We, the mob

In a widely-circulated and much-discussed Wall Street Journal editorial, Joseph Rago, the paper's assistant editorial features editor, takes a swipe at the blogosphere. He accuses blogs - "the blog mob" - of being poor in quality, "pretty awful" and "downright appalling." Further, our stories lack nuance and irony, our arguments are self-absorbed and our definition of discourse means insulting our ideological adversaries. His most developed point, and the one echoed by a thousand Joseph Ragos in a thousand old media outlets, is that blogs - specifically political blogs - pose a threat to the "traditional" Fourth Estate. While I have my own thoughts on this argument, one that Chris Bowers has already thoroughly fisked, I would rather spend these precious column inches discussing the point behind the point, the feelings of resentment far more dangerous than those of an ink-stained wretch shouting for we punk bloggers to get off of his lawn.

Rago wants bloggers to fall into his trap. By broad-brushing us as a rabid pack more interested in name-calling than civil discourse, Rago is hoping our refutations don't disappoint. By taking what he considers the high road, Rago expects us to take the low, a practice, ironically, regularly employed by right-wing blog commenters. Both Rago and the trolls claim to have offered those they critique a fair shot, looking for even-handed, level-headed replies to loaded questions and baseless accusations. When the targets refuse to play by an unfair set of rules and either question their interrogator's motives or demand a fairer exchange of ideas, their petitioners recoil, their apparently delicate sensibilities offended. Responding with counterfeit concern, they make a hasty retreat from our fever swamps, telling us they knew all along we couldn't act like adults. Our behavior only confirmed their suspicions.

Call bloggers a mob and watch as they act like one. Say their posts lack substance and enjoy a stream of ad hominem attacks. Accuse their discourse of being little more than a partisan shouting match and sit back as one erupts. "The petty interpolitical feuding mainly points out that someone is a liar or an idiot or both," Rago writes. To be honest, I was considering titling this story "Joseph Rago: Liar, idiot or both?", but I remembered what he said about our humor being "cringe-making" and our "irony present only in its conspicuous absence". In Rago's bubble, he's constructed a flawless argument in response to which only three things can happen. One, we mock him and confirm his hypothesis. Two, we don't mock him and instead briefly cite his story, also confirming his hypothesis. Or three, we neither mock nor briefly cite his story, instead offering a nuanced response, while still confirming his hypothesis. Why? Because he can claim that he knew all along that there were some good examples of blogging out there, yet not enough to truly give the medium legitimacy. Further, he can pat us on our heads, like a father does his son, telling us he knew we could act like big boys if we tried hard enough. When you write the rules of the game, you always win. Even when you lose.

If the climate of distrust and skepticism toward the political blogosphere exemplified by Rago's editorial continues to remain the dominant frame through which the media view their online lessers, we all lose. Not just the bloggers, but all of us. A careful examination of Rago's piece reveals not only a condescension toward the blogosphere, but also a condescension toward democracy itself. "Blogs are very important these days," Rago begins the piece by writing. "Even Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has one." Nice. From there, Rago, on more than one occasion, employs the royal "we", something that speaks to the hypocrisy inherent whenever well-placed conservatives or their colleagues in the Beltway media discuss the elitism of we liberals. (To that end, and this may be burying the lead a bit, it should be noted that the grizzled newspaper veteran behind this stinging, surely experience-based criticism is, in fact, a 23-year-old recent Dartmouth graduate.) Rago first sets the bar high by saying that the development of blogs, "we are told, is as transformative as Gutenberg's press, and has shoved journalism into a reformation, perhaps a revolution." Later, Rago tells us that "We rarely encounter sustained or systematic blog thought - instead, panics and manias; endless rehearsings of arguments put forward elsewhere; and a tendency to substitute ideology for cognition."

Perhaps Rago's repeated use of the pluralis majestatis could be explained away as an isolated rhetorical flourish if the remainder of his editorial didn't drip with a similar antipathy toward the online community. He refers to "the inferiority of the medium" when negatively comparing blogs to his ham-handed definition of journalism ("Journalism requires journalists"). He speaks of the "participatory Internet" as appearing to "encourage mobs and mob behavior." He attributes the success of the blogosphere to the notion that "everyone likes shows and entertainments" and that the "the Internet, like all free markets, has a way of gratifying the mediocrity of the masses." In again confusing people-powered online activism with his idealistic regard for print journalism, Rago tells us that "The technology of ink on paper is highly advanced, and has over centuries accumulated a major institutional culture that screens editorially for originality, expertise and seriousness." Given the current state of journalism, I'll let the irony of that statement speak for itself.

It doesn't take an editorship at a paper supposedly at the pinnacle of a field that has, for centuries, championed originality, expertise and seriousness to recognize Rago's dislike of the blogosphere. Millions of Americans - myself included - are active participants in the online community. And by becoming active participants in the online community, we've become equally active participants in our democracy. The progressive blogosphere (I wouldn't feel qualified, nor sufficiently motivated, to discuss the inner workings of the conservative blogosphere) has helped foster new activist networks, candidate recruitment, rigorous campaign coverage, issue advancement, fundraising and a host of other democratizing outcomes. To limit the extent of the blogosphere, as Rago has, to online journalism and media criticism is to purposely limit one's understanding of a complex medium. There's brilliant, in-depth reportage to be found online, just as there's top-shelf media criticism that has kept the Fourth Estate's feet to the fire. But those things, which Rago likens to "decay" masked as progress, aren't at the core of what makes the blogosphere so special. What Rago doesn't understand, doesn't respect and therefore cannot tolerate is the influence the people-powered community has given its participants.

Thanks to the Internet, the very Americans Rago considers mediocre no longer have to settle for having the conventional wisdom as determined by a select few forced upon them. The days of a cliquish elite determining the direction and rules of our national discussion are over, though the Ragos of the world - in their inexperience, ignorance or both - haven't yet realized it. Maybe they have, and their desperate attempts to marginalize a medium Rago's editorial shows he has very little grasp upon are to be expected. But such arguments, ones that " over the lost establishment" are, in Rago's own words, "pointless, and kind of sad." On that account, he's right. Instead of treating the online community as a curiosity, its critics would be far better suited trying to understand why the blogosphere is so popular. Further, tracing its popularity to the so-called appeal of the mob and the appeal to the mediocre masses dismisses the root causes of its advent while also dismissing the value of millions of people. Democracy is only appealing to the ruling class when it allows them to retain power. When the ruled begin to realize that they have the power, the rulers feel threatened. And that, not the threat blogs pose to journalism, is the true kernel of Rago's argument: He fears us. They fear us.

Good.

To say nothing about the NY Post or the Weekly Standard or numerous other worthless right-wing rags...

And yet our rabble took back both houses, even though it appears some elections were still "fixed." Yes they should be very afraid. Truth is power and we don't allow lies here. The right wing is very uncomfortable in a world without lies, talking points, elected officials who don't speak in bumper stickers.

If we don't matter, why do they keep writing about us?

It was unexpected, this amazing thing called the internet and the free flow of information. They didn't see it coming and it's upsetting a whole shitload of their plans for the future. Sucks for them and I thank all that is good for the internets!! Without the internets I can only imagine where this country would be right about now. *shudder* If we can find our way back from the abyss we're looking over, we can first and foremost thank the internets. I really mean that!

-- He speaks of the "participatory Internet" as appearing to "encourage mobs and mob behavior." --

These people really are frightened of anything that is "participatory", anything that empowers individuals -- unless the participants are a chosen few, and the individuals are upper crust.

To Rago and his ilk, we are a "mob".

Well, good thing it makes them nervous. It should. Truth is a powerful force, and one that they are in general incapable of wielding since they fail to recognize it even when it smacks them upside the head.

I must say, though, it is rather disheartening to know that rightwing gasbag bloviating can begin at such a tender age. I comfort myself with the thought that as Mr. Rago attempts to scale the heights of Beltway punditry, the landscape will change right out from under him as the traditional media fades into well deserved irrelevance and the blogosphere and online journals achieve information primacy.

It is becoming irrelevant and obsolete. It's best to ignore it and it will eventually either adapt, and become more participatory, and therefore, more Democratic, useful and poignant, or it will die.

I suspect this idiot Rago will cling to his ivory tower as it crumbles into the sea of the internets lapping at it's base. Good.

as you were creating this one. Parallel thoughts, or what!!

"particularly moribund carbuncle" :rofl: :thumbsup:

no one has beaten the mob for the million dollars. I believe Ragos to be more pro-monopoly than anti mob, personally, I believe the wealthy mob to be in control of American Journalism. The internet is an ideal vehicle for true synergy, the uplifting kind, not the dumbing down "pseudo synergy", the mass corporate media claim every time they conglomerate in to fewer and fewer hands and minds.

when the powerful are afraid of the people for a change.

I have to say I agree with some of what Rago says, but disagree elsewhere (there's some of that nuance that Rago says is missing from the blogosphere, eh?). When the WSJ man writes, "The larger problem with blogs, it seems to me, is quality. Most of them are pretty awful. Many, even some with large followings, are downright appalling," I have to agree. Just take a look around the blogosphere, you'll see what I mean. You've gotta admit, most blogs are pretty damned awful. The good ones are the exception.

Rago also writes, "A tone of careless informality prevails; posts oscillate between the uselessly brief and the uselessly logorrheic; complexity and complication are eschewed; the humor is cringe-making, with irony present only in its conspicuous absence; arguments are solipsistic; writers traffic more in pronouncement than persuasion . . ."

Again, I have to agree with him. The navel-gazing, unoriginal thought of many -- most, in fact -- blogs could certainly cause the casual observer to give the whole form amiss.

But at the same time, Hughes is right in stating that blogs are perhaps the best press watchdog of our era -- "top-shelf media criticism that has kept the Fourth Estate's feet to the fire," as he writes.

Given that so many blogs traffic in this sort of media criticism, I would hope that bloggers would be open to such criticism themselves. I do agree that Rago's dismissive tone and his position as a print journalist are strikes against taking his argument seriously -- they immediately lead one to assume, as Hughes has done, that Rago is simply brushing aside blogs because they offer competition with his own chosen medium.

But nevertheless, much of Rago's criticism is spot on. It would perhaps carry more heft if it came from a blogger -- and one who is actively trying to foster the livelihood of the form, at that -- but that doesn't change the inherent validity of the criticism. Yes, most blogs are, in fact, pretty awful. However, Rago's statements don't address the fact that most newspapers are, in fact, pretty awful themselves. As with newspapers, television, or any other mass media, the highest quality product is not the norm. The fact that he expects it to be reveals only his failure to look at mass media as a whole, and hold up his own printed word to the same standard to which he holds blogs.

His confusion that the Internet's revolution in the desemination of ideas is decay, not progress, only further demonstates this tendency.

Somehow, I doubt that Rago and you would agree on which blogs and which newspapers suck. Certainly the mighty Wall Street Journal has indulged in its own suckiness, more on the editorial page than in the news content, but suck it does on occasion. Your point is well-taken that "the highest quality product is not the norm" in any medium.

I'd be interested to see specific examples of Rago's blanket critical statements. Surely for every cringe-inducing joke on a blog, I could probably cite more than a few horrid "jokes" from the very pages of the Wall Street Journal. Even the really good blogs have jokes that fall flat (and not every one-liner in Jay's nightly monologue is a home run, either), but over all, I'd say that for integrity, honesty and intellectual pop, I'd put up several blogs against any of the country's "best" columnists. Because, after all, what is a blog but (usually) the work of one commentator? How can one person's blog be held to the same journalistic standard as a multimillion dollar enterprise like the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal or the National Broadcasting Company?

are entirely different animals, and it is an error to hold them to the same standards. For example, blogs are an informal medium, so to criticize them for informality is...well...kinda stupid.

Also, blogs are part of an intricate system of informational feedback loops in which large numbers of people engage to create and refine ideas. They are chronic works in progress rather than finished products, more like thought processes than like polished essays. It is one of their great virtues that they are so. They are, as it were, the cogitations of Tielhard de Chardin's noosphere, and will be messy. Their very utility depends on that messiness.

or a torch? I wanna join the mob. Let's march on the Castle Murdockstein now.

Let's tar and feather him and ride him out of town on a rail like was done in the past. Give him a real sense of "The good ol' days."

Notice I didn't use any name, when just a they or them will do. :sarcasm: for those who need a hint.

You have to choose--either a pitchfork or a torch.

But you can have as many brickbats as you're willing to carry.

OK, I'll settle for a pitchfork and a brickbat. Uh ... what's a brickbat? :shrug: Can I smite someone with it? Can I can I can I???? :bounce:

particularly moribund carbuncle on the fundament of a dying medium? Somehow, I find the contents of the WSJ editorial page to be more inbred than the Kallikaks and perceptibly less intelligent the general run among the Jukeses.

Oh, my--I think I might have fulfilled some of his low expectations of me in these comments.

Drat--I was so hoping for at least one WSJ editorial writer to find me acceptable. Oh, well--back to join my unwashed brethren at the barricades. Be seein' ya at the guillotine, Joe.

Know about anything? How to get wine stains out of polo shirts? He's your go-to guy. Otherwise, I know a lot more bloggers who have more of value to say than this nitwit, hired by an ivy-league credentialed elite on the basis of his own elite credentials, and nothing more.

Accusing the masses of mediocrity is hardly new. Mr. Rago not only has bad ideas, he has used someone else's bad ideas without attribution.

if you only steal really stupid stuff?

I bet Ann Coulter and a bunch of other wingnut hacks could work that into a defense.

Not stupid, but bad ideas for someone in a democratic society, as Plato's student, Aristotle, would have more readily acknowledged.

Greeks & Geeks.

(Edit: Typos.)

Bloggers are creating a new media infrastructure free of Corporatist censorship and it scares the Elites shitless.

The blogosphere never would have grown to what it is today, nor what it will increasingly become in the future, were it not for the absolutely astounding and massive failures of traditional or "mainstream" (corporate!!!!!!!!) media.

Said media really serves nowadays as gatekeeper of knowledge and truth (guarding them both against release to the rabble), and Enforcer of the Official Stories and Myths.

Because of this they do horrific and NEARLY irreversible damage to our democracy itself which relies on an informed (or even just semi-informed) electorate.

He and his have become SO passe, so out of touch, so marginalized (at their own hands) and unimportant that I had trouble even caring a whit about your otherwise very good commentary. IOW: Who the hell cares? They're over. They're SO over. Dead men (and women) walking. They can either get a clue, or perish.

And I vote for perish. Long live the blogosphere -- democracy has come to "journalism" and information-sharing at last: This IS the Aquarian Age!!