A David Of Armies

by von

IN MY MEANDERING post below (since updated), I made the following comment:

GLENN REYNOLDS is back at InstaPundit, and it's a bit sad:  InstaPundit always improves a bit when Reynolds takes a vacation and lets others fill in.  This is not a slam on Reynolds -- though he has become predictable of late -- but rather a recognition of the difficulty of solo blogging.  Providing both quantity and quality is a tough gig, which may be why the best solo bloggers tend to be journalists (e.g., your Sullivans, Kauses, and Yglesiases) and the high-traffic nonprofessionals (e.g., Reynolds and Charles Johnson) are mostly link aggregators.   You'll find exceptions, of course.   But not many.

Professor Reynolds took issue with the main point of my post, and I've responded.  So enough of that.  But Reynolds also took issue with this opening tangent and, since I have twenty seconds to waste, it's worth twenty more seconds of thought.  This is how Reynolds restates my comment above:

Really, people who even admit that they're "nitpicking" [me] ought to at least follow the links before picking nits, especially in the process of offering a theory about the inherent inferiority of solo blogs. . . . .

I'll leave to the reader whether Reynolds has accurately characterized my position. I didn't think that I was offering a theory on the "inherent inferiority of solo blogs" -- nor do I think that I could have been understood that way -- but I have an obvious bias.  (In favor of me, natch.)

In fact, there's nothing "inherently inferior" about solo blogs.  What is true -- and I think indisputably so -- is that there's a high level of difficulty and a lot of work in producing a popular solo blog.  It's not easy churning out "both quantity and quality"; it's a tough gig.  So, I posit that most high-traffic solo bloggers will tend to be members of the media.  This is not because, word-for-word, a member of the media is a naturally better blogger; although many are quite good.  This is because members of the media have experience writing for the general public, have ready access to sources, and sometimes are even given time to blog. 

A nonprofessional with a serious day job has a lot of trouble competing with that.  So, Reynolds (a law professor) mostly aggregates links, saving time by citing the work of others; Charles Johnson (a web designer) does the same; Professors Bainbridge and Muller (more law professors) write less frequently; Publius joins us; John Cole takes on a co-blogger; the Volokhs start a conspiracy; Jeralyn Merritt (an attorney) also takes on cobloggers; etc.  As I mentioned below, you will find exceptions -- Captain Ed somehow continues to churn out high-quality product (although today he has a guest blogger) -- but not many. 

I don't think that's all too controversial a point:  the blogosphere isn't so much an "Army of Davids" as a bunch of David-bits that can assemble, Voltron-style, to slay a media Goliath.  On occasion.  Most of the time, however, the different bits don't fit together, ignore one another, are actively at war -- or they are too busy writing navel-gazing posts like this one.  With a few notable exceptions (Reynolds may be one of them), we're individually empowered to the precise extent that a member of a crowd is empowered:  Not very much.  But, man, together we can do some serious smashing.

But then, I've always been a bit gloomy about human nature.  And certainly, I'm distrustful of claims regarding transformations via superior ideology or technology.  Despite the big new idea, most folks continue to be their nasty and brutish selves.  Thus, change comes slower and less predictably than one would like. 

Or, more succinctly:  Twenty-plus years on, the internet is still mostly for porno.

This is an open thread.

UPDATE:  There's a nuance I don't want missed in one of my comments above.  I write:  "With a few notable exceptions (Reynolds may be one of them), we're individually empowered to the precise extent that a member of a crowd is empowered:  Not very much."  Note what's implied there:  a member of a crowd does not have a great deal of individual power, but he does have more power than someone not in the crowd -- your prototypical guy who instead lurks in his lerkim, cold under the roof.*  The crowd member does have a say in the direction of a crowd:  she can calm it, lead it, or shout fire.  If enough folks hear her and agree, she might even change its direction.  That's the nature of being in a crowd.

The blogosphere has created a virtual crowd where none existed before.  Reynolds is right in his book "An Army of Davids" to recognize the small, but real, shift in power therefrom.  Unclear -- and I think quite disputed -- is the degree of the shift.  Or, indeed, where it has shifted us.  A crowd, after all, is not always an army.  Sometimes it's a mob, and a vicious one at that.  And sometimes it's simply a crowd.

*Of course, such a lurkim lurker does get to make his own clothes out of miff-muffered moof -- so that's an plus, I guess.

p.s. For those concerned that I've abandoned my spat with Kevin Drum and Eric Martin over our intervention in Somalia -- a category that may include only me -- I intend to have a follow-up later this week.  I'd follow-up faster, but I have a day job that's quite consuming ....

ar

Comments

[Jeff Eaton]

Reynolds seems needlessly touchy about those who question -- or even discuss thoughtfully -- the all-consuming supremacy of his blogocentric vision of information dissemination.

But you're right -- the link aggregation approach that Reynolds is an indication of the inherent difficulty. It's one of the reasons I'll read Volokh Conspiracy over Instapundit any day.

Working with Open Source Software, a lot of the same dynamics emerge. Most of the heavy contributors to a large project are people who develop software (usually, software specifically related to the OSS project) in their day-jobs. The reason is simple: they're already knee-deep in the same kind of work, and when they have a chance to contribute there's very little context-switch required.

[ThirdGorchBro]

Or, more succinctly: Fifteen-plus years on, the internet is still mostly for porno.

And Star Trek debates. Can't forget that!

[Ugh]

John Yoo makes an appearance. I love the headline.

[von]

And Star Trek debates. Can't forget that!

True.

Changed it to "twenty-plus years on" because I forgot how old I am. (I was just listening to the "new" Shellac over the weeked. From 1997.)

[cleek]

Star Wars, too!

[CharleyCarp]

Thanks Ugh. Does Prof. Yoo really not understand the difference between "unreviewable" and "constitutionally permissible"?

[Jeff Eaton]

Also, Von -- you're being muttered at in the latest Mary Worth comic. I'd watch out if I were you...

http://joshreads.com/images/07/03/i070318maryworth.jpg

[von]

Also, Von -- you're being muttered at in the latest Mary Worth comic. I'd watch out if I were you...

I swear, I only slept with her that once!

[Katherine]

Charley--No. No, he doesn't. Yoo seems to make no distinction at all between law and raw power. If no one can stop you, it's not illegal.

Here's another simple question: if John Yoo can publicly acknowledge that the CIA waterboarded people, like Dick Cheney before him, why are the former CIA detainees' descriptions of being waterboarded, etc. classified? If John Yoo can discuss the fact that the techniques authorized by the torture memos weren't changed even after the torture memos were recalled, why can't we see the OLC memos to prove this?

[Randy Paul]

I'll leave to the reader whether Reynolds has accurately characterized my position.

Eric Martin no doubt feels your pain :-)

Seriously though, I moved mine from a solo blog to add two bloggers and I may add more. The addition of content from them has been terrific.

BTW, I found the other bloggers as commenters in yet another blog. That strikes me as fertile ground to find co-bloggers.

[Ugh]

I should have noted I got the point from Lederman.

I wonder if Yoo still teaches Con Law I at Berkeley (though no one probably takes it anymore now that they've changed the 1L requirements, IIRC).

[KCinDC]

Looks like he's currently teaching only second- and third-year courses.

[Pooh]

Does Prof. Yoo really not understand the difference between "unreviewable" and "constitutionally permissible"?

When it suits his cause not to, yes, he does not understand. Circumstantial evidence...

I think Publius has a post on his old site about why and how the FedSoc tends to produce extremists such as Yoo and thrust them front and center...

[Ugh]

I think Publius has a post on his old site about why and how the FedSoc tends to produce extremists such as Yoo and thrust them front and center...

That's interesting, though I'm not aware of Yoo doing anything prior to OLC that was too controversial (not that I've read everything he's written), at least not anything that was public. As I've noted here before, he taught Con Law I out of Erwin Chemerinsky's horn book at Berkeley, not once noting he's, um, views on presidential warmaking powers.

[OCSteve]

For anyone who enjoys reading Cathy Seipp – very sad news today.

[KCinDC]

Okay, I've got the transcript now of David Frum's blaming the Danish cartoon controversy for negative American attitudes toward Islam.

[Ugh]

Frum obviously has a different definition of "overwhelmingly positive American attitudes toward Muslims" than the rest of us.

[russell]

My take on the whole internet / blog thing is that it's a technology that is, and will continue to be, as profound in our time as the Gutenberg press was in its.

I write my crummy little comments here and somewhere between hundreds and thousands of people read them. Not likely to happen otherwise.

I know things I would not otherwise know because bloggers take the time to find them out and write about them. I participate in political debate online to a degree that far exceeds what's available to me elsewhere, and I live in a town where there's still an open town meeting.

IMO the quality of basic investigative journalism available on the better blogs is easily equal to that found in mainstream print media, and head and shoulders above that available in broadcast. There are some newspapers and magazines I still read, but I flat out never watch TV news anymore -- ever -- and only listen to news on the radio occasionally. I'm on the computer all day everyday anyway, so I probably spend 30 to 90 minutes every day reading news and opinion online.

Regarding John Yoo, my guess is that it would take all of fifteen seconds of waterboarding to change his opinion on the issue of torture. In case it's not clear, I AM NOT advocating that John Yoo be waterboarded. I'm making a point about the ease with which folks can offer their opinions on the matter when it is, to them, a purely academic question. It's easy to be a tough guy when you have a lovely resume and a nice university position to opine from. Call it the Bizzaro world golden rule.

Fifteen seconds and he'd be a broken man, and a civil libertarian for life. FWIW, KSM was tougher than that.

Thanks -

[hilzoy]

Taxes: all done! Yay!

[trilobite]

Twenty-plus years on, the internet is still mostly for porno.

You say that like it's a BAD thing.

[Ugh]

Taxes: all done! Yay!

Oh God, don't remind me (says the tax lawyer).

[Batocchio]

Has Reynolds ever accurately characterized someone else's argument? Even when his mischaracterizations have been clearly pointed out to him, he'll repeat them, even years later (as on Atrios' Iran foreign policy, etc.). It's too consistent from him for it to be accidental. As to how much of that is the quality of his thought and how much is bad faith, well...

[Ugh]

Ah, it's fun to mock Bizarro World, less fun when a U.S. Congressmen posts things like:

Liberal politicians bringing terrorists to American soil will invite liberal judges to endow them with previously undiscovered "constitutional rights."

[KCinDC]

I do wonder what sort of people live in FL-24 that they're willing to be represented by someone like Tom Feeney who says things like that (of course the same could be said about Jean "Walter Reed problems are overblown" Schmidt, but at least her election was close). My great-grandfather lived around there when he was in his 80s and 90s, but that was a long time ago.