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July 26, 2003
Excess Capacity
I am wondering a little something about our civilization today. I took a glance at an article in the NTY just a few minutes ago and it combined with a feeling of aimlessness that lands me, more times than not, in front of my keyboard. The article mentioned that some writer somewhere in Europe won some prize formerly held in high esteem by Yanks. But for some reason, this time around, nobody bothered to translate many copies of this world class literature into English.
So I am wondering exactly what it is that very together individuals do with their spare time in this nation. Simultaneously, I am wondering if it matters quite as much as we would like to think. You see on days like this where I restlessly wait for somebody to give me something to do which is not directed by my inner demons, paranoia for example, I wander the blogosphere in search of an idea to pique my curiosity. Brain spew channel surfing. As I am drawn to certain verbiage, others of it seems to be so much excess capacity wasted on egotists with relatively short attention spans like myself. And we blog back, like this here.
The reason the political dimension of the blogosphere exists at all is not because there is a real political movement underground. It's because people who are smart enough to be running things are not. Nobody is employing DenBeste, Drum, Healy or Drezner to be running those things on which they frequently opine. They are just guys with a lot to say, and only virtual organizations to say it to. Those who can't do, blog. It is a fortuitous capacity that fits well with our ideas about an informed democracy, but if they disappeared without a trace tomorrow like so many rural Liberians, nobody would say much about it.
Perhaps it is something of a stretch to say that they are smart enough. You recall the old saw, "If you're so smart why aren't you rich?". mean if bloggers were running things then . So are we all just hoping to cash in, sell out and otherwise matriculate up the invisible ladders into the American stratosphere, or are we just making a good use of otherwise wasted time?
I shouldn't be so cynical. I should be glad that there are folks out there with whom I am able to connect that are as deeply interested in serious issues as one can possibly be without having a direct vested interest in the system. But sometimes I do wonder if all this woolgathering has real consequences we can see.
Posted by mbowen at July 26, 2003 03:32 PM
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