When tackling the opposition, there is always the temptation to respond with as much force as possible, to marshal all your sarcasm, all your anger, all your righteousness, and hurl it at them without regard. When I write, I'm always at war with that temptation. I did a lot of that when I was young, and I quickly became a master of The Screed, if not much else. It was writing as a sort of scrawled pornography, writing as masturbation, writing to work out my own anger, and the issues of people who happen to agree with me. But when I looked up from it all, I still felt alone--my whole audience consisted of people who were like me, so effectively, I was.
You can beat the opposition with a club all day long, if you have no regard for the people on the side getting sprayed with blood. That's a kind of writing that pleases me and people who agree with me, but shows absolutely no regard to people who either don't agree, or aren't decided. I have no idea why anyone would want to write in such a fashion. It's arrogant, self-absorbed, and better suited to one's diary, or their inane, half-drunk, happy-hour ramblings.
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