Byzantium's Shores: chronicling the misadventures of an overalls-clad hippie

There is a bit of a tempest-in-a-teapot brewing lately over a new linking policy over on The Rittenhouse Review. Specifically, James Capozzola, the writer of Rittenhouse, has decided that the goings-on at Little Green Footballs have become so repugnant that not only will he not link to LGF, but he will go one step farther: he won't link to anyone already linking to LGF. As Capozzola notes, "We are the company we keep."

But are we, really?

One can learn a lot about a person by looking at the books on their bookshelf. If someone's personal library includes titles by Carl Sagan, Stephen Gould, Martin Rees, John Gribbin and Martin Gardner, we can probably conclude that this person has some interest in science. But that does not mean that we can conclude that this person is, say, an evolutionist; they could very well be a Creationist who keeps a collection of evolutionist writings, for instance. The presence of several different translations of the Bible on my shelf does not make me a Christian, nor does the presence of several Bertrand Russell volumes make me an atheist. Interest does not equal agreement, and linking to a site does not imply endorsement of that site's content. I've been reading USS Clueless since several months before I launched Byzantium's Shores, I still visit that site at least four times a day, and it was one of the first blogs to which I linked, but I'd be surprised if I agree with what Steven Den Beste writes more than forty percent of the time. I keep the link for several reasons: one, because he's a fine writer and a very rigorous thinker; two, because he links to a number of other fine writers and rigorous thinkers whose viewpoints I nevertheless do not share; three, well, because he's a fine writer. (Good writing goes a long way with me; that's why I list that reason twice.) I don't agree with him, I don't endorse his views, and sometimes he even angers me, but still I link to him. The same goes for the other side of the spectrum: I'm definitely a liberal, but I'm not as far left as some of the left-wing blogs to which I link, so my linking to them should no more be taken to mean endorsement and acceptance than my linking of USS Clueless. (By the way, SDB addressed this issue here, from the standpoint of sheer futility.)

There is another problem with Capozzola's new policy: it seems a bit, well, intellectually barren. The implication is that, while we can't eliminate those voices with which we disagree, we can do the next best thing: we can pretend that they don't exist. Too much of that will, in the end, lead to an echo-chamber effect on the left-wing blogosphere, which would be highly ironic given the chorus of complaints from the left about the right-wing blogosphere. If there is a degree, perhaps even a large degree, to which the political right in America has turned within itself, it hardly counts as a solution to that problem for the left to likewise turn inward on itself. I've been reading The Rittenhouse Review for a while now -- probably about six months or so -- and I think that James Capozzola is a fine writer, and his work on Rittenhouse is an impressive achievement. That said, I'm disappointed that he thinks this a worthwhile step to take, and doubly so that he thinks it will have any effect on, well, anything. He maintains a very lengthy Blogroll, so it will be a lot of work for him to implement this policy, and it's not likely to have any effect other than to make the right-wing blogosphere laugh and engage in cyber-backslapping and high-fives for a job well done.

And I'm most disappointed that he believes that we are the company we keep. To say so, and to act on such a belief, is to divide the world further into camps and factions, who are ever doomed to eyeing each other suspiciously through chain-link fences topped with razor-wire, and to look with derision on those who would keep one foot in both camps. That's not the foundation of good debate, and it's certainly not the foundation of a healthy society.

(For the record, I have visited Little Green Footballs a handful of times, and each time I came away feeling a bit unclean. I have no intention of ever linking to it, except for the above mention. What disturbs me is not the intimation that I shouldn't link to it, but that there will be repercussions amounting to censorship if I do link to it.)