Litblogging Panel

Apparntly the LAT Festival of Books had a litblogging panel pitting Andrew Keen (author of The Cult of the Amateur) vs a couple litbloggers.

Ed has a roundup of posts on the topic.

Of the write-ups, this really called out to me.

Keen (who blogged about the panel here) also made the point that there is a problem distinguishing between inane and professional. Since every blog is equally valid, it's impossible to tell the woefully inadequate from the professional.

I really wonder how Keen can make such a foolish argument. It's absolutely not the case that each blog is equally valid, any more than each newspaper is equally valid, or each novel, or each magazine, or each TV program. With blogs--as with any medium--consumers have to separate the good from the bad. It is true that blogging is more democratic than any of the other aforementioned media, but that does not mean that you cannot tell the inadequate from the professional. Anyone who can read and judge quality does that whenever she reads a blog.

Keen's argument is like saying "since all books are printed on paper and bound between covers, we have a problem distinguishing the good books from the bad." No we don't.

There continues to be a lot of doomful prophecies about how non-professionals (read: bloggers) are going to ruin erudite conversations about art. First of all, this bright line between "professional" and "blogger" no longer makes any sense: many professionals are now bloggers, and many bloggers are becoming professionals.

Secondly, I have only seen this argument made by cherry-picking the very worst the blogosphere has to offer and then pretending that this is representative of the whole. Do you think this is an argument that holds water?

And last, these arguments presuppose that readers have no responsibility to judge quality, that if we open up the field to everyone, the worst will dominate. Who, then, should judge quality? Authors like Keen? Frankly, I think readers deserve better than that. Treat them like adults. Grant them the right to form their own opinions, and then take those opinions seriously.

Comments

[R J Keefe]

This the twilight of the gatekeepers, and it's no wonder that many are anxious about it, whether they've got a vested interest in the old regime or not. Who knows what the shift from institutional authority to nodal authority will mean?

Good quality, however, is always readily apparent to discerning eyes. We don't need book editors to preserve us from inadequate book reviews. If only they did!

[Darby]

To state there's a line between the inane/inadequate and the professional in blogging and to imply that the latter is necessarily better than and preferable to the former is to suggest that there is a single intended goal all blogs and bloggers are seeking and ought to seek to achieve and that people like me who very much happen to enjoy enjoying our lives and revelling in inanity are huge assholes with invalid views of literature and the conversation surrounding it.

But that's cool because being a huge asshole makes it easy for me to summarily reject not just Keen but his entire argument. Whatever his argument is--I haven't bothered researching it.

[Brian Hadd]

Serious appraisal will work I agree, though difficulties are inherent there. Better, worst blogs are is bonuses really.

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