May I ask (the comments are making me laugh so hard), what is so hated about Nick Cohen? He must’ve done something really bad to deserve such concentrated flogging.

I enjoyed this post, opinions notwithstanding. Well thought out, well written.

“The medium’s unlimited space allows millions to drone on in blogs that no one but their friends will read, but the same lack of constraint allows professors to bring their knowledge to a general audience without adhering to the stultifying styles of academia.”

You know where that’s heading: It’s Nick standing up for the Little Guy in a sea of Postmodern Political Correctness Gone Mad (Mad, I Tell You!) In other words, it’s the same crap that Iain Dumbo Smith peddled, and is currently demonstrated by Dale, Staines and the rest of the right-wing cybermob. Oh, and Cohen obviously hasn’t read anything on the Iraq war like Jarhead (and clearly has steered clear of Riverbend’s blog…I wonder why).

DK

In reality, when you look at the biggest-selling non-Harry-Potter book of recent times - the Da Vinci Code - it hits you like a freight train that in reality, the publishing industry is being pressured by the forces of the market to appeal to the lowest common denominator - that’s what sells.

The people who can’t muster the capital costs to get printed are more likely to be academics or those dealing in niche subjects which the general public don’t have any interest in. The advent of the blook, despite its ghastly name, is a thing to be welcomed, therefore.

I can only hope that a similar thing will happen with the music industry before long - too many superb bands struggle to meet the capital costs of recording and distribution because their music isn’t necessarily going to be the next No. 1 hit.

What we seem to be seeing is a kind of cultural fragmentation, where instead of a monoculture encompassing a nation, there are now several distinct and separate ones which coexist simultaneously. The blook is just the latest catalyst to that, along with blogging.

Isaiah Berlin’s “value-pluralism” is coming into being before our very own eyes in a way which i think few had previously anticipated. The greatest political challenge of the coming decades will surely therefore be how we reconcile these different cultures so that they are able to coexist without agitation, or the kind of “culture-wars” we see in the USA at the moment.

If anyone is interested in the Bullard debate, I blogged about it on my blog. You can also find out more at http://del.icio.us/tag/davidbullard

Not so, perhaps, for ideas - they tend to ignore ‘long tail’ ones.

But saying that there is a good noise to signal ratio in the blogosphere (non-edited media) is absurd. We’re producing hundreds of articles every second, and most of it can’t be read. Which can’t be said for newspapers - at least everything written there is understandable.

Try, for instance … this blook.

My thoughts are reproduced thus:

I’m inclined to agree broadly. I’ve heard it said in the past that the best commentators stick to one area of interest, i.e., Polly Toynbee and social justice. However, I don’t think it holds true. George Monbiot is ostensibly a ‘Green’ campaigner but writes on all sorts. Oddly, I’ve always wanted to be a journalist but recognise that people such as those mentioned simply take a stance and run with it. They are utterly unaccountable. Which makes me wonder if people like Richard Littlejohn truly believe what they write or whether they do it just to remain in a job.