TWO WEEKS LATER: Six weeks

TWO WEEKS LATER: Six weeks ago, a prominent reader of this blog asked me whether I was a “blogaholic” — whether I felt compelled to blog to the point where it interfered with my real job. After two weeks of cold turkey, the answer is no. After the first few days, I stopped checking my ...

By Daniel W. Drezner, a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and co-host of the Space the Nation podcast.

November 20, 2002, 2:22 PM

TWO WEEKS LATER: Six weeks ago, a prominent reader of this blog asked me whether I was a "blogaholic" -- whether I felt compelled to blog to the point where it interfered with my real job. After two weeks of cold turkey, the answer is no. After the first few days, I stopped checking my declining hit count rate and just started doing the research and committee work that I needed to do. There were still moments during the past two weeks when I wanted to comment on well-written essays (like Heather Hurlburt's first-rate Washington Monthly article on the "security expertise gap" Democrats suffer), or snarky pieces of provocation (like Chris Sullentrop's intentionally outrageous attack on Harry Potter in Slate). So I'm not addicted to blogging, but it certainly takes care of an itch that needs scratching. The other thing I've done was listen to all of my liberal friends (and relatives) bitch and moan about the imminent collapse of Western civilization now that Republicans control the legislative and executive branches. Complaints along the lines of: "Abortion will be illegal within three weeks!!" "The Bill of Rights are doomed!!" and, to combine all liberal sore points into one canard: "Non-union Southerners -- all of them without health insurance -- are going to raze public schools to the ground in favor of urban strip mining for coal!!" Relax, people. For those who genuinely believe this will happen, click over to Jacob Levy's extended analysis of the median voter theorem. More importantly, stop thinking that the federal government is the source for all good and evil in the world -- this might be the signal difference between true-blue liberals and the rest of the population.

TWO WEEKS LATER: Six weeks ago, a prominent reader of this blog asked me whether I was a “blogaholic” — whether I felt compelled to blog to the point where it interfered with my real job. After two weeks of cold turkey, the answer is no. After the first few days, I stopped checking my declining hit count rate and just started doing the research and committee work that I needed to do. There were still moments during the past two weeks when I wanted to comment on well-written essays (like Heather Hurlburt’s first-rate Washington Monthly article on the “security expertise gap” Democrats suffer), or snarky pieces of provocation (like Chris Sullentrop’s intentionally outrageous attack on Harry Potter in Slate). So I’m not addicted to blogging, but it certainly takes care of an itch that needs scratching. The other thing I’ve done was listen to all of my liberal friends (and relatives) bitch and moan about the imminent collapse of Western civilization now that Republicans control the legislative and executive branches. Complaints along the lines of: “Abortion will be illegal within three weeks!!” “The Bill of Rights are doomed!!” and, to combine all liberal sore points into one canard: “Non-union Southerners — all of them without health insurance — are going to raze public schools to the ground in favor of urban strip mining for coal!!” Relax, people. For those who genuinely believe this will happen, click over to Jacob Levy’s extended analysis of the median voter theorem. More importantly, stop thinking that the federal government is the source for all good and evil in the world — this might be the signal difference between true-blue liberals and the rest of the population.

Daniel W. Drezner is a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and co-host of the Space the Nation podcast. Twitter: @dandrezner