14 January 2002
Catching Up
My mind has been on dissertation and redesign of the weblog, and consequently I haven't written much here lately. So it's time for a little catching up. I'll start with some additional thoughts on the weblog. There has been an explosion of political writing on the web since 11 September, ranging from excellent to something less than that. Jim Bennett likens it to the Reformation, and Glenn Reynolds extends his argument. Virginia Postrel suggests they both get carried away, and that bloggers may have an exaggerated sense of their own influence. Chris Wenham has been thinking about the matter for a while. It's an interesting debate, whatever one concludes.
What is unmistakable is that criticism -- of mainstream writing and even of other bloggers -- seems to exceed original writing itself these days. It reminds me of the field of literary criticism, which for some time has appeared (judging by bookstores and academic departments) more lucrative than, say, the actual production of literature! That's not to denigrate criticism, but merely to suggest that we often get so caught up reading critiques and analyses and adding our bit to the mix that sometimes original works get lost in the shuffle. In the blogging world, instant publishing and cut/paste probably add to that.
The revised weblog is my own effort to focus on some of those high-quality original works that so easily get lost in the shuffle. We may very well be on our way to a world in which bloggers produce works of this quality, but most of us fall well short of that (though some of Den Beste's longer posts are pretty impressive) today. So my focus is finding those nuggets and publicizing them. That's always been the focus of my weblog, but lately I've felt like the cute one-liners were detracting from it. So they're gone now, replaced with a little more editorial content (Irony Alert: To focus more on links I'm actually WRITING more now!). That's not to say I don't still bring a certain perspective to bear. That's obvious from the commentary and from the editorial selection (the reason for the motto "with an attitude"). But a little less "in-your-face" about it than some of the one-liners have been. *smile*
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Enough of that topic (bloviating, bloviators, and bloviating about my own bloviating). I never commented on the whole Stephen Ambrose controversy. It didn't really seem that much commentary was necessary. A scholar might accidentally reproduce entire passages without attribution in one instance, even a scholar like Ambrose who rakes in enough cash from book sales to employ cite checkers to make sure it doesn't happen! When it happens repeatedly in one book, let alone several books, it's plagiarism, pure and simple. I was surprised to see a few people actually defending Ambrose initially against the charge of plagiarism by engaging in pedantry. Leaving aside such pedantry, knowingly "borrowing" complete phrases, or even ideas, from others without attribution is surely the worst kind of secondhanding (to revert to my Objectivist roots). I wonder sometimes whether such secondhanders even realize they're stepping on the backs of others. Do they have no inhibitions against simply taking from others because they can? How does that happen?
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I also missed the opportunity a few weeks ago to comment on the surgeon general's newly declared war on obesity. Conservatives and libertarians alike jumped all over the good doctor, and to an extent I agree with them. In principle, I don't want the government involved in my health, and I certainly don't want the likes of David Satcher imposing, say, a "fat" tax on foods or promoting other such "enlightened" policies. But I also don't have a huge problem with David Satcher doing his job, which is to say, if, indeed, we are going to HAVE a Surgeon General, then why shouldn't he nag us about our health? We ARE too fat, on average, and there are implications for health (and wealth, since so much of the healthcare system is subsidized, directly or indirectly, by government -- i.e. taxpayers -- even in America). If the government is going to spend as much as it does on public health at this point, I would rather see it engaged in promoting nutrition than assessing the health threat known as suburbia! And if government is actually going to redistribute wealth in order to pay for healthcare for the poor and aged, it strikes me that preventive healthcare -- i.e. nutrition -- ought to be a requirement. Overseeing THAT would keep Dr. Satcher busy enough. Not that government should be doing it at all, mind you.
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How appropriate after that rambling that it's now time to go to the gym (the 8th trip in 9 days, after a terrible layoff). More rambling soon.
[Posted @ 10:28 PM CST]
