[Mb-civic] Let's Face It, Blogs Are Better

[Michael Butler]

I must agree and am starting use one-Michael


http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-kinsley19dec19,1,5352254.column?co
ll=la-util-op-ed 

MICHAEL KINSLEY

Let's Face It, Blogs Are Better

Better than I thought, and maybe even better than what I do for a living.
 Michael Kinsley

 December 19, 2004

 If you're going to peddle opinions for a living, self-assurance is
essential. If you don't have it, you need to bluff. People don't want to
read a lot of "Oh dear, this is so terribly complicated, I just can't make
up my poor little mindŠ. " Many's the pundit who has retired on full
disability after developing a tragic tendency to see both sides of the
issue. 

 Rarely, though, does mathematical certainty inflate even the most
self-assured commentator on public affairs (i.e. George Will). It's happened
to me only once, on the subject (unfortunately) of Social Security
privatization. Not, perhaps, the most glamorous topic on which to waste the
gift of certitude. But, to borrow philosophically from our Defense
secretary, you make do with the epiphany you have, not with the epiphany you
might wish or want to have.

 I won't bore you by repeating my proof that Social Security privatization
can't work. (Not quite true: I will bore you with it, but not until next
week. Meanwhile, you can do your homework at latimes.com/kinsleysproof.)
Right now, I have something more exciting to bore you with.

 Like you, I'm sure, I usually try to be a good sport about the inexplicable
fact that other people sometimes disagree with me. What other choice is
there? The nonsense that other people think is often amazing and always
disappointing ‹ but that's not really surprising, is it? And other people
are disappointing in so many ways. What's one more? For all I know, you
yourself may even disagree with me about this or that, and I may disagree
with you about the other. It's everywhere.

 And other people are so stubborn! I get paid to try to convince people that
I am right and they are wrong, and thank goodness I'm not paid on the basis
of results. It's almost enough to make you consider the possibility that
other people are right and you are wrong. Merely considering this
possibility is therapeutic, if you don't make a habit of it.

 But when you're sure of something to a mathematical certainty, everything
changes. It becomes supremely irritating that other people continue to
debate the issue as if there were some doubt. It is enraging that some
people even act as if certainty belonged to the other side. This general
failure to acknowledge that the Social Security issue is settled and the
argument over is even more irritating when you have explained it all in
columns and editorials over the years (including one in this very paper on
Nov. 12).

 Nor does it help when the president himself passes up every opportunity to
accept your airtight logic, as George W. Bush did in pushing partial
privatization yet again at his White House economic conference last week.
The gentle explanation that the president may be unfamiliar with you and
your logic is oddly uncomforting.

 That conference was the last straw. To vent my frustration, I sent an
e-mail to some economists and privatizing buffs saying, look, either show me
my mistake or drop this issue. Refute me or salute me. Disprove it or move
it. Or words to that effect. As an afterthought, I sent copies to a couple
of blogs (kaus files.com and Andrew Sullivan.com). What happened next was
unnerving.

 A few days later, most of the big shots haven't replied. But overnight, I
had dozens of responses from the blogosphere. They're still pouring in. And
that's just direct e-mail to me. Within hours, there were discussions going
on in a dozen blogs, all hyperlinking to one another like rabbits.

 Just so I don't sound too naive: I am familiar with the blog phenomenon,
and I worked at a website for eight years. Some of my best friends are
bloggers. Still, it's different when you purposely drop an idea into this
bubbling caldron and watch the reaction. What floored me was not just the
volume and speed of the feedback, but its seriousness and sophistication.
Sure, there were some simpletons and some name-calling nasties echoing
rote-learned propaganda. But we get those in letters to The Times editorial
page. What we don't get, nearly as much, is smart and sincere intellectual
engagement ‹ mostly from people who are not intellectuals by profession ‹
with obscure and tedious, but important, issues.

 Why the difference? Lots of space, for one. I'll be hard-put, next week,
even to summarize my own argument, let alone discuss those of others, in the
space available to a columnist. Letters get even less space, if they are
published at all. Certainty that what you write will get posted is surely
another factor. It's nice to know you're not wasting your time. Ease is
important, too. You can send your views electronically to a blog in less
time than it takes to find a stamp, let alone type a letter.

 Most interesting, though, is how the Web enables people scattered around
the globe, who share an interest in a topic as naturally uninteresting as
the economic theory behind Social Security privatization, to find one
another and enjoy a gabfest. Webheads like to call this phenomenon
"community." I used to think that was a little grand and a little
misleading. Populist electronic conversation mechanisms like blogs and Web
bulletin boards are more about the opportunity to talk than about the
opportunity to listen. But that may be true of physical communities as well.

 At least we're talking past each other in a glamorous new medium.


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