I generally spend about an hour a day catching up with the blogs that I've got filed under 'favourites': it makes me feel like I am keeping abreast of the work environment even if I'm not putting words down myself. But just recently a couple of them have began to rankle and I'm seriously thinking of knocking them off the list. It's hard to identify the reasons precisely, but it's the same sort of feeling that you get when a colleague's voice starts to get on your nerves and you sit drumming your fingers, waiting for them to get on their favourite hobbyhorse yet again. The intrusion of ego into scholarship, I think. Sure - everyone's got a point of view (and there's nothing duller than a blog detailing field-resources with no personal reflection) - but when that point of view becomes absolute conviction and obscures objectivity......
The older scholars tend to take themselves less seriously, even though they are the ones with greater academic clout, but I suppose that self-deprecating humour comes after years and years of experience and the realisation that the more you think you know, the less you actually do! I have to admit a wry smile when one of these established scholars verbally 'pats' a neophyte on the head: the puppy-like fawning and widdling that follows is most amusing.
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