How can a literary community-dedicated to serious discussions of literature-avoid, on the one hand a vulgar elitism and, on the other hand, allowing for pure nonsense?

I think a place to begin addressing this question is with a clarification-an elaboration, if you will-on the nature of the poles between which we might be allowed to seek our community. To qualify myself, the following represent exaggerated caricatures meant only to clarify the nature of the problem by exposing the extremes.

Vulgar Elitism

He imagines himself well-read…

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1) Doesn’t a literary “blog,” by virtue of its abstract, anti-social, and virtual nature risk losing something basically human about discussions on literature?

To be fair, my friend, I think the answer is yes. There is significant risk associated with this project, and I think you are exactly right to locate a part of this risk on the medium. For one thing, it does seem to be the case that good discussion about literature are good as much for the intimacy that they support between conversants as they are for anything we might hope to uncover about literature. What I think you are point to (and please correct me if I am wrong) if the following question: to what extent does the medium of the Internet dehumanizes communication?

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