Exit, Voice, and Loyalty is a classic book by Albert Hirschman about three strategies people use in organizations to deal with life's inevitable discontents in organizations, organizations of which OS is one de facto, as to the ultimate nature of those who do the writing that is OS.
As to the three strategies, one exits the organization, one expresses a voice of protest, or, one is loyal and tries to change things within the organization in question, in my case, getting a better balance editorially speaking between Left and Right here on OS, as otherwise, it is too much a dialogue of the deaf, or rather here on OS, an echo chamber, something which cannot be a good utilization of the opportunity afforded for free expression by the Internet.
That loyalty strategy, to the people on OS with whom I often disagree as to politics and economics as to mainly what is feasible, is why someone with right of center political preferences, if only on average, continues to post here, if deleting the past posts was also protest against editorial bias here.
It's really true in all relationships as to the strategic choices of exit, voice, loyalty.
Its a great little book by Hirschman, and one can that can be read profitably as a Republican, a Democrat, or a moderate.
Moderate views in which in the inevitably competing considerations generated by our inevitably competing ideals don't get much of a hearing in contemporary America, although they could, if people who run places like OS and their mirror image at Fox would allow for less screaming, and more discussion grounded in logic and facts as to options that are feasible both technically as to our best understanding of the social sciences, and politically feasible due to limitiations on rationality induced by meta-level ideological disagreements like Market versus State.
As to the strategies, exit means one quits a job, or even a marriage, or in my case, one deletes one's blog and never returns in protest of an obvious, ongoing and unwarranted editorial hostility towards someone who provided rather a lot of content over the last three years for OS in a politically neutral sense on the vast majority of topics addressed, as to how public policy debate has to be conducted if it is to have any contact with reality as to options.
That writing was done at tremendous personal expense in terms of time and money, including one piece this fall that managed to get 171,000 views, and was a piece that was factually accurate as to the origins of the slogan in the Civil, not Cold, War, factually accurate unlike the EP on that topic that triggered said post, and still 171,000 views later.... nada from the editors.
171,000 views, and zero from the editors, who then complain about money issues at the same time.
How that makes any sense, 171,000 views, and zero acknowledgement by the editors?
finisTIP:
Enter the amount, and click "Tip" to submit!
Zinged by Zook
dirndl skirt
Bob Simpson
Robert Young
jmac1949
Chauncey DeVega
Salon.com
Comments
Over a year ago I wrote a post in which I made the claim that OS is mostly for women. It was true then, and I think it's true today.
If you look at the typical OS cover during the week, the ratio of female to male authors is often around 2 to 1. The few male posts that are selected often deal with women's issues or issues related to gender or sexuality. Here's a breakdown of today's cover, minus the cartoons:
Total posts: 17
Female posts: 10
Male posts: 6
Unknown: 1
Of the male posts, the topics are
Hair -- 1
Marriage -- 1
Race -- 1
Health care reform -- 1
Abortion -- 1
Also frequently selected for the cover are the "how I lost my religion" posts, and the anti-Catholic posts.
So if you're not female, and not writing about women's issues, your male lover, your son wearing dresses to school, or your bad experience in church, the deck is stacked against you from the start regardless of your writing skill. If Abraham Lincoln were an OS member and posted the Gettysburg Address, it is highly unlikely that it would be selected for the cover.
And maybe that's Ok. Every venue has a particular audience, and I suppose the editor selects cover posts based on what she thinks people want to read. But those of us of the wrong gender and who do not have male lovers, transgendered children, etc., need to have realistic expectations about the possibility of having posts selected for the cover.
r
Foreign policy is infrequently featured on the cover, as are many other topics. Even other topics, when featured, are typically from the personal or emotional point of view.
For example, imagine two posts on healthcare. One post presents the author's personal negative experience trying to navigate through the current system, and takes an hour to write. The other post contains facts, figures, references, and footnotes, and takes several weeks to write.
Of the two posts, it is far more likely that the personal/emotional post will end up on the cover, even though by most measures the second post, highly-researched, is likely to be the better post.
Of course, anyone who writes a post from a conservative point of view can forget about it ever being on the cover.
Anyone who thinks about taking a lot of time to write an informative, well-researched, non-emotional post needs to understand that there is very little chance of such a post ending up on the cover.
My hope is that you are smart enough to have proposed this question about the OS editorial policy as a rhetorical one.
In fact, if I am ever selected, then my conclusion will be that I produced one of the most stupid, shallow, insipid, trivial posts in my life. I cherish my absence from the cover.