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The Next Thomas Paine

The decision by Time magazine to name "you" as the 2006 "Person of the Year" really bugs George Will -- especially because it gives props to all of the narcissists who he thinks own the blogosphere.

After Time's choice was announced over the weekend, the conservative commentator wasted no time in going on the air and ridiculing the choice. As Think Progress noted, Will mocked the decision on ABC's "This Week."

"It's about narcissism,” he said. “So much of what is done on the Web is people getting on there and writing their diaries as though everyone ought to care about everyone's inner turmoils. I mean, it's extraordinary.”

Not content to slam the blogosphere on television, Will then decided to dedicate ink to the topic in his next column for The Washington Post. It appears this morning and takes Time managing editor Richard Stengel to task for comparing bloggers to American revolutionary heroes Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine.

Will's retort:

Not exactly. Franklin's extraordinary persona informed what he wrote but was not the subject of what he wrote. Paine was perhaps history's most consequential pamphleteer. There are expected to be 100 million bloggers worldwide by the middle of 2007, which is why none will be like Franklin or Paine. Both were geniuses; genius is scarce. Both had a revolutionary civic purpose, which they accomplished by amazing exertions. Most bloggers have the private purpose of expressing themselves for their own satisfaction.

Will does have a point. I haven't seen any Franklins or Paines in the blogosphere. But he also misses the bigger issue: Thanks to the amazing online tools of the 21st century that Will ridicules, when another statesman like Franklin or Paine does come along, he will have a much easier time spreading his message and winning followers.

Whether in America or countries that haven't yet tasted the sweet freedoms we too often take for granted, the democratic revolutionaries of tomorrow don't need a printing press to be heard; they don't need ABC's "This Week"; they don't need The Washington Post; and they don't need the kind of money that talking heads like Will earn for condescending rants against "the people."

All they need to share their vision is access to a computer, and they can reach the entire world.

Sure, much of the content on the Internet is driven by egotism. Then again, so is much of the content on talk shows and op-ed pages. George Will may not disclose his inner turmoils to the world, but he speaks and writes "as though everyone ought to care" -- and sometimes they should.

Sometimes people should care what bloggers say, too. Maybe someday, Will and his colleagues in the journalistic ivory tower will listen. And just maybe they will hear the next Thomas Paine.

UPDATE: The Los Angeles Times had a piece yesterday on "Reporting's Mass Appeal." Jeff Jarvis of BuzzMachine didn't like the tone of the coverage but highlighted his favorite quotes, including a reference about the return "to the time of the lonely pamphleteer or the tramp printers in the Europe."

UPDATE II: The Nashville Scene offered a peek into the narcissism that does exist in the blogosphere: "The main content in most Nashville-based blogs last week was about a meeting of bloggers at a restaurant owned by a blogger. Bloggers blogged about their anticipation of the event, they posted photos on their blogs of themselves with other bloggers, and many bloggers rushed home to blog about how nice it was to meet people who are bloggers -- just like themselves!"

Posted by Danny | 09:17 AM

Comments

"When another statesman like Franklin or Paine does come along, he will have a much easier time spreading his message and winning followers"

Isn't it a bit retrogressive to assume the next Franklin or Paine will be a man?

Jess | 12.21.06 12:50 PM

George Will and the blogosphere have yet to get married. They are still unsure whether or not they love one another, but this realization is not too far off.

The missing piece is the tie in, the means to connect the blogging, forums, tags etc. to a more meaningful space.

Right now it is popular for media companies to allow audiences to blog, comment etc. But where is the mechanism to capture, store and report on all of this feedback. We engage in countless polling efforts all the time but we don't harness the power of Web 2.0 to do a lot of that heavy lifting for us on a daily basis. New York Times readers don't write letters to the editor or post to blogs because they are egotistical (well, some may) they post because they want to have some small impact in the dialogue. Imagine then if NYT said to their readers: you bring feedback in on this issue and we send it right to the White House, or right to city hall and then we follow up to see what is done about it. This is community building at its best.

If the NYT builds a more robust online community, it could become an extremely powerful ad hoc lobbying group.

One of the black eyes that the media has gotten over the past few years is that they are elitist. Well now there are mechanisms to bring the audience into the machine and it can only make democracy that much stronger.

Kent Kirschner | 12.21.06 02:08 PM

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