All you need is love?

Pat has written an interesting column about the "hate" he's been noticing recently, in the context of the comments posted to his blog and those posted elsewhere.  While I often have differences of opinion with him, I think he raises some interesting points.  That doesn't mean, however, that I agree wholeheartedly with what he says.  Far from it, actually.

Pat's contention that "SFF fandom" seems "to be fragmented beyond repair" left me thinking, "well, duh, since there never really was a single, unified entity as such in the first place!"  There have always been people with diverse interests who interact more as tangents or secants than as anything more intertwined.  I would be quite worried if there were a more homogenized "fandom" out there, as the literature that the authors, some of whom come from fandom ranks, might be a bit more staid as a result.  But this hypothetical concern detracts from the real thrust of Pat's article.

What really seems to be in play here is the notion of there being a sort of hierarchy of taste and disdain.  Every reader (and essayists/critics such as myself) has his/her "sweet spots" and blind spots.  That is understandable, as there really is no accounting for taste in so many of these matters.  In writing his article, Pat seems to have unwittingly done what he accuses others of having done, which made for a rather odd reading earlier this evening for myself.   I guess diff'rent strokes for diff'rent folks is more of an ideal than a reality?

But what I found to be most intriguing is Pat's writing about his readers and those vociferous few who want him to review X but not Y.  I'm sure much of that comes with the territory of having a relatively large blog readership, but some of it is rather odd.  Not saying that Pat can't choose what he wants to focus on, but rather that he feels compelled to write about it in such detail.  I know there have been shifts here when I decided to blog more about what interested me than blogging about the "next big thing" almost exclusively.  Doubtless, some readers stopped visiting regularly.  But new readers discovered what I was doing and liked it.  I suspect much the same is going on over there at his place and perhaps all he needs to do is just keep at it and stop worrying about the wannabe cooks trying to add to the stew?

Since I'm still absorbed in trying to do work-work, I guess I could just ask people here to weigh in on the "positivity" elements in that article and perhaps also things liked/disliked about blogs such as mine or his?  Not that I'm going to pay much heed to anyone who hates what I'm doing now, of course, but I think it'll be amusing to see what would happen if I started to review almost-all non-spec fic works for a while, just for a change of pace...would you follow that?