The Week in Bloggingportal: Being Stupid About the EU Together
Ciao, Europe!
Easter Eggs - CC / Flickr
Bienvenue, willkommen and tervetuloa to another Week in Bloggingportal with me, Joe Litobarski – and what a great week it’s been, eh, folks? Spring is in the air (despite damp and soggy weather across Northern Europe) and the religious amongst us are no doubt celebrating the crucifixion and resurrection of Our Lord; whilst heathens like me join them just for the part where we all grow fat together on chocolate eggs.
EDIT: Julien rightly pointed out that some of us will also be marking the beginning of the Exodus this week and celebrating freedom from slavery following the ten plagues of Egypt. It’s a busy week!
On the blogging front, Nosemonkey kicked things off with his reaction to last week’s Week in Bloggingportal. Why didn’t the venerable Nosemonkey, who’s been blogging about EU politics for longer than almost anybody in the euroblogosphere, write about the economic crisis in Greece last week?
He says:
This economic crisis in Greece and its reveberations throughout the continent has shown that there are some major gaps in my knowledge of the EU, and I need to fill these in as best I can before I continue.
I totally understand Nosemonkey’s logic here; I often find myself wanting to blog about a topic in EU politics yet completely paralysed by my ignorance. Nobody wants to publish something that leaves them open to easy criticism from more knowledgable people. But if Nosemonkey means he’s going to spend the next few weeks learning about the economic arguments for and against the Euro before writing a detailed and thoughtful post on the topic, I think his approach is completely wrongheaded.
No one person can understand the European Union, that’s true; but Euroblogging is a community project, and we’re all trying to help each other understand this crazy Kafkaesque Union we call Europe together. Some of us are better at economics, some of us are better at law, some of us history, some of us politics. I would much rather Nosemonkey blogs his opinion about the Euro right now, before he’s read up on it and whilst he’s still unsure about the specifics; then his commenters and fellow bloggers could offer their opinions, take part in a dialogue and go through the process of forming opinions and arguments as a group.
Welcome to the Jungle
The Brussels Jungle is a new satirical website from Lobbyplanet. It’s inspired by The Onion and pokes fun at EU politics in a humourous fashion. Readers are free to submit their own stories, so if you’re tired of blogging about the legal ramifications of the European Citizen’s Initiative, go on over to The Brussels Jungle and fire off a bit of satire.
OK, then – the euro’s great. Discuss.
/facetiousness
Naturally not planning on teaching myself in-depth macroeconomics – that’d take far too long – but I do need to get a few first principles a little bit clearer in my head. Plus brush up my (only very, very basic) knowledge of Greek politics/economics.
All it should take is an hour or two with a couple of books I’ve got sitting on the bookshelf by my desk – the trouble is finding the time. Possibly this afternoon, what with it being a Bank Holiday, and all…
Entirely agree about blogging about things you know little about as well. Point two of my advice for new bloggers was ” Don’t be afraid to write about subjects you know little about”, after all… How can you learn if you’re worried about failing from time to time?
Cheers for commenting, Nosemonkey. If you’re planning a post today, then I probably misunderstood your last post. I thought you were planning a six week break from blogging locked in a basement with a copy of Economic Theory for Dummies.
It took me about six months before I felt comfortable even blogging about very, very general EU politics – and I’m on an MA course about the EU. Hell, I’m actually studying the economics of European integration as one of my modules and I wouldn’t necessarily be comfortable writing about it.
But if you write a provocative post about your initial thoughts (the Euro is brilliant because I can go on holiday with it and it looks pretty) then you can kick-start a debate that leads to you learning more about the topic.
Not really picking on your blog for any particular reason, Nosemonkey – except for perhaps sneakily trying to provoke you into a blog post.
Hey Joe, if you mention Christian Easter you should also mention Jewish Passover which happens to be this week…
True, agreed and done.
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Joe – there’s some sort of misunderstanding here… I can’t remember many times when I’ve struggled to understand something in EU politics, have blogged about it, and others actually knew more. EU politics is essentially the art of bullshitting and making it sound authentic and legalistic. So just put your thoughts out there, make it clear where the limits of your knowledge are, and – without any doubt – you’ll have handy things to contribute to the debate.
“I can’t remember many times when I’ve struggled to understand something in EU politics, have blogged about it, and others actually knew more. EU politics is essentially the art of bullshitting and making it sound authentic and legalistic.”
Jon – As far as I’m concerned, that’s the comment of the week right there. ;-D