Public Life - Blog Life

A few years ago I began reading a book called For Common Things by Jedediah Purdy, in which the author campaigns for civic engagement: “to speak earnestly of uncertain hopes…hopes that we know to be fragile.” Our postmodern context doubts that there is any meaning to life, and if there is meaning, that it is private and should be kept to one's self. But, is it really so narrow minded to think that one person’s perspective might actually inform another’s – that there might be some things (truths) that are common to all people and warrant public discussion?

Purdy describes our time as ironic, in which individuals “practice a style of speech and behavior that avoids all appearance of naïveté,” and “that is aware of all the ways it may be thought silly or jejune.” I confess that I am very much a part of that culture, and am acutely aware of the ways my ideals, thoughts, beliefs, and future blog posts may be thought silly. I’ve decided to express myself publicly as a blogger nonetheless, because I agree with Purdy. I agree that there are common things of meaning and significance in life that deserve our earnest speech – that deserve at the very least to be blogged about:)

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A few excerpts from For Common Things by Jedediah Purdy…

The point of irony is a quiet refusal to believe in the depth of relationships, the sincerity of motivation, or the truth of speech – especially earnest speech (10)

Love letters, then, require the courage to stake oneself on an expression of hope that may very well come to nothing. They also indicate a perception of importance, a sense that some possibilities, however unlikely, are so important that not acknowledging them would be an act of terrible neglect (xxi)

The ironic individual is a bit like Seinfeld without a script: at ease in banter, versed in allusion, and almost debilitatingly self-aware. (11)

The combined effect of ubiquitous television personalities, sanctimonious political pronouncements, and popular spiritualism has been to render cliché nearly anything that anyone would feel it important to say. (12)

So far as we are ironists, we are determined not to be made suckers. (14)