GLENN REYNOLDS IS RIGHT

I couldn’t help agreeing with Glenn Reynolds’ response to my review of his An Army of Davids:

As for Keen's complaint that I fail to address the "crucial" question of "whether or not man is inherently good" -- well, that question could support a book, or a thousand books, on its own. And has.

Reynolds is right to say that this question could support a thousand books. These are the great texts that represent the foundations of our western civilization: Plato’s Republic, Aristotle’s Ethics, Machiavelli’s Discourses, Hobbes’ Leviathan, Burke’s Reflections on the French Revolution, Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, Madison & Hamilton’s Federalist Papers.

Note that uber-blogger Reynolds doesn’t mention blogs. He never says that the question of whether or man is good could support one blog, a thousand blogs or, for that matter, a billion blogs. And he’s right. Blogs can’t investigate complex moral issues because they are, by definition, shallow and transient. They are designed to be written and read instantly. Thus Instapundit’s instantaneous news and information service on his massively popular blog. Don’t think, just write; don’t think, just read.

Some weeks ago, I interviewed Dan Gillmor for my afterTV podcast show. Gillmore is the author of We the Media, a utopian vision of a flattened media world . When I asked Gillmor for an example of how blogs are enriching our knowledge of the world, he told me about the communities of Prius owning people that read each others’ blogs so that they could understand their cars better.

Yes, Instapundit Glenn Reynolds is right. The question of the goodness of man is not a subject for a blog. Unless, of course, it is the collective goodness of Prius owners wanting to bathe in each others virtue.

Give a million monkeys a typewriter, it has been said, and you get a decent novel in return. Give a billion humans access to electronic diaries, and all you get as a return on your investment is ephemera. Spontaneous thoughts. Opinion. Communities of Prius owners. Trash.

So here’s my guarantee about the future: Just as Thomas Friedman promised us that country’s with MacDonalds franchises will never go to war with one another, so I will guarantee that no blogger will ever provide lasting wisdom to later generations. That’s a promise. And a warning.

Comments

[Mona from Berkeley]

yeah yeah with all the Prius jokes -- you gas guzzling reactionary. And you've got a huge SUV no doubt that you like to dangle at the ladies.

Blogs can be wise. It's just a different sort of wisdom from your masculine version.

Get real. We ain't in ancient grease no more.

[Greavsie]

it's Greece. Not Grease

[Richard North]

It's often said that the web is dangerous because it isn't monitored, censored or controlled. I once heard Jenni Murray - of BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour and The Message - sound almost appalled as she talked on air about how bloggers are free to publish material without an editor. And
this from a person whose every instinct one imagines to be liberal and even permissive.

Her reaction is perhaps reasonable: almost everything you read in print or hear on television and radio has been filtered by people you can
trust - or at least assess. This isn't always true on the web - though on many sites one does accept that material has been "moderated".

People worry that on the web, nonsense will be as powerful as good sense, and that false statements might have the same power as true ones. How could you tell them apart?

My conclusion is that it's surprisingly easy.

I have spent the best part of ten years trying to produce websites
which are trustworthy. I mean that they have not only to be honest and fair-minded, but they have also to be obviously so. It's this second bit which is hard. But it isn't at all impossible, or even difficult.

My mission was to produce sites which would help young people
understand difficult issues. I wanted to help students especially, but their teachers too, and really anyone prepared to do a bit of reading. (If you
take a look at my website you'll find these sites listed).

I was interested in controversial subjects like global warming, and
nuclear power, and protest.

One oddity emerges, and one learns it from apparently serious sites
which make this mistake. It's not much use just putting up undigested material from all sides of the argument. Posting heaps of rubbish from both sides doesn't somehow produce a happy medium in between them. You don't get nearer to the truth by splitting the difference between opposing
lies or nonsense.

Nor is it much use if you suggest you can help people find "The Truth". Almost always, and especially where there are moral judgements to be made, there isn't one clear answer to the problems people are addressing.

Obviously, this depends on the kind of question that's being asked. Maths questions tend to have clear answers. But lots of other matters are still being investigated, or can't be answered that simply, or are full
of uncertainty. Lots of people don't agree, but I think global warming is amongst these.

But before we get too bogged down in difficulties, let's look on the
bright side. When you're surfing websites there is almost always a way of getting a bearing on the material you are looking at.

Almost always, you are looking for reasons why you can trust (or ought to distrust) the people who are putting out the material. To a
surprising degree, the material you can trust leads you out to other sources where you can cross-check it. One is always looking for the individual
who is making the claim and then trying to work out why he or she is trustworthy. Over and over again, I have been surprised by how rich the web now is. You can quickly go from the claim you're interested in, and check out the credentials of the individual making the claim. The sort of
person one can trust will almost always be cited admiringly by people or institutions you have reason to trust and who you can find on the web a click or two away from the material you're interested in.

None of this is absolutely foolproof. In some debates there can be a surprising degree of acceptance that one side has won the case hands down, and anyone who doesn't agree is portrayed as a maverick or been paid to disagree by industry, or whatever. But even here, as you look around
a particular issue, you'll start to get a feeling for that sort of
"conventional wisdom" and its opponents.

So it's always worth remembering that any issue will have at least two sides, and that it's wise to check around the issue until you have a feel for the way this disagreement shapes up. Quite often, there's a "left" and a "right" political difference. Sometimes it's a "green" versus
a "progressive" divide.

But if you are ordinarily sensible, put in a bit of work, keep your wits about you - the web is surprisingly good at providing the kind of cross-references that allow you to keep your grip and get a bearing on even the toughest issues.

Best wishes,

[Michele]

So if writers who are exercising their literary muscles and trying to develop their ideas for future publication aren't actually presenting original thought, what is the harm?

Most important thing to remember with blogs is this: You get what you pay for. If the writer wasn't paid for the navel gazing, you don't have to pay for it, right? The editorial and publication process is obviously a great way to get ideas into the world -- they're questioned, refined, polished, and made as fantastic as they can be.

At the same time, why hate on the bloggers? I write my tail off every day on my blog and my audience is my very own little fan club as I knock around to finish my MFA. My ultimate goal is publication, but that doesn't make what I write completely useless. Navel gazing, sure. Self-important, sure. Free and "relatively worthless"? Sure. But my writer friends prod and prompt me, I do the same to them, and good work that may eventually be published is the result.

That is worth a lot.

Just my dime in the well.

[Charlie]

You have questioned the significance of blogs. I believe that blogs have been used in Iraq by the Iraqis. I have also heard of them being used in other politically oppressed countries to get the news out. Is that trivial? How many reporters can safely provide eyewitness accounts of what is going on in Iraq?

[Greavsie's own goal]

Echo Charlie. Blogs are liberating the Iraqis and the Iranians. Blogging is huge in Iran. It's the best antidote to the autocracy of the Mullahs there. I hope that blogs will grow too in North Korea.

If theere had been blogs in Stalin or Hitler's day, then we would have destroyed communism and fascism much more quickly. Same is true of monarchies throughout history. Imagine blogs in 9th century India. That would be really cool

[RLK]

It seems to me that the blogs are very similar in function to the eighteenth and nineteeenth century broad sheets as a way to get opinion and news out with out the filter of an editor or an owner. It is the free dispersal of opinion and ideas that modern man has seemngly always yearned for.

[Karl K]

Andrew --

You forgot to mention Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations,, and F.A. Hayek's ,in your list of books.

Oh, and this just in. Blogs will not replace great books. They will still be printed, and still be read.

You can stop worrying now.

[anonymous]

cute monkey's! from what country's do they hail?

[Tim Draper]

I think these particular monkeys are from Palo Alto

[Harry Slaughter]

"I will guarantee that no blogger will ever provide lasting wisdom to later generations. That’s a promise. And a warning."

I'm curious what scares blog elitists so much about the idea of mediocre people writing about mediocre things.

And why do all these mediocre blogs get so much airtime on the elite blogs that are worthy of sharing the same bandwidth with X10 popups, organ extenders and offers of instant wealth from deposed third world leaders?

Personally, I don't find arrogance-oozing criticism of all of the little people that interesting. I'd *rather* read about some kid's day trip to the mall.

And did those two monkeys have anything to do with the writing of this post?

[John Bruce]

I think there's a problem that everyone but possibly Andrew has missed, which is that Reynolds is a "transhumanist" masquerading as a normal person. One thing I'm discovering about bloggers is that many of them are like the people who want to hook up in chat rooms -- they're very selective in what they say about themselves. Reyndols says he's a transhumanist but doesn't go into the singularity, which he apparently believes in, and which has been described at http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/archive/2004/01/11/LVG1J459UE1.DTL as "rapture for nerds". Transhumanists typically believe that if the singularity doesn't happen in their lifetimes (i.e., the explosive progress in artificial intelligence that will make them immortal), they must have their heads frozen so they can be revived at some later time, after the singularity does take place. This is the purest moonshine, of course. NOBODY in any review of Reynolds's book has pointed out that this is the basis for what he says in it. I've been discussing this on my blog.

[Kim Novak]

hey Andrew -- have you seen what classicalvalues says about you:

http://www.classicalvalues.com/archives/003463.html

I still luv ya! (even if millions don't)

[Evelyn Rodriguez]

Go right ahead and read a thousand books. Even the most brilliant proof that man is inherently good will at most engender a bit of "faith" in the goodness of man; the most brilliant evidence in another book citing man's evilness will also engender faith in that belief. Maybe for a while...

What good are surface-level beliefs? Will you act out of those beliefs when push comes to shove? Or do they need to be ingested fully from personal witness to be automatic to our responses to life?

Where blogging (and I must say not everyone uses their blog this way) is truly helpful is to explore a hypotheses, in other words throw out the experiment's premise, and use the blog to chart the progress and process. Blogs aren't as good for totally final results because they unfold over a length of time - but are wonderful in allowing one to share the process of an experiment in the making, and participate in the discovery itself.

Lasting wisdom may be glimpsed in moldy books. But your own perception isn't fundamentally changed by glimpses alone.

"The wise will know for themselves." - The Buddha

p.s. I recommend rereading Plato's Republic Book VII on the cave allegory.