Processes 9/11/07

In my first ceramics class a very challenging college professor showed his class two slides, one of a pot made by a potter working at a wheel and another, exactly the same, made from a mold made from the hand-made pot, then asked us what was the difference. Was one better than the other and, if so, why? A long and energetic discussion ensued but the end result was that there was no real difference and that one wasn't really better than the other, that making something by hand wasn't intrinsicly better than mass producing that same thing, which was indisputably more efficient. In his astute opinion, and there must have been something to it if it's stuck with me this long, what made the hand made pot better was that it was part of a process, that another pot would spring from it because of what the potter came to know in its making.

It reminds me of blogging, of how so much of what is best about this avocation is what goes on in comments, when it becomes interactive, and it happened after my last post. I was angry. I had already written my Katrinaversary post, fresh on the heels of being at Rising Tide II, back in Atlanta and longing for New Orleans. It had been laborious and uncomfortable, and I came away certain that I had not said what I wanted to say, that my thoughts and feelings had gotten all tangled on their way out. Then, I went out among the other bloggers, reading what they wrote, and was soon reminded that not everybody thought the same way, approached the circumstances of those living in New Orleans with the same sense of empathy. I couldn't help but be reminded of the depth, articulately expressed in comments at Ashley's and a Texas newspaper, of overt animosity towards New Orleanians. It made me angry and I fired off a post. A discussion ensued and Barbawit of Prytania Waterline said:

I think that the hate mongering has a lot to do with the way main stream media presents their talking heads. A prime example would be Rush Limbaugh. He was one of the first to use media as a platform for hate. It seems to have created a new class of citizens that I refer to as the Ugly Americans.

Bullseye. Dead, smack on the money. It's been cultivated. It makes for good radio and good television, and I responded, struck by his comment:

Aptly named, Barbawit. Rush is a perfect example but it seems to me that he's tapped into something very strong. Perhaps as outright bigotry became less and less socially acceptable, bigotry based on ideas became more and more so for those with a need to hate in order to validate their own being.

Could it really be this simple?