SocraticGadfly: #RaiseYourVoice in blogging for #BAD15

October 13, 2015

#RaiseYourVoice in blogging for #BAD15

Friend Perry commented about this in a group email, and I thought, what the heck.

So, I joined Blog Action Day, per the second hashtag, which is short for Blog Action Day 2015.

The first hashtag is the theme this year.

As a newspaper editor, I won't say that blogging, or new media in general, has replaced traditional media but, whether conducted by members of the traditional media or others, it is an important adjunct.

And, it's a voice that, even in the democratic "West," let alone elsewhere, needs to be encouraged. And, in a variety of subjects.

Politics, culture, environmental issues, philosophy, sociology all need a variety of thoughtful, articulate voices. At the same time, it needs less in the way of irrational, fear-mongering ones.

Per the theme, issues important to me include:
1. Environmentalism, including defending climate change science;
2. Secularism, defending it both against anti-First Amendment attacks from the Religious Right in the US and also defending it against the caricatures generated by New Atheism;
3. Reforming US politics, especially getting outside the two-party Republican/Democrat box;
4. Philosophy and speculative thought;
5. The arts and their need in modern society;
6. Futurism that isn't, in some way, shape or form, whether by New Ageism or salvific technologism like Ray Kurzweil, pie in the sky.

What ideas matter to you?