Hackery

Due to all my holiday frolicking (Wooh. Midnight Mass is really getting edgy!) I'd forgotten to check up on Mike Kinsley's Social Security columns in the WaPo.

You can read them here and here. My response to his bleg to the blogosphere can be found here.

I've been banging on the same drum since I was sixteen and started watching Crossfire but hell, I'll bang it again: what a tremendous ass Kinsley is! Not only does he just not get it about Social Security, he also manages to diss the exact same group of people he went to for research material:

Just so I don't sound too naive: I am familiar with the blog phenomenon, and I worked at a Web site for eight years. Some of my best friends are bloggers. Still, it's different when you purposely drop an idea into this bubbling cauldron 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 editor. 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.{...}

Oh, I'm sure he didn't think that bit up there about bloggers not being "professional intellectuals" was a slam. I'm sure he thought he was being complimentary after having rolled those beady eyes of his at the mere thought of having to weed through a full inbox. He meant it as a compliment, I'm certain. A little MSM pat on the head. Good little blogger. Niiii-ce blogger. Remember the Milkbone I slipped you and don't bite me.

Chomp.

I may not be employed by a Beltway think tank or by some Ivy League university, but that does not mean I do not consider myself to be an intellectual. As much as I hate to refer to the dictionary, I find myself needing backup. The Oxford Desk Dictionary and Thesaurus, American Edition defines intellectual as: "a person possessing a highly developed intellect." I'm sure we can split a few hairs about what "highly developed" means but if we really want to get down to the nitty gritty, well, that pretty much defines anyone who reads on a regular basis, doesn't it? Someone who thinks deep thoughts. Who has curiosity. Who wants to figure out how it works and thinks that, after coming up with something new, they can add something to the discussion and who then might put the fingers to the keyboard and pump something cohesive out. Is this person not an intellectual? We live in a free society which provides for an open exchange of ideas. Anyone with the chops and the know-how can take part. Despite his call for opinions, despite his implied pledge to that open society with a free flow of ideas, ironically (or not)Kinsley, it appears, would have it otherwise. Never mind the inconvenient fact that we the people actually have a stake in this very important discussion. That's the least of it according to the Gospel of Mike.

Yet, while I would like to think that anyone who is curious about the world can consider themselves to be an intellectual, this apparently is not the case. You need to have credentials. You need degrees hanging on the wall. After all, the very word "profession" implies that this is what you do to earn your daily bread. A professional intellectual would be one who paid his bills by thinking deep thoughts, because we all know nothing is worth anything unless you get paid for it. That's the standard we Capitalists have developed, so we'll stick with that. Hmmmm. Let's see. Can we find an example to prove Kinsley---and the rest of the world---wrong? To allow for deep thoughts to be thunk by anyone other than Los Angeles Times opinion page editors and members of the ivory tower? Aha! I've got it! Einstein! Albert Einstein was a patent clerk when he developed his Theory of Relativity. But Einstein didn't make enough to earn his daily bread by working on this Theory of Relativity, so he went to work at that infamous Swiss Patent Office. Does that mean Einstein---the man who explained what Newton could not---wasn't an intellectual?

If you use Kinsley's standards the answer would be "no." Einstein wouldn't have qualified. Accordingly, bloggers can come up with "intellectual engagement" but we're not "professional" intellectuals. In other words, bloggers are only good for a brief battle or two, like a reservist, but we'd best leave the fighting to the serious soldiers, like Kinsley. We might get ourselves killed otherwise.

Screw that.

Kinsley's cushy, protected, little paradigm is shifting. The vast wonder of the Internet is giving voice to millions of previously unheard people. That's got to be a be a little nervewracking if you're used to having to only bat back Robert Novak for the consumption of the average basic cable audience. I would bet anything that while he enjoyed the responses he received and---admittedly---was surprised at them, he still refuses to think that anyone could grasp the argument better than he could. That despite our responses, Kinsley probably thinks the blogosphere consists only of pajama-clad diletantes. Not surprisingly, this close-mindedness to what bloggers---let alone the common man or woman who hasn't set up a blog---are capable of is also why Kinsley refuses to see any argument other than his own regarding Social Security.

The man is, quite simply, a brick wall against which anything that's not of his own creation smashes.

Posted by Kathy at January 4, 2005 01:07 AM