IN A brief essay titled “The Internet and the Dangers to the Soul,” the Rev. James Jackson discusses the spiritual dangers of blogging. The essay appeared in 2007 in the parish bulletin of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church in Littleton, Colorado. Father Jackson’s bulletin inserts often include interesting meditations on moral and cultural questions. His essay on tattoos was previously featured here. He wrote of blogging, “Firing off ignorant opinions about everything is a self-destructive exercise in the vice of pride.”

Father Jackson wrote, 

Blogs—short for “weblogs”—have become a standard form of communication among Catholics in the English-speaking world, especially in America. Mr. R. J. Stove wrote a feisty article attacking this phenomenon of blogs, and Internet discussion groups, which appeared in the Spring 2006 issue of Oriens, a fine Australian traditionalist journal. He asked the question whether Catholics should be blogging at all, and argues that for the most part, they should not. “…Blogs and Internet discussion groups actually represent a graver objective peril to the Catholic soul than does the television set, which at least seldom presents even the façade of interactivity; and above all, that however noble specific bloggers’ intentions are, far too much blogging is incompatible with a sensus Catholicus.” Mr. Stove admits to having liked blogging at first. The mainstream print media’s “intellectual and moral sleaze would in itself have inclined me towards defenses of blogging…I rejoiced at the speed with which blogs could transmit Vatican media releases and official traditionalist pronouncements halfway around the world before the secular-humanist ignoramuses even got their boots on.”

But Mr. Stove points to five factors which seem to be unavoidable with blogging:

1. Addiction, with all its dangers;
2. Pseudonymity, with all its dangers;
3. Encouraging smart-aleck sound bites rather than hard, data led, historically scrupulous reasoning;
4. A general downgrading of language, and of the writer’s role as language’s custodian;
5. Anticlericalism.

The Rev. Jackson, who I am proud to say is a reader of this blog, quotes some additional points by Stove:

1. With the slightest effort, even with leading a life reasonably replete with interesting activities, one can spend nine hours a day on the Net. Surely no honest Catholic could justify spending that much time in front of the boob-tube. Even so-called traditionalists, who understand well the menaces of TV, appear oblivious to the menaces of the Internet, unless the menaces take such blatant forms as downloading pornography. How much time per day can be spent on the Internet? That’s a hard question to answer, but spending an hour on it is easy to do, and perhaps the hour can be well spent. Two hours is harder to justify, isn’t it? Three or four hours seems to be getting into outright sloth.

2. For every comment that comes from someone with the courage to sign his name, there are 100 that have been submitted under pseudonyms. Not every writer that uses a pseudonym is a coward, but anonymity is a seed-bed for cowardice.

3. Not only are the comments usually smart-aleck in nature, they amount to little more than ad hominemattacks. Lewis’ Screwtape could not have devised a more
effective means to install mutual hate than what blogs and discussion groups provide.

4. There is a constant temptation to dumb-down everything in this writing. The abuse of the English language (and I don’t mean mere mistakes here) is constant.
Anything requiring reflection, correct spelling, or grammar is deleted.

                                   — Comments —

John E. writes:

Thanks for posting this – I see that it encourages beneficial self-reflection. 

The points raised are persuasive, and I have seen some of the ill effects mentioned in my own life.

 Do you have any thoughts that you don’t mind sharing?

Laura writes:

The test of a good blog is whether it makes you want to step away from the computer and think more on your own or through books. If it doesn’t do that, if it leads you only to crave more blog entries or more Internet discussions, then it is generally a distraction, a form of busy idleness. I would make sites that are informative of the top news stories an exception to that rule. Otherwise, that is the standard I use for my own Internet reading.

As a reader, I don’t like come-one, come-all Internet threads, where the discussion is unfocused and anonymity especially easy.

As a writer, I don’t like getting caught up in commenting on issues that are unworthy of comment, and sometimes I may have. The “slut walks” are one example. My first reaction to these events was, “This is just too stupid. Why would anyone take this seriously?” But then they appeared to be getting a lot of attention. Should one follow the bottom-feeding instincts of mass culture – or totally reject them? That is the question.

All opinionating is conducive to false pride. It is a serious concern. On the other hand, the work of blogging is humbling.

In short, I am not prepared to say blogging is immoral. But I may get there. : – )

John responds:

This helps me also to see why the Church, in her wisdom, prescribes mortification of the body, and I suppose, even of the intellect, both of which are weak in their susceptibility to the effects of sin and blindness. It’s a good practice to step away from something, deny yourself of it, at least periodically, if for no other reason than to acknowledge the reality that one is prone to inordinate use of a good thing, which is a bad thing. To deny oneself is very difficult, but rewarding. I love the saying which I have heard, I think, in relation to penances observed during Lent, that they have the goal of “giving up something good in the hopes of attaining something better.”

Laura writes:

Intellectual life suffers without the conscious habit of sacrificing things we actually enjoy. Some people give up the Internet for Lent and that makes sense, as heartless as that may be.

In his excellent essay, “On a Taste for Reading: Considered as a Help in the Spiritual Life,” Frederick William Faber, the nineteenth century Anglican who converted to Catholicism, says a taste for reading is “really almost equal to a grace.” That’s true, but it depends on what we read.

Josh F. writes:

I’m not at all convinced by the argument that blogging qua blogging is immoral.

First, one believes in God or addiction, but not both, simultaneously. It’s silly to assert God ordained man with free will and then claim man as “addict.” A man that repetitively sins is simply a sinner. A person that repetitively blogs may be a sinner if he WRITES false things. A person who repetitively WRITES true things may be petty and overburdensome, but hardly immoral. A person who repetitively WRITES and SHARES the truths of God cannot be immoral or addicted in any manner. He is simply a truth teller using what happens to be man’s most powerful technology, near-instant global communication. And now that this most powerful technology has become ubiquitous, it is a BATTLE of the MOST truthful communications. For a Catholic leader to call for a retreat in the ability to communicate near instant truths on a global scale is to me something along the lines of facilitating homosexuals within the Church, dang near self-destructive.

Laura writes:

This raises an entirely different possibility: that it is immoral not to blog. In some cases.

It is immoral not to resist a profoundly sick society with reason and the written word, as well as with action. Given that publishers and mainstream outlets will not publish serious critiques of many aspects of our profoundly sick society, that leaves some with the duty to blog, no matter the cost or the temptation to triviality.

Truth does not always occur in the depths of profound meditation or philosophy. It exists on various levels. We are surrounded by an ocean of lies. The problem is not too much blogging, but not enough of the right kind. 

John E. writes:

Josh seems to be overswinging at the problem. Rev. Jackson is addressing Catholics, and Catholics have always believed in the communication of near-instant truths through the medium of prayer. The medium of the Internet is not to be ignored, but it does not change the reality of communications that have existed throughout all of history, indeed outside of time, accomplished through prayer. Whether blogging or not blogging is in itself a moral consideration, one cannot approach this powerful tool without deference to a much more powerful tool, that is, a vital interior life. One might be successful having the latter without the former, but a Catholic should understand that one cannot hope to have success with the former without being first established in the latter.

It may be that Rev. Jackson’s essay is a little difficult to follow – it is unclear what are his original ideas and what are Mr. Stove’s ideas. Maybe for this reason I have a difficult time concluding that they are even raising the question of whether blogging qua blogging is immoral, or simply drawing attention to what may be gravely immoral and requires circumspection at best.

Laura writes:

Josh wrote:

For a Catholic leader to call for a retreat in the ability to communicate near instant truths on a global scale is to me something along the lines of facilitating homosexuals within the Church, dang near self-destructive.

Father Jackson’s piece is just a brief look at the issue. He doesn’t call for an end to blogging. Rather, his and Stove’s comments seem to make the case against bad blogging and low forms of Internet reading.

Josh wasn’t addressing blogging as a replacement for prayer and worship.

 John E. writes:

Laura said:

Josh wasn’t addressing blogging as a replacement for prayer and worship. 

No, but it appears he is overstating the power of the Internet as a means of communication when one also considers prayer as a means of communication. Josh makes it sound like Rev. Jackson would have us powerless against the enemy.

Josh writes:

Even if Rev. Jackson were merely addressing Catholics who blog, he is still implicating ALL bloggers who believe when he suggests that blogging may be immoral.

Let’s look at Mr. Stove’s points one by one:

1. Addiction, with all its dangers

A Catholic CANNOT believe in addiction and still be a Catholic. One who has “free will” cannot be “addicted” to sin. One who has “free will” cannot NOT QUIT sinning (the definition of addict being one who cannot stop sinning, i.e., has no “free will”). A purely chemical notion of addiction produces the same result, a Catholic implying man has no free will.

2.Pseudonymity, with all its dangers

This can’t make blogging bad. It can only possibly shield bad bloggers from just consequences, but it may also shield good bloggers from violent retribution. The latter is almost undeniable. 

3.Encouraging smart-aleck sound bites rather than hard, data led, historically scrupulous reasoning

Again, this is not a logical manifestation of the blogging technology (near instant global communication), but rather a quite predictable outcome of man’s most powerful technology being made ubiquitous. Think if this most powerful technology were simply at the disposal of a few?

4. A general downgrading of language, and of the writer’s role as language’s custodian

Couldn’t you say writing on the cave wall did the same thing to our speaking traditions? Again, I don’t see the positive link between blogging and the claim being made. I don’t see the evidence that this most powerful technology MAKES people do what Stove claims. I do know that blogging has helped me become a better writer and more truthful person. Would Mrs. Wood say the same? 

5. Anticlericalism

Here we have a most powerful technology that its makers and financers knew was too evolutionary (self-replicating) to keep in the hands of a few; making said technology ubiquitous and thus shifting the game from who has their hands on said technology to who’s hands could manipulate this most powerful technology in the “best” manner. Stove is saying retreat and leave this business of near instant global communication in the hands of the anti-clerics while bemoaning the anti-clericalism of blogging. Self-destructive, I say. 

To John E.’s point, I would say his was a thoughtful insight as to prayer being a form of powerful instant “global” communication. But prayer is not technology and his critique was largely of a strawman. As a non-Catholic, I am responsive to the core teachings of the Catholic tradition, but its leaders and their acts appear most self-destructive.

I don’t see a well thought-out critique of blogging nor do I think Mr. Stove or Rev. Jackson have made the case against blogging especially “blogging” God’s truths faithfully using what amounts to man’s best, intellectually and innovatively.

Josh adds:

To speak further to John’s point concerning my overstating the power of Internet technology, it simply doesn’t stand. You can’t overstate what IS man’s most powerful technology (nearly ubiquitous ability to convey truth globally in real time). Yes, one may also spread falsehoods globally in real time, but this is even more reason not to voluntarily cede this most powerful technology to those people. Arguably, only nuclear weaponry may be claimed to be a more powerful technology. So, if through man’s intellect manifested the capability to speak Truth globally and be heard when the Truth is spoken then this appears to be a God send, no?

Postmodern Antiquarian writes:

Just because a medium is susceptible to corruption does not mean it is corrupt. There is a price to pay for democratizing anything. I prefer not to look back and to look for excellence in this relatively new form.

John E. writes:

Josh has presented some good things to think about, but in formatting his response in a point-by-point debate style, he has created a rigidness that makes it difficult to pick up on what I perceive to be the intended message of Rev. Jackson and Mr. Stove, which is to beware of the dangers–yes, even danger to one’s soul–that lie in wait for the unwary blogger, reader, or commenter. Nowhere did they say that these dangers are entirely unavoidable, only that very few do avoid them. Though maintaining anonymity in discussion does not necessarily make one irresponsible, the temptation to libel, slander, or detract is much greater when one is able to interact with others anonymously than if everyone was required to reveal their persons. Though a person need not become addicted to interaction on the Internet, the truth is that many do. As an aside, I find the word and idea of addiction, though obviously abused in our day, still to be intelligible and distinctive, and not in contradiction to the idea of free will. One’s will can be impaired, not functioning as it is meant to, but this does not mean that the person has no free will any more than a person who has lost mobility in his arm due to a slight fracture no longer has an arm.

Though Laura has posed the question of whether blogging is immoral, neither Rev. Jackson nor Mr. Stove suggest that it is intrinsically so. I suspect that Laura meant the question to be received more rhetorically than literally, and not that it might be possible that every blogger is in reality a charlatan? The strongest thing that is said in the essay is that most Catholics should not be blogging. I entirely agree with this, as there are very few who have the knowledge, training, or other qualifications to be doing it in a responsible fashion, and yet they presume to speak on these things for which they are not qualified, often leading many to believe there is authority where there is actually none, and endangering their souls and others’ souls in the process.

These are my own words, and I’m not trying to impute them to Rev. Jackson or Mr. Stove, but the Church, and the world, would be better off if more Catholics used the infinitely more powerful medium of prayer, even if in exclusion of, and perhaps especially to the exclusion of, the Internet. I implicate myself here.

Laura writes:

Neither Father Jackson nor Mr. Stove come right out and say that blogging is immoral, although Father Jackson does say the listed hazards “seem to be unavoidable.”

Addiction, in the Christian sense, is the progressive loss of freedom of will caused by repeated sin. Internet use does have an addictive power that takes many people by surprise.

One needn’t choose between prayer and blogging. I don’t see how they are mutually exclusive. I guess John means that if one gets entirely caught up in the Internet and neglects everything else. Yes, since it is addictive, that’s a hazard. But I think it would be better if there were more excellent bloggers, if as many as possible aspired to and achieved excellence in this form. I also agree that all the dangers listed by Stove and Father Jackson are real. The problem isn’t the technology it is vanity, sloppiness, pride, malice or laziness that makes blogging immoral. As it is very difficult to achieve excellence in this form, it is something only a few will actually accomplish.

Laura adds:

I remember reading a speech that Flannery O’Connor gave years ago to a literary group. I can’t remember the title of her speech or quote her exactly.I will have to look up her precise words, but as I recall she lamented the fact that so many people who were essentially untalented aspired to be writers and how it would be far better if fewer people owned typewriters. This was an arrogant thing to say. What she really meant, I like to think, was that it would be far better if those who did aspire to write clearly did it with humility. The problem wasn’t too many typewriters or too many people wanting to write clearly but too much vanity.

In a world where there is good writing, there must be plenty of bad writing. Writing and thinking are spiritual by nature. To seek clarity and knowledge is to seek God. It would be better if more people had owned typewriters and more people sat by themselves at lonely computer screens trying to figure out the world. It would not be better if more people spent time in distracting feuds or chats or in the cultivation of lazy thinking and writing, all of which are common on the Internet. The problem then is the conscious pursuit of nothingness. And, as Josh said, the problem is often in what people are saying, in the message not the medium. Regarding the medium, the best thing to be said in defense of blogging is that in an age of images, it still relies on the written word.

John E. writes:

Well, if you find my views extreme on this subject, I think Laura should be held responsible. I took as a project for Lent to read The Intellectual Life by Antonin Sertillanges, who was recommended by Laura. He disparages even reading of newspapers (of course we don’t know what he thinks of the Internet, but we could make some good guesses). Just kidding, of course, about holding you responsible : ) The Intellectual Life was very good to read, by the way, though I think I will have to read it at least three more times in order to pick up everything that I probably ought to have picked up on the first time. 

Please allow me to clarify that I never intended to suggest that blogging is incompatible with an interior life. What prompted me to even bring up the subject of prayer was my alarm at Josh’s words (“And now that this most powerful technology has become ubiquitous, it is a BATTLE of the MOST truthful communications”), which, coupled with his assertion that Fr. Jackson’s words are self-destructive, gave me rise to defend Fr. Jackson by bringing to mind another tool which he, as a priest, no doubt considers much more powerful than the Internet, that being prayer. Fr. Jackson did not go into detail about this, but a good priest considers the bulk of the work done in battle with the enemy to be done through prayer. A deflection from the Internet as a powerful tool in this regard does not necessarily translate into a shying away from engaging the enemy in effective battle. 

I do think that our society suffers from a lack of strong interior life in individuals in general, but I had no particular bloggers in mind when I said this, and don’t wish to accuse anyone in particular, certainly not Josh, of whom I do not know enough even to say what faith he ascribes to.

Josh F. writes:

To the point of addiction, I would say John’s analogy to a broken arm representing an impaired free will is false. God’s infusion of free will into man’s being isn’t “physical,” rather, it’s intangible and
indestructible although obviously suppressed in the unfaithful, i.e., those that believe in physical addiction. Addiction CAN’T be intangible (if so, it’s simply a “matter” of the mind, a clearcut
rejection of one’s God ordained free will) and so it must be physical in origin. Addiction, as it’s known, has a material manifestation. What the Catholic leadership asserts when they warn Catholics of the “addiction” to something is the tangibility and destructibility of man’s God ordained free will. What they assert is physical addiction being more powerful than intangible free will. Physical addiction is the assertion of the material and mechanical over the transcendent.

Josh adds:

If a Catholic recognizes he needs God’s salvation and he is also situated in a sea of those who have no such recognition, is it good enough to just pray? Is is good enough just to seek your own salvation while letting others wallow in ignorance? And this is assuming that the everyday Catholic is actually praying for good and just things such as his salvation. Outside that type of prayer, prayer is less necessary and relevant. In fact, prayers that don’t seek what is right and just and good are a useless exercise in bad “Catholicism.” So unless one prays for salvation and what is right, just and good twenty-four hours a day, then the Catholic has OTHER duties in his life. Namely, he has a duty to persuade others to seek salvation and what is right, just and good. To isolate himself from the most technologically innovative Truth amplifier is just plain absurd as communicating with others in the myriad of ways one can communicate is how good and true relationships are built in this world.

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