The Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet is Killing Our Culture

[BridgeTheGap]

by Andrew Keen.
Heard this guy interviewed on PBS News Hour last night. Anyone read this or catch his interview?
I think there is a ton of truth in what he is saying.

Listed under "book conversation" at:

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/newshour_index.html

http://www.lessig.org/blog/2007/05/keens_the_cult_of_the_amateur.html

http://andrewkeen.typepad.com/the_great_seduction/2006/10/my_book_now_not.html

[TlalocW]

1. He was on Colbert

He came off as a real elitist who had his knickers all twisted that people aren't just listening to the so-called experts but forming their own opinions and posting them.

TlalocW

[PATRICK]

2. I was not aware

we had a culture much less one worth worrying about because of chaotic mass conversations going on. The Internet provides written language skill communications that surpass the artsy flowery days of posted letters in quantity and probably if gleamed properly, in quality, spontaneity and instantaneous response. The quantity itself, the mobbishness of it all always gives certain people nosebleeds. How to be a gatekeeper when mobs start swamping the upper ether?

One example among countless is that in every discipline, art or skill or area of knowledge people come together, share, build, develop and provide opportunities where the job market only guarantees despair and extinction. Small films using little techniques and small budgets are made available to all, not buried anonymously in basements and bottles. ideas and suspicions and timely awareness gets shared, not having to bubble up hopelessly in the thick swamp of opportunistic culture for profit.

Is there dreck? More than ever? Even if if a greater proportion than the 999% per cent crap principle of everything produced by society it produces millions more fruitful mustard seeds in the realm of ideas and community and preserves all the interests and skills and aspirations and truths and CULTURE that mankind ever had. if that is a threat to the dull, abysmal, profit driven, suppressed, shoddy, superficial, vacuous, pompous, tyrannized thing that is American culture- as defined by who?- all the better. So goes the news, the arts, the sciences, no longer the realms dominated by crafty mediocrities woven into the fabric of privilege and conformity, no longer stifled by destroyed physical networks of real life communities, no longer hampered by physical limitations, status, geography, statism(well, they try).

If there is something worth protecting from this world come alive in heart and mind and knowledge i suppose I had better read the book. Nothing can be worse than what mankind has already installed into its patchwork of cultures even if it apes its worst failings. The Internet is an ocean where people can choose to stick to one area but it is an ocean with few barriers- unlike the culture of "real" life.

[htuttle]

3. "We cannot separate the air that chokes from the air upon which wings beat."

...to quote the 'Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace' that John Perry Barlow wrote back in '96.

"It is an act of nature and it grows itself through our collective actions."

http://homes.eff.org/~barlow/Declaration-Final.html

[BridgeTheGap]

4. It's interesting to note that Thomas Jefferson, shortly after the revolution

stated something to the effect that newspapers were vital to the practice of democracy.
After serving as President, he was asked what newspapers he read and he said "none." They were useless as they basically spread lies and couldn't be counted on for the truth.
Somehow that applies in this situation.
The author of this book said he felt there was more diversity in mainstream media than can be found at most internet sites. That sent up a red flag for me. Someone recently said that msm had veered from reporting facts to editorializing and opinions.
I don't think this guys book is going to have much impact on this avalanche that is the internet.

[undergroundpanther]

5. Another elitist fuck-stick

Whining that he isn't getting paid attention to.Whimpering that the dirt farmers on line get more"respect" than he does.Well boo hoo hoo..
:nopity:

Maybe people are as a general trend getting more into each others thoughts and less tolerant of ELITISM.Maybe the net helps people realize elitism is a toxic idea? Maybe the net has helped people no longer see any VALUE in wanting to be in an exclusive club of expert snots and could care less what elitists think of that?

Destruction of this elitist culture might be a good thing.Bring experts down from lofty places so they have to face gritty realities and realize how their high minded bullshit has actually hurt people in real life? Maybe the DEATH OF ELITISM is Exactly what we need to survive the damage these elitists have done to us all socially and otherwise.Mankind DOES have a right to develop his own mind , Even Dirt farmers because freedom is not neat orderly and stratified, And Fuck you, Jose Delgado!!!


But of course no elitist would DARE look at their own loss of STATUS that way,as a good thing, it terrifies them they might find themselves just another person among people and no longer treated as if they are so damn special..elevated on things that really mean nothing as if they were somebody by artificial means.

Set aside self important blow hards like this writer whining for the old days when he was SOMEBODY just because of fortunate circumstances,who he associates with, a family name, a corporate fortune or grant, or for brown nosing the right academic associations. He whines for the ivory towers are coming down.

YAY!!!Information Liberation may begin to save this nation.

( save it from elitists and "social engineers" that think THEY should run this country and our lives as if they are entitled to do that, but end up fucking everyone over)


And that death of elitism is exactly why elitists fear and control freaks in government and corporates HATE the net..They don't want to hear the truth of what we think,that we can manage ourselves WITHOUT THEM.We don't want or need their advice,wordy crap,so called expertise or the social hierarchy games that go with the existence of an 'elite' anymore.

...Fuck him and his so called "rarefied airs" People like him are frightened small egotistical jerks and wastes of skin who feel everyone else's creations or thoughts for better or worse is threatening to his own spot in the cultural hegemony.

And may the internet and the thoughts of the billions become more awake until it diminishes him and with him,bury his little mind,and drown the elites and their ilk into obscurity.May his kind ,the elite, be seen for the dreck they ARE and always were..Ugh..Enough of the damn pedestals.

[BridgeTheGap]

6. Red China knew what to do with their "elitists"

Republicans look at scientists who contend global warming is real as "elitists."
I haven't read this guy's book but I do know that people need to get more than one point view or simply seek out those who agree with them.
Any position/theory should be taken on the basis of the arguments made and scrutinized using logic.
I find our society to be woefully inadequate in the areas of critical thinking skills and logic.

I don't agree that this is all that's happening on the internet (people simply looking for others who have the same opinions as them). You can see that here at DU. People do call people on lame, no basis in fact opinions.

[undergroundpanther]

7. I think the checks

people do on each other are good we don't need a bunch of elitists to tell us what is bullshit, how and the proper way to check others bullshit for us anymore.I think we are grown ups and can manage it even when some of us cannot think ,it's a learning process elitism denies us.And I for one would rather learn by myself than have to listen to yet another elitist fuck stick telling me what I can and cannot explore to develop my own mind...That's all.

Jose Delgado was an elitist fuck stick asshole who told Congress that Mankind has no right to develop their own minds. Why on Earth would he say that? Because for an elitist to be elite they need a non-elite to compare themselves to to justify themselves being"special.So the people must be made to devalue thought,ignorant enough to believe they have no mind to develop and learn to fear intellectual seeking, new ideas, and learning outside of the arena of what experts think makes them think they are"creating"culture..

Elitism has a dirty unspoken flaw,by it's own nature elitism creates the crass culture the elitists say disgusts them.To do otherwise would destroy elitism and erase their claim of elite status among the dirt farmers they say they despise.
It cannot be both ways Elitism is FAKE.. and equality/democracy the way the world functions is real and it is INCOMPATIBLE with FAKE..That is why empires need to subjugate and force limit and control because they are psychopathic,artificial and unnatural and dead.
A psychocivilized society of" refined culture" may please the elitist's self absorbed control freak palate but it is hardly civilized moral or thoughtful.

The behavioural engineers insist that they, and not the liberal "mollycoddlers" with their diehard concern for personal autonomy, are the true humanitarians. Indeed, with a little help from behaviour-modifying drugs, aversion therapies, brain electrodes and other body-bugging devices, they would cheerfully and cheaply free the human spirit of its deviant and antisocial impulses while emptying the prisons once and for all. In the process, they neglect to add, there is a good chance they would make the world a prison.

http://home.swipnet.se/allez/Links2.htm


For an example of science gone mad coupled with a pretense of humanity and the complete lack of any sense of decency, morality or understanding of Man as a living, conscious entity. Sadly, this statement is largely true for all of what passes as "educated" relating to the subjects of modern psychology, psychiatry and sociology.

Delgado asserts (see below) that the primary concern of Man should be Man's mental evolution. The problem is that Delgado, along with the majority of the psychiatric and "scientific" community believes the mind of Man to be nothing more than an annoying by-product of electrical and chemical reactions in the brain. Due to this incorrect basic assumption, his "solutions" to Man's individual and social problems lies in drugs, brain implants and neuro-surgery.

This type book can sound awfully convincing due to the language of "science" and apparent "humanity", but it actually ignores everything remotely related to the actual functions and workings of the human mind (i.e. thought, attention, intention, decision-making, imagination, responsibility, etc.). Instead, it degrades into physical control by "wise" leaders and scientists.

(sick echoes of Plato, Leo Strauss,and Vogelin,the neocons " philosophicalfathers")
http://www.ftrbooks.net/psych/mind_control/psychocivilized.htm

[BridgeTheGap]

8. Very good points

There has to be a balance between inteligence and LIVING. I have met very inteligent people who are patient enough to explain what it is they know in a way that an every day person can understand.
There are many inteligent people who are arrogant in their inteligence and treat those outside their field of expertise in a snobbish way. I like the first category.

[undergroundpanther]

9. Me too The first category of people

Intelligent people who are sharing of their knowing who are patient are awesome people first..Thier intelligence shines like jewels from their noble character. Ever notice when you speak with a very intelligent but kind person they are not screaming how elite they are, nor do they whine about the cult of amateurs, they can see hope in the amateurish attempts to learn and they even assist the amateur grappling with things they don't quite get..They do not see the crass culture as diminishing them self or their thoughts..This means they are not just kind and intelligent good people, but strong,noble and wise too.Not elite in the slightest bit,but become to be respected because they love to give of their mind,to help and because they love others and love to see them think, they are beloved..


Unlike the elitist snot who is an asshole first and intelligent second, Who thinks he deserves to be paid attention to just because he thinks he is elite and has intelligence.

It all comes down to the quality of a person's character,be they ,amateur or genius..whether their personality is caring or controlling ,really.