Ask Wednesday: Editor in chief on changes at Moristotle

Morris Dean is ecstatic
about the recent changes

Ask Wednesday regularly features an interview with an interesting person on an interesting topic.

Moristotle has just added two new regular columns, for interviews and other voices, added three contributing editors, and invited queries from potential guest columnists.
    We asked our editor in chief to tell us what all this means for the blog. [Our questions are in italics]:

The addition of contributing editors is a big thing, right?

    Well, undoubtedly. Before creating this interview column last week, the only other voices on Moristotle came from readers' comments and a few guest articles. Plus, I suppose, the various authors I've excerpted, and, to a certain extent, the "fish" from my correspondence that are served in Friday's column.

Actually, that sounds like quite a few other voices!
    I guess so, in a way.
    Tuesday's new regular column will ensure that every week there'll be a significant piece by "another voice," like "The enablers" yesterday by Contributing Editor Ken Marks. We're off to a great start.
    I know that all of the new contributing editors have much that is important to say, and they're all good writers, with distinctive writing styles. They're all well-informed—better than I am on most things.
     I'm hoping as well for significant pieces from guest columnists. I've put feelers out to articulate friends who have opened my eyes over the years. And I invite readers who think they have something to say (with good writing and good sense) to query me about articles they'd like to do. [moristotle@gmail.com]

How do the "other voices" harmonize with yours? That is, will Moristotle still make a distinctive kind of "music" and, if so, how would you characterize it?
     Music, to be interesting, should have multiple voices, basses, sopranos, baritones, and so on—or strings and horns and woodwinds and percussives. My own several voices seem to have harmonized well up to now, going by feedback from readers. The additional voices will produce more complex music—more provocative and, I hope, rewarding music. It'll be saying more.

How did it come about that the blog will now feature more other voices than yours?
    For a long time I thought of Moristotle as a sort of journal, or even diary. A place to record what inspired me, offended me, stopped me in my tracks, lifted me up, amused me. A place to say, "I'm alive and have some signficance, however small." I of course still use it this way. It's therapy.
    But my interchanges with motomynd and Ken and Tom have opened my eyes (that phrase again) to the importance of trying to make a difference in the world at large. To do that, we need to reach more regular readers.

Ah, so that was the motive for regular columns. What do you mean by "make a difference"?
    Moristotle deals in ideas, concepts, values, ways of looking at things, questions. If we can arouse a good number of motivated people, we might have started something that will lead to...a juster society, more rational political discourse, more rights for animals, greater concern for the common good....If we can improve one thing in any of these areas—or others—that would have been worth doing.

We're getting pretty serious here. Aren't you really doing this so you won't have to work so hard?
    Don't I wish! Alas, my job now requires more managing. It's a lot easier to quote a few paragraphs from a book I've been reading, tell a humorous or provocative anecdote, display a photograph I've taken, write a limerick...than it is to secure and schedule articles by other people and possibly go through two or three iterations of editing and rewriting.
    But fortunately I rather like "managing." I even considered listing myself as Managing Editor in the sidebar. Managing is an enjoyable activity when you can work with people of the caliber of my contributing editors and other friends I've developed over the course of a lifetime. I've been fortunate in my friends.

What question (or questions) would you like to answer that we didn't ask?
    Is that going to be this column's signature final question?