In its first 10 days Heretic TOC has passed 1000 hits. Whether this is a cause for celebration or commiseration is a mute point.
According to today’s Guardian, Google people say half of all blogs have only one reader: the blogger. By that dismal standard, celebration is definitely in order. Online, I discovered that five million bloggers average only three hits per day compared to over 100 for Heretic TOC. So, much better than those losers then! It appears there are currently 80,000 “up-and-coming bloggers” at Heretic TOC’s level. Your A List bloggers, though, are way ahead, with 150,000 hits per day: a daunting target if success is judged as just a numbers game. But there are only a mere one hundred bloggers at this stellar level.
Which raises the question: what is Heretic TOC all about? No small blog can hope to be very influential, so what’s the point of 100 hits per day? There is probably a fair bit of potential for improvement as Heretic TOC becomes better known. But 150,000 per day? I don’t think so!
In Heretic TOC’s About page, I say the aim is “to present a discourse of resistance”. In reality, what sort of resistance is possible with small numbers? To be sure, isolated pockets of dissent can aggregate to bigger things: even moaning about the government with a few friends down at the pub can be important if thousands are grumbling over the same issues in thousands of pubs.
Here, though, resistance is a bit of a one-off. As far as I know, there are NOT thousands of websites like this one. There are “pin up” photo sites, there are chat sites, and a growing number of angst-ridden sites where self-styled “virtuous paedophiles” self-flagellate in an undignified bid to appease the tormentors. But heretical thinking is in short supply.
Earlier models of resistance, active in pursuit of law reform, have everywhere proved fragile, and have either been smashed utterly or battered into moribund silence. Perhaps the most useful survivor has been Ipce, after reinventing itself as a scholarly resource.
My ambition is for a lively discussion here on Heretic TOC, which I hope will prompt visitors to do their own further in-depth research and writing. This is what I am already doing myself: there are corners of academia, if nowhere else, that seem modestly receptive. This can easily be dismissed as an elitist vision for Heretic TOC, but if anyone can tell me a better means of gaining traction for “a discourse of resistance”, please do.
Meanwhile, I’d like to see bigger numbers here if possible. It will help a lot if visitors use the “Share” buttons at the bottom of each post: Digg, Twitter, Reddit, etc. It will also help me decide where to focus if you “Like” what you like.
[…] one but the blogger who writes them! Further comparative figures of this sort were contemplated in A thousand hits in ten days, a title which says it all about Heretic TOC’s encouraging initial following. So how do the stats […]
Hey guys! This is nifty! I’d like to engage folks on some grey areas of the topic! Rational discourse, oh yeah!! (with a tinge of kid spirit greatness!)
So here’s something i’ve been tangling with:
The problem of how urbanized relations between the generations have a way of turning into commodified relations, allowing for alienated values to be passed on uncritically.
That is, where people tend to become objects that can be bought and paid via the kinds of relations which exist in the urbanized mind (and programming). Expectations, for example. If an adult takes a teen out to eat and does a lot of things like that, there is an expectation that there will be some kind of reciprocal response, usually oriented to sex.
How many adults (in my experience or yours?) thought to engage a teens’ intellect? So often, it was only about getting in my pants. And then, once doing so, reproducing the dominant social paradigm. I.e. going along with monogamous values, or the work ethic, instead of assisting with dreams.
And how about how urbanized relations tend to compete with others, instead of complementing each other (reflecting, of course, the dominant paradigm of competition)? Where is the village??
Villages touch upon happening amongst the organized, such as when the Dutch (or was it German?) courts recognized a paed collective to help a paed who was off balance too much and had engaged in nonconsensual relations. (I read that in PAN mag)
I think we will agree that at the bottom line, it’s not “bad” to care! It’s BETTER than professional/client relations, any day! And yet the problem may well be (and this keeps cropping up in other critical thinking groups i’m involved in) in how shallow the values are that are being passed on. Say, colonial values, versus village solidarity. Dominant narrative versus backing up “greenhorn” dreams! Or at least a MIX of both, given the realities.
Do any of you get at all what I’m trying to say here at all??
And I thought it was me talking to a blank wall all these years. We are all small town people, village people if you like, who just happen to be in the city because the University is here, and the jobs are here, but we all still live as we do.
It is the city people we don’t get along with, with all their problems, their commodified relations and alienated values being passed on uncritically. That is about the sum of all my work for the past 45 years, protecting ourselves from it and restoring our own balance. I can’t do much for the urbanised masses beyond, I guess, carrying the banner.
Read any of my work, or better, come join us in what we do, if you can handle it. Read Bettelheim, The Uses of Enchantment.
Also read, for contrast, Frank Furedi, Therapy Culture, Culture of Fear, Politics of Fear, Licence to Hug.
Again, I have yet another here with me, arrived last week, pursuing his dreams.
With all the crap in the media about me over the years, of course we talk about the nature of our relationship. These guys are remarkably astute, sensible, clear in their ideas. Anyone else asks, what are you doing living with Gil, they answer, he’s my friend.
Welcome, finally . . . .
Thanks, Steve, this is certainly something I need to think about and I hope you get back up to speed soon following the hassles you’ve had. Glad to hear you’re about to read Michael Jackson’s Dangerous Liaisons. When you’ve finished it – or even when you’re in the middle – maybe you will be inspired to blog about it!
Thanks, Tom…
I’m kind of in limbo, at the moment…waiting on other developments, which will hopefully bring about a good alternative to the “free” blog hosts…but, I have every intention of rebuilding.
…And, yes, I do intend on offering some personal viewpoints, regarding Dangerous Liaisons.
Hi Tom!
One good piece of advice that was given to me a long time ago, was to buy/register a personalised URL for my blog. These free blog hosting services are outright notorious for deleting the blogs of BoyLovers and Girl-Lovers, with the most flimsy of excuse…or even no stated reason, whatsoever. Having my own URL has allowed me to offer readers, an easy method of finding me again in the event of a censorship attack.
I’ve been blogging since 2006 [and have written substantial amounts, while blogging alone]…I’ve had, essentially, three incarnations for my main blogs…The longest running lifespan of any of these, has been two years [my most recent version of “Our Love Frontier”]…Some of these services will pull the rug out from beneath you repeatedly, just to run you off…I’ve only encountered one blog service, which literally refused to censor, and they no longer exist.
I’ve been forced to relocate, at least twice…and now it is going to be a third time…I put an awful lot of time, care, work [and yes, love] into my blogs, so this is a mammoth chore, whenever it happens.
I’ve found myself at the top of web search engine results numerous times, sometimes owning all of the top several found links…and my experience has been, that when you start getting any real attention and status [and some loud, obnoxious group complains/threatens], this is when we can most expect to be knocked down, having whatever we have built obliterated.
Sure, there are exceptions…but, I think this is largely because those blogs are run so vaguely, or they’ve not gotten much attention, that they survive unscathed. Those of us who outwardly identify as Child/Teen-Lovers, and who take a stance while offering explicit opinions [alternative information, etc], generally receive the most wrath.
I’ve found there are few “crimes” online, like that of being a Child Lover, who simply wants to interact with/like everyone else…Some people become irate, when discovering that I am a human being, too.
Anyway…I just wanted to formally welcome you to the blogosphere…Being what it is, and how it is…I think we need a much better venue, if we expect to receive any sort of stability in the face of mass attention. In my opinion, blogging is primarily a personal endeavor…and until we can get thousands of like-minded people to start blogging also, we are going to remain easily pushed around and censored.
…I also wanted to say, I’m looking forward to reading your most recent book…which I have a copy of around here, somewhere.
– Steve
This reminds me, I learned nearly 20 years ago that’s it is far easier, and far less hassle, to simply run my own server than it is to rely on third party mailing lists, ISPs, blogs, whatever.
Yes, I agree with Steve, having someone else host your stuff gives them control, where running a Linux box, technically, merely requires that you tidy up your Windows bad habits. These days I have a CentOs 6.3 server under my desk, running alongside my workstations.
The same CMS available online at Worpress is also free to download, installs in less than 5 minutes, with whatever theme you want also free to download. Your own domain name and delegation is cheap and unassailable.
So, anyone in strife wanting a guaranteed safe server, get in touch.
Thanks, Gil, this could be a life-saver.
But this sounds like bad news. If I need to do any tech stuff I’ll be tearing my hair out (what remains of it). I still haven’t figured out on WordPress how to move comments from the About page to the correct location.
No problemo, that’s why we’re here.
Just make sure you have everything backed up in a *.sql file, so you have all your content and settings available at short notice. All of my sites backup up at midnight every night, onto a USB stick.
Ask and somebody will help you with it.
Many thanks!
I’ve considered running my own server a number of times, ever since I toyed around with some free HTML server software. In my current situation, I prefer to have a third party host, to act as an extra layer of security. There are probably workarounds [like using TOR, or some other proxy set up], but I’m not that deeply into technical stuff…and I know, openly running my own server, will easily lead anyone right back to my home IP address.
It’s not that I’m unwilling to stand behind what I put online…It’s that some people who have become fixated [in a very unhealthy, disturbing way] on me in the past, clearly have sociopath intentions…and I also have an ISP, which clearly states It’s in business to make money, so anyone “becoming a problem” for them, can expect to have service terminated.
Past experience has shown me, that “I” don’t have to be “the” problem, so long as other people are willing to cause problems, and point the finger at me.
This has been my main reason, for not running my own web server.
Yes, I am getting more hits at this end too now, referred from you. Perhaps I should link them back to Sniffer Dog Online, which after 3 years still averages around 50 hits a day without me doing a thing.
“Opposing conventional points of view”? I don’t know that they exist in these matters, at least rationally.
All I get here is the occasional ranting in-the-face “I am diametrically opposed to everything you stand for, Gil”, to which I can only answer, “You can only mean that you are diametrically opposed to informed, rational debate on whatever issue emerges in public discourse. I don’t have a firm position on anything else. What are you talking about?”
At that they are inclined to become apoplectic. Rather than posting any coherent rejoinder, they jump up and down ranting.
The remainder of the discussion becomes entirely abstract, bandying about pronouns and labels, with no empirical evidence presented to support their argument whatsoever.
I mean, if we are going to talk about something, let’s talk about it, though again the laws on literary censorship are quite different from those on film censorship. That is an artifact of the times, until censorship law catches up with reality, nothing else.
As Judge Hackenberg once said, “Enforced silence about disturbing facts does not clear the air.”
Progress nonetheless is not so far away. The DVD of Passolini’s ‘Salo’ passed the Censorship Board a couple of years ago, and is publically available. I guess it has an 18+ rating, as does Bertolucci’s ‘Novecento’.
In the meantime, while it is illegal to expose children to pornography, I doubt there are many police willing to go around raiding people’s houses to check on who is watching movies. That’s not the issue.
I am known to be critical too of all these paedophile self-flagellator websites, which serve to turn the normal into the abnormal, as something exceptional and unusual, as a perversion, when for rational discourse to flow it must by definition be normalised.
I returned to UWA in 2009, on application at the time from Karnet Prison Farm, for a 2nd Honours degree in Literature and English specifically to this end, despite strident opposition from certain police (and police here are deeply divided on these matters) anulled by expert witness from other police on my behalf, cleared through the District Court without comment from the university’s legal department. That has been achieved.
I point all this out not to crow, to shout “I’ve won”, quite to the contrary. The exercise is wisely and properly to reveal pathways through the morass.
I have since been friended by such luminaries as Jim Kincaid, Bill Percy and many others. Bill rang me all the way from the US to tell me he thought my thesis was brilliant.
To wit, the end goal in a democracy is not especially to engage debate on paedophilia or child-adult sexual relations, but to see that such debate is civil, reasonable, well-informed.
That’s my position and I hold to it. It is heretical to the full extent of Ockham’s ‘pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate’, for which he too was excommunicated.
All power to whoever has something sensible to say, anything at all in my book.
Yes, absolutely. Thanks, Empirical!
It’s a good start, Tom, and plugging “Heretic TOC” into Google shows that it is available. But it will takes prodigious amounts of effort, wisdom, and discretion to keep it going forward. Perhaps another sighn of progress would be reasonable and civil presentations from opposing “convenmtional” points of view?