The Thick Skins of Bloggers . . . And Academics

From Felix Salmon:

The Cajun Boy hits the nail on the head when he describes one of the biggest upsides to opening oneself up to the crazies of the internet by blogging:

After a while, writing on the internet thickens your skin to the point where you’re easily able to easily differentiate between valid criticism and hateful venom-spewing. At some point, the hateful venom-spewing fails to even faze you any longer, while the valid criticisms are accepted and processed rationally and learned from.

This has certainly been my experience, and I’ve seen it in others, too. Bloggers in general are pretty sanguine when it comes to being flamed on the internet or in their comments sections, while non-bloggers tend to get much more exercised when people criticize them online. I’ve lost count of the number of journalists who have put up a blog entry or two and been shocked and excited at some of the comments they got in response; eventually, of course, you just tune that kind of stuff out altogether.

 

My single week as a blogger has been insufficient for me to judge whether bloggers develop thick skins, much less whether that thickening leads to positive results.  Have more experienced bloggers noticed such a change in themselves? 

I’ve often wondered, however, whether academics are thicker-skinned than those in “normal” jobs.  Certainly when I describe a very active faculty workshop to some of my nonacademic friends they’re shocked.   That anyone (much less a room of thirty people) might raise their voices, openly criticize a paper on which I’ve worked very hard, or – worst of all – suggest that my ideas are either implausible, obvious, irrelevant, or offensive is horrifying to them.  The fact that I actually enjoy such an exchange (admittedly, it's more enjoyable when at least some of the feedback is positive) is even more mystifying.  It’s not that other jobs are confrontation-free, and certainly legal practice is not.  But somehow the confrontation on the job as a lawyer – on behalf of a paying client – never felt as personal.   Although I should add that I was not a litigator – perhaps that lends a different perspective?

Comments

[Jacqueline Lipton]

I'm with you, Kim. I think the types of exchanges we have in academia can and do shock those in other professions. I don't know that I've been blogging long enough to know whether bloggers have thicker skins than others, though.

I wonder if part of the reason is that: (a) we have more time for these kinds of exchanges than practising lawyers; (b) people who are academic lawyers tend to be very passionate about their viewpoints which is why they chose a career that promotes expression of viewpoints rather than work for paying clients; and, (c) these kinds of exchanges are traditionally regarded as an important part of the academic profession so there's also a normative component.

[Kim Krawiec]

I bet that you're right, Jacqui. Although, given some of the news we've been hearing lately, I suspect that at least some practicing lawyers may find they have more time on their hands these days for such exchanges. Whether they'd find that a productive use of their newly-found free time is another question entirely, of course.

[Jacqueline Lipton]

Possibly fodder for a law review article???