Alterman muses that this whole blogospheric “marketplace of ideas” thing has gotten a little out of hand. That it might be time to put a panel of experts in place. Sort things out, like. Otherwise, people might get the wrong idea:
Ever since the beginning of blogging-time, I have worried — in public and on blogging panels — about the loss of the media’s gatekeeper function. Now, I believe I literally wrote the book on this topic — and it’s about to go out of print for the second time, so if you don’t own it, hassle Cornell University Press — and I am as aware as anyone on earth, I believe, of the dangers of the misuse of that function. Almost all of my books deal with this tension in one way or another. But the fact is, the function is absolutely necessary. A democracy of hundreds of millions of people is functionally impossible for reasons it requires an entire book to explain.
Althouse disagrees.
Speech as disease! Some speakers are sick, and they may cause infection! He would justify quarantines. This man does not believe in free speech. He will not put his faith in the marketplace of ideas and the remedy of more speech.
The comments are well worth your time too. We are treated (again) to spectral deconstructions of the fascist-communist conundrum. Godwin’s Law is (tangentially) invoked. People make themselves look silly.
G’wan. Have fun.
I read about half way down on this article. What a load of horse dung… It always remains, just like the idea of “equal time” on radio ond T.V. WHO will be the gatekeepers and judges of this imperic realm?
I would much rather wade through a sea of horse hockey than have some gov’t guy decide what is worth reading.
Really!
I was most please to see Prof. Althouse’s peripheral correction of a common blogging faux pas – misuse of the term “fascism”. She correctly implies that fascism and liberalism (at least the true form of liberalism) are opposites. How unfortunate that today’s leftists have co-opted the word “liberal” to mean the opposition of free markets and individualism.
Shipmates,
Oh sure… that’s just what’s called for: Members of the MSM sifting and vetting material before it’s allowed to be posted anywhere on the net…..
Shouldn’t alledged professional journalists have to show something like, well, responsible journalism before they start to critique other’s work?
I guess it’s true: The right to freedom of the press only belongs to those who actually own presses…..
Respects,
Once upon a time one read about a Republic, and the free press therein being to foster a marketplace of ideas where one could examine the fare proffered, render judgement, and choose the viewpoint that most closely aligned with your discerning opinion.
However, I believe some people are not just bad losers, but cannot believe they were beaten by a view they consider wrong. It’s not that their ideas are bad, they think, it’s that the Great Unwashed Hordes must be either ignorant or have been hoodwinked by that Snake Oil Salesman that won.
Thus the only logical solution is to control the marketplace of information, thus giving the consumer only the one, correct, choice. Theirs.
To tie this back to fascism, some months ago we were discussing economics. Capitalism, Fascism, and Socialism were defined and bandied about. Fascism is merely where the individual owns the means of production but government dictates what is produced, in what quantity, or otherwise acts as an agent governing that means of production. Fascism is exactly what is being discussed here, only the product is the free press itself.
The sad part of this is that, in a marketplace of ideas, so few seem to wish to shop and instead prefer to be told what the best choice is. That is sloth, and one of the easiest methods to bring about the demise of a republic that requires active participation to maintain.
– Max
Do they talk about that Fuddite, Jim Zumbo, too? I must go look. I may comment there about that if no one else has yet done so.
Lessee… Is it late at night? Check. Have I been drinking? Check. Do I care what people here think about me? Umm, check. Maybe I’ll just do read-only.
Well, I couldn’t be a smart-@ss over there even if I wanted to. Miss Althouse is using New (Spit!) Blogger, which ain’t backward-compatible with Wetscrape 4.77.
God, I hate Google!
Where the hell is everybody? It’s not *that* late at night, ‘specially out in the PRK. I *know* that lotsa you folks are smarter than I, and know more, so why aintcha writin’ here? Have y’all gone off to do stupid real-world job-and-family stuff, or what?
Couldn’t Skippy-San, at least, show up and make some smart-ass remarks?
Tongue in cheek for previous remark of course, except for the bit about Skippy-San.
Snork.
A democracy of hundreds of millions of people is functionally impossible for reasons it requires an entire book to explain.
Correct. Which is why we are not a pure democracy. We are a democratic republic, which alleviates some of the issues that a 300 million member pure democracy would face.
Having read Alterman’s posting, I’ll say “Sure. Go ahead and set up your group that passes judgements on whether or not a given blog can be trusted.” And then everyone will be free to refer to it and trust it’s judgements or discard them as they please. It’s a free country (so far).
Now, if Alterman goes the next step and proposes that there be some kind of externally applied consequences to blogs based on what this self-appointed group of judges thinks of them, then I would part ways.
And if you could find a way to expand that incisive paragraph into a 300-page polemic, Ron, then you could write a book that no one will read too!
On the other hand, the fact that you could explain in two sentences what took Alterman a book to explain means that maybe there is a future in it for you