Vitriol on the web

A blogger from a right wing Anglican blog site has quoted a large percentage of what I posted in my "post-Easter hangover" entry. The purpose of this was a) to involve me, a non-Episcopalian, into the middle of his internecine attacks against liberal Episcopalianism, and b) to ridicule my beliefs. He did this behind my back; the only reason I found out about it was that the site meter showed a large number of visits today that were referrals from that web site.

I suppose some progressives would consider it a badge of honor to be subjected to this sort of attack from a web site like that, but engaging in flame wars with the attack dogs of the Religious Right is not the reason I blog here. To debate with such people would be a monumentally pointless waste of time. I learned from Fr Jake's blog that that particular web site is notorious for trolling the net for blog entries that don't meet with approval, and then attacking the blogger. I guess it was my turn. Naturally, this was all done behind my back. Of course, dialog with me was not the point; if it had been, he could have asked me a sincere question about why I don't attend the Episcopal church, rather than simply asserting with a know-it-all attitude in his own blog that the church "fits me like a glove" (as if he would know what fits me, a total stranger, like a glove) . The point was to use me as fodder for an internecine denominational conflict that I have nothing to do with--and maybe to engage in the fun of ridiculing someone he didn't agree with. Unfortunately, from the sheer volume of hits that I've received today, it appears that that blog has a very large following. (I should stress that not everyone who reads that blog is of the same mind. Some of the people who responded in the comments section to that blogger's posting showed disagreement to varying degrees with what he had done. This, however, only led him to ratchet up his personal attacks against me--once again, a person he has never met--characterizing me, among other things, as "lazy" and "self-centered".)

The subtlety of my own views, naturally, got completely bulldozed in the translation. I expressed views on Christianity that he abhors, and since liberal Episcopalians express views on Christianity that he abhors, this was an opportunity for him to lump all those he disagrees with into a single category that he could attack collectively. Obviously I am a perfect fit for liberal Episcopal church services, despite the fact that I have written elsewhere that, as much as I respect the Episcopal church, its services that are based on the Book of Common Prayer don't work for me personally, for a variety of reasons that I have spelled out. It is always easier to stereotype people so that you can tell them how they should then conform to that stereotype, and tell them to do what you think everyone who fits that stereotype should do.

This is one of several reasons why I prefer to keep my net presence relatively anonymous. It makes all the nastiness and personally directed vitriol out there a little easier to to deal with.