening of protest against the Iraq war and occupation with protesting against policing crimes and fighting fires because they cost too many lives and too much money. Also gone is my comment that challenged his implication that Thomas Sowell and his fellow Republicans are above focusing on the relative trivialities of sex scandals while the Democrats are unable to focus on anything else.

Yes, after a promising debut insightfully discussing spirituality and Ken Wilber, his blog has degenerated into a daily exercise in liberal-bashing employing skewed facts and interpretations drawn exclusively from moderately to radically conservative sources. He implies such things as that Democrats are a bunch of radical Marxist traitors to this country while Republicans are our salvation, that McCarthyism was actually a good thing because there actually was a communist threat, and that the environmental movement is wrong because some of its chief supporters allegedly don't practice what they preach. And so convinced (or insecure) is he of the correctness of his sources, "facts," interpretations, and conclusions that he no longer even sees reason to entertain comments that call any of his dogmatic pronouncements into question.

I empathize with Colmar's professed desire to transcend the "mean green meme" that he angrily says held him in its sway for a long time. But it seems to me that he's regressing to a mean orange meme rather than progressing to the second tier orientation at which he claims to be aiming. As for me, I'm paying attention to many more conservative commentators than I used to and considering their arguments with a far more open heart and mind than I did a short time back. For I believe that truth is to be found in a perspective that honors and integrates both the "left" and "right" bands of the political spectrum. Colmar won't achieve this integration by reading, quoting, and endorsing only the writings of the likes of Instapundit or Ann Coulter.

6 comments:

JMP said...

Thanks for your interesting chronicle with commentary of a conservative blogger's self-destruction.

I must adit that Colmar pushed my buttons early on, so I went away and never came back. Frankly it surprises me that he's still blogging (giving him credit for THAT), because most anonymous folks who choose a goofy anonymous handle that sounds like a robot and whose early posts were basically (IMJ) harsh hatchet jobs on Wilber and his defenders really tend to give up after a short while. They vented, and now it's time to go. Then they start up another blog somewhere else, probably anonymously. So at least he's made it this long. If someone writes anonymously, fine. It's very common to make that choice with several excellent integral bloggers writing using a pen name. Heck, I may do a pen name blog someday. But if they do hatchet jobs and make personal attacks anonymously, the proper word is a SLEAZE BAG. I give folks like Geoffrey Falk much credit at least for signing their own name to their stuff--not everyone is so courageous.

Steve said...

Joe, it probably won't surprise you to learn that "Colmar" didn't like what I had to say about him. He thinks that I have totally misrepresented him, and he explained how in a comment he tried to post here. But I have rejected it. Normally, I wouldn't do such a thing. I hate to reject any comments unless they are utterly irrelevant, gratuitously insulting, or both. But I'm rejecting his comment because it's my policy not to publish the comments of people on my blog who delete all of my comments and won't let me publish any comments on theirs, who tell me that they've even blocked e-mails from me, and who say that they're never going to read my blog again. Not only do I think it would be pointless to publish their comments under such circumstances, but I, frankly, don't believe that they deserve to have them published here so long as they act the way they're acting.

However, I do encourage people who aren't familiar with Colmar's blog to check it out and see if they think I've misrepresented him. THEY are welcome to comment here on what THEY think if they would like.

Steve said...

As a follow-up to my previous suggestion that people check out Colmar's blog and determine if I've misrepresented him, here is a Ken Wilber quote from the comment Colmar tried to post here:

"You’re in the closet, aren’t you? Because if you express actual integral thoughts or ideas then the herd descends on you with a vengeance, yes? If you are in that 2%, your life is a living hell, in so many ways, isn’t it? Because the first-tier rants are all around you, aren’t they?"

Perhaps my Colmar post was a "rant," even though I think it was a fairly accurate summary of his blog. Perhaps it was "first-tier." In fact, it undoubtedly was, since I do not presume for one nanonsecond to have made it to second tier. But Colmar apparently thinks he has and that his blog reflects this.

You be the judge. :-)

JMP said...

Oh boy. I would go to Colmar's blog, but as I said it's not on my reading list...

If I ever have a need to go back, I'll let you know what I think about the accuracy of your post. For now I trust your observations; Colmar sounds like a very predictable sort of chap.

Unknown said...

Colmar's identity is known; he's not really anonymous.

As for Joe's charge that Colmar weilded a hatchet at Wilber, gimme a break. Colmar's quick rise to prominence was a result of his early posts which provided a boost of insight into Wilber's collapse into a putrified parody of Adi Da. It wasn't a hatchet but a welcomed spotlight.

I very much agree, Nagarjuna, that Colmar is a MOM and has become rather loony and paranoid. He hasn't been on my RSS aggregator for quite a while now.

JMP said...

Well then who's Colmar? Say it right here. If you don't, then he's anonymous/closeted. It's that simple.

I'm sorry Zen U, but you're being too charitable to Colmar. Saying that Colmar was guily of no hatchet job because he only strongly argued "Wilber's collapse into a putrified parody of Adi Da..." is hatchet enough for me. But if it's a "welcome spotlight" to you, who am I to make you wrong? Just remember one man's spotlight is a saner man's hatchet. ;-)