A parody of democracy
Guardian daily comment | Guardian Unlimited, Monday April 9, 2007 | Oliver Kamm
Political blogging has come of age. At least, that was the idea behind the BBC's Newsnight screening of a report by a high-profile blogger who writes under the pseudonym Guido Fawkes. His film argued that blogs provided more acute and independent political analysis than traditional journalism, owing to the absence of an editor, proprietor or regulator. Theatrically insisting on being filmed in darkness to maintain his supposed anonymity, "Fawkes" debated his thesis with Michael White of this newspaper.
It was a catastrophic performance, mainly because the blogger required continual correction on points of fact. He thereby illustrated blogging's central characteristic danger. It is a democratic medium, allowing anyone to participate in political debate without an intermediary, at little or no cost. But it is a direct and not deliberative form of democracy. You need no competence to join in.
To some, that is a virtue. In a recent lecture, the shadow chancellor, George Osborne, pointed to the proliferation of blogs and enthused: "In politics and in the media we've both assumed that we do the talking and the people listen. Now the people are talking back. It's exciting, liberating, challenging and frightening too."
Such is the ideological chaos of modern Conservatism. Osborne invoked the notion of the wisdom of crowds: knowledge emerges in a collaborative process rather than being dictated by experts. But political bloggers are not the required type of crowd. They are, by definition, a self-selecting group of the politically motivated who have time on their hands. In his speech, Osborne commended the work of Conservative-supporting bloggers. The notion that a political party becomes credible by being responsive to its activists is an error that Labour disastrously adopted in the 1980s. Political blogging is a new vehicle for an enduring force: what James Madison, in the Federalist Papers, termed "the mischief of faction".
Blogs are providers not of news but of comment. This would be a good thing if blogs extended the range of available opinion in the public sphere. But they do not; paradoxically, they narrow it. This happens because blogs typically do not add to the available stock of commentary: they are purely parasitic on the stories and opinions that traditional media provide. If, say, Polly Toynbee or Nick Cohen did not exist, a significant part of the blogosphere (a grimly pretentious neologism) would have no purpose and nothing to react to.
The great innovation of web-based commentary is that readers may select minutely the material they are exposed to. The corollary is that they may filter out views they find uncongenial. This is a problem for a healthy democracy, which depends on a forum for competing views.
In its paucity of coverage and predictability of conclusions, the blogosphere provides a parody of democratic deliberation. But it gets worse. Politics, wrote the philosopher Michael Oakeshott, is a conversation, not an argument. The conversation bloggers have with their readers is more like an echo chamber, in which conclusions are pre-specified and targets selected. The outcome is horrifying. The intention of drawing readers into the conversation by means of a facility for adding comments results in an immense volume of abusive material directed - and recorded for posterity - at public figures.
The blogosphere, in short, is a reliable vehicle for the coagulation of opinion and the poisoning of debate. It is a fact of civic life that is changing how politics is conducted - overwhelmingly for the worse, and with no one accountable for the decline.
· Oliver Kamm is the author of Anti-Totalitarianism: the Left-Wing Case for a Neoconservative Foreign Policy. His blog is at oliverkamm.typepad.com
Comments
- verticalshine - April 9, 2007 6:45 AM
Are you saying that because there is a vast array of blogs, from which people can choose to read only what they like, this means that there is no forum for differing views? Obviously everyone who reads the Guardian also reads the Express as well. The public being taken in by charlatans and ill informed blowhards who simply confirm what they already know has been around a lot longer than blogs.
- Docsilver - April 9, 2007 7:17 AM
A parody of democracy? There is an enormous variety in the blogosphere, with writers ranging from blue collar, working backgrounds to those with PhD's who teach and do research at major instutions of higher learning. The blogs in America are ruthlessly self correcting, with error being corrected almost as soon as the mistakes are posted. The phenomenon of the blogger was aided most admirably by the dismal failure of the "legitimate" media to properly vet and attack the falsehoods that led both the U S and Britain into an incredibly stupid war in Iraq. It has been blogs that have kept major scandals from simply evaporating into the media ether. Would George Bush or Tony Blair ever have faced the same consequences for their folly without the hundreds and thousands of voices in the virtual domain? In the U S, the Valerie Plame affair, the affair of Sybel Edmonds, the scandal surrounding the politically motivated firings of U S Attorneys who failed to act as political surrogates for the Bush Administration and much of the dismal failure to deal with the aftermath of Katrina along the Gulf Coast would never have enterred the consciousness of so much of the public if not for the blogs. It has been the blogs that have fleshed out the reality of the war in Iraq, blogs written sometimes within the sound of gunfire and explosions.
The blogs have been a venue for progressive and reform minded office seekers to reach voters when the conventional channels of media communication would have been unreachable and unaffordable. It has provided a vehicle that carries "clean' political money from hundreds of thousands of ordinary citizens in small donations to candidates, nourishing campains that would otherwise have starved. The bloggers are not journalists, nor do they pretend to be. In their numbers and in their collective skills and observances, they have created an atmosphere in which the closed loop of conventional journalism is being held independently to account. The language may be a little rough from time to time in some cases but the fact is, the checks and balances of the blogs on journalists have placed them under a degree of scrutiny that they have until now been immune to. That is what drives the resentment of so many in the press.
As blogs mature, and the more irresponsible are winnowed out by the rather Darwinian process of operating in an unsheltered environment, the quality of what is offered has steadily increased. There are blogs like Talking Points Memo, Americablog, Raw Story, The News Blog and Firedoglake that have expanded the role of blogs into legitimate journalism, with positve and telling effect. Their independence from corporated pressure and censorship, their ability to call on the expertice of readers who actively participate in the blogs and their freedom from from the incestuous loop that can develop between the coverer and the covered are trip wires that set off alarms when journalists get too comfortable, too complacent or too self inflated to function as they should. The mere status of "journalist" is no guarantee of competence, courage or integrity and those in the trade who resent blogs do so because now they are being called on the quality of their work in a medium they cannot censor or silence.
I doubt that journalists like Fisk or Cockburn or Tisdall or Schell have much to fear from the blogs. The more scrutiny they receive the better they look. It is the lesser of their peers that are the most insecure.
- indcoup - April 9, 2007 7:22 AM
you slag off bloggers and you are calling for Neoconservative Foreign Policy??!!!! Have you gone totally mad?
- godrocksnakes - April 9, 2007 7:28 AM
A parody of democratic deliberation?
Nonsense… when was the last time you watched Parliament in action? Those guys do democratic deliberation, as parody, better than any blogger could in their wildest dreams.
You verify your perspective with Michael Oakeshott’s view that “Politics is a conversation, not an argument.”
Wrong again. Michael had better get back to take a political philosophy 101 course. Politics has been an argument from the minute it was launched. As soon as it becomes just a conversation and not also an argument, we have a problem, and a big one. It will be called: the bad guys won.
- antifrank - April 9, 2007 7:36 AM
Oliver Kamm's case, in essence, is that people if given the opportunity may well prefer opinions and regard as relevant facts other than his own preferences. I'm struggling to identify a problem with that.
The influence of blogs in the UK is much overstated; the internet has had more practical impact in allowing readers to hop from the Guardian to the Times to the Telegraph effortlessly, and be exposed to a range of opinions. Surely even Oliver Kamm has no objection to that?
- Klashii - April 9, 2007 7:58 AM
It’s symptomatic of Oliver Kamm and other neoconservatives generally to cherry-pick negative incidents within the massive and continually growing world of blogging, and then present the shortcomings of those thus cherry-picked as being typical of all bloggers (except him, of course).
His comments also demonstrate the self-righteous hypocrisy that most neoconservatives display when given an opportunity to opine in the mainstream media; he’s quite happy to pick holes in the blogging practices of a blogger whose opinion he doesn’t agree with yet thinks that his own opinion is more valid because his own blog is, at least so he thinks, a little more sophisticated than others.
Take a squiz here:
http://lataan.blogspot.com/
It’s just another blog!
- wotson - April 9, 2007 8:00 AM
Unlike that which emanates from bloggers,opinion expressed by MPs;political journalists and politologists is invariably objective; veracious ; unspun ; altruistic and pursues the greatest good for the greatest number.
- JeremyP99 - April 9, 2007 8:00 AM
Poor Oliver. His logic goes - because blogs are rude and carp at politicians, the level of political debate is falling. Actually, Oliver, the latter is the root cause of the political blog, and it would seem to me that most readers of them welcome an independent place to bitch about these hoods who are raping our country. Otherwise known as the Labour Party.
And are you REALLY a NeoCon? After the past few years? Keep taking the tablets, Oliver...
- suraci - April 9, 2007 8:11 AM
Kamm is no stranger to inaccurate blogging: he's been challenged a number of times on the accuracy of his writing and has lost, in everyone's eyes but his own.
He is just another of those indulged and increasingly indignant people who seem to have progressed unnaturally smoothly in their professions. His Grandfather was on the staff of The Times, his Uncle is Martin Bell, and he himself writes for The Times (Murdoch's tawdry little rag, basically The Sun without mammaries). Nepotism, while not relevant in Kamm's case who has got there entirely on his own, tends to push people into professions they are not suited to, such as the cut and thrust world of political journalism. With the advent of free and unsponsored journalism they don't stand up well to criticism and are found wanting.
Kamm's unwavering support of the Neo Cons and their illegal and immoral wars reflects his politics, which are sham left. He's one of those manipulators who undermines by appearing to be that which he attacks, much like Tony Blair for instance, who has now been recognised for what he is: a Neo Con and just slightly to the right of Attila the Hun.
We must try to recognise the Kamms of the world for what they are, rather than what they profess to be. They aim to deceive, and they have an agenda that is set down in blood and stone.
- sweetheart - April 9, 2007 8:14 AM
Poison! Wow, uncensored people with complex views are a serious threat to the newspaper industry and all those writers with 'time on their hands'.
But injustice is still rife. A criminal government is at a criminal war, using a crimiminal drugs war to imprison its underclasses, driving an american corporate wedge in to our lives deeper and deeper whilst silly newspaper dinosaurs set out to undermine, manage and poison authentic voices speaking out for political responsibility.
The only poison is the huge egos of newspaper writers and editors who somehow believe they have a corner on knowledge purely as they're a corporation.
- wotson - April 9, 2007 8:15 AM
Unlike that which emanates from bloggers,opinion expressed by MPs;political journalists and politologists is invariably objective; veracious ; unspun ; altruistic and pursues the greatest good for the greatest number.
- GaiaHepburn - April 9, 2007 8:16 AM
Oliver is confused. Bloggers are not homogenous. A huge spectrum of opinion, based or not on facts, exists on the internet. To deny Bloggers the right to blog is a retrograde step for freedom. Oliver is seemingly not much of a democrat.
I am becoming increasingly alarmed at the number of unsuitable journalists writing in The Guardian. Oliver has joined this clique. I'll be skipping his articles in future.
Viva Bloggers!
GAIA
- Briar - April 9, 2007 8:20 AM
This sounds like the Bliarite whine about cynicism among the voters being caused by criticism of their Great Leader by commentators in the media. In fact, most of the abuse online is directed at the blogger and other bloggers. The net is a wonderful haven for the heckler and they have piled in with gleeful abandon, since there is no expectation of courtesy (such an old fashioned word) in cyberspace. You just let them have it, and make a free speech virtue of offense. The danger is, I suppose, that in virtual reality as in reality, the loudest voices prevail. Free speech invites a version of Gresham's Law to operate - the quieter and more thoughtful are shouted down, the noisier and more spectacularly abusive prevail. But I don't think this is confined to online bloggers - look how well groomed and youthful faces deploying polished sound bites have prevailed in off line politics! Voters who let themselves be led by appearances arguably deserve what they get.
- peterbracken - April 9, 2007 8:58 AM
Oliver Kamm's blog is excellent, whether or not one agrees with his views. It is admirably researched and argued, scrupulous in its references and - the mark of a worthwhile read - consistently challenging of alternative perspectives.
This cannot be said of the majority of the blogsphere - the dearth of quality being its defining characteristic.
By a delicious twist of irony, one has only to read today's replies to Mr Kamm's comment to see how ably they make his case for him.
- Chris1White - April 9, 2007 9:01 AM
"The blogosphere, in short, is a reliable vehicle for the coagulation of opinion and the poisoning of debate."
Surely it depends on how a reader approaches it? If they only *want* to reinforce their existing prejudices, then they'll seek out blogs that do it for them (though how this is fundamentally any different to reading either the New Statesman or the Spectator is beyond me).
But there seems to be rather a large number of people who do look for an opposing point of view.
- Ched - April 9, 2007 9:03 AM
A similar argument was made against the proliferation of pamphlets in the 18th century - what do these writers know? They disturb the accustomed repose of the public, publish lies and defamations etc etc. The response was to control printing. Had he lived in the 21st century Swift would have been a blogger.
- Pluralist - April 9, 2007 9:14 AM
Of course, governments, politicians, pharmaceutical companies, Oliver Kamm, newspapers, journalists, would never filter out information uncongenial to them. All completely without hidden interests, without influence and incorruptible.
As someone who has made a bloody nuisance of themselves on the web, and not least in these columns I am easily open to challenge - indeed welcome it, at least, if courteous.
Kamm's ossified world of official, unassailable knowledge is a danger to humanity and the globe.
John Stone
- TeflonBliar - April 9, 2007 9:15 AM
Blogs provide 1 persons view of the world, so do newspaper articles. I see no difference. A parody of democracy best describes our political system. I get the choice between 2.5 political parties every 5 years, who lie in their manifestos. It's a bit like being told that I've only got a choice of 2 tins of paint to paint my room with and the colour shown on the outside of the tin might not match it's contents. The only true democracy is direct democracy, but there's no way that our corrupted establishment will ever allow the oiks to have real control over their lives.
- AlexJones - April 9, 2007 9:32 AM
True, a lot of blogs are written by people who are opinionated and ill-informed and have an axe to grind. But the same can be said of a lot of newspaper columns, unfortunately. While The Guardian and The Observer have some excellent columnists who take care to research their subject and bring with them years of experience of writing about their area of interest, some seem just to write whatever nonsense comes into their head at the time. Thus undermining newspapers' claims to privileged insight.
- prideaux - April 9, 2007 9:44 AM
Oliver doesn't seem to like the reformation. Hell will now freeze over because the plebs can access god without the priests
- sandanski - April 9, 2007 9:48 AM
Blogs are a healthy part of debate. Right and left wing. i feel Oliver thinks that political debate should be left to a political and journalistic elite and the prols left out. I also feel if the all the blogging sites were either Harry's place neo con sites or economic liberal sites he would not be whinging.
More sites the better I say, even racist or commie sites. Iwould rather they bluster on the blogosphere than in the streets.
- Jaibo - April 9, 2007 9:59 AM
Kamm: "It was a catastrophic performance, mainly because the blogger required continual correction on points of fact. He thereby illustrated blogging's central characteristic danger. It is a democratic medium, allowing anyone to participate in political debate without an intermediary, at little or no cost. But it is a direct and not deliberative form of democracy. You need no competence to join in."
Rather like a political opinion column on a National Newspaper then, by Kamm or his little mate Nick Cohen, littered as they are with misrepresented "facts" or plain fibs. Anyone want to kick around Kamm's misrepresentation of Chomsky on the Srebrenica massacre? A truly catastrophic performance!
- Pluralist - April 9, 2007 10:01 AM
There is some kind of ebb and flow in CiF. Just try and challenge a news report in a national newspaper or the BBC and see how far it gets you. So 'Guy Fawkes' was shown up. All well and good: he was shown after all, so that's alright.
- ArtemisiaB - April 9, 2007 10:08 AM
The term 'blogosphere' says as little about its members as the term 'media'. The difference is that much like NGOs and unlike (most) journalists, bloggers have only themselves to answer to, and their blog is their stage. Yet like journalists, they are highly diverse, range from useful and interesting to bigoted and dangerous, and their worst fate is oblivion. If you differentiate between potential and actual impact, the 'blogosphere' represents nothing more than the digitalization of traditional (political) activism, which includes everything from Speakers' Corner to a modern American election campaign.
So nothing to get one's knickers in a twist about. But one point is worth emphasising: there is no such thing as 'the wisdom of the crowd'. That is NOT what democracy is about. Quite the contrary: on any given issue, only a tiny minority of people is informed enough to make a useful decision, and it is not always the ones holding the power to do so. The majority gets its "views" second or third hand, if at all, and hence cannot really be expected to make an informed and balanced decision which takes into account interests other than their own - rather, the 'masses' are highly gullible and, given the right circumstances, prone to mob-like behaviour. Historic examples abound, and this is also why 'direct democracy' is, at best, highly problematic.
Democracy is about the balancing and mutual accommodation of interests, about compromise, not just about a clash of opinions (which is what considerable parts of the American 'blogosphere' have descended into, if you witness the bitch-fest that goes on there). Which is why representative democracy is still the best system there is, and also why whining about 'the establishment' or 'politicians' in general is, for the most part, simply pathetic: the loudest complainers - whether they be bloggers or journalists or just people commenting on an article online - usually are sure to have more common sense than anybody else yet do not take it upon themselves to proffer viable alternative courses of action.
One final thought: while intensive scrutiny of 'the governing class' is, in principle, a good thing, it also forces politicians to oversell their case, and to spend ludicrous amounts of time advertising themselves and their preferences. The mass media are not a place for subtlety and nuance. Perhaps there's a role to play for bloggers there.
- ReynardtheFox - April 9, 2007 10:09 AM
The problem is with that argument - as others have already pointed out - that it presupposes that the average journalist is well informed and unbiased when the truth is anything but. I frequently read articles by proper grown up journalists in the Guardian (presumably at the quality end of the spectrum) that show basic factual errors, an inability to understand statistics and generally give the impression of being written by someone with little knowledge of the subject area who's filled in gaps with unexamined received wisdom and prejuidice instead of facts and hands on experience.
So what's different between that and the bloggers? Sure some of them are pretty rabid but its not like the shrieking right wing harpies of the Daily Mail or the PC Guardianistas and Labour party groupies of the Grauniad are necessarily so much better. Bias and a tendency to disregard facts that don't fit in with preconceived notions are the problems of human nature, not the problems of any particular medium. At least blogging has an interactive component which in principle (if not always practise) allows discussion and people to pick up on errors and argue the arguable. Old school journalism offered no such corrective.
As for the level of political debate well political debate in this country has sunk to the level of gossip about personalities and did so before the blog came along. Most people in the UK indeed in the world still rely on TV and press media far more than political blogs (indeed I'm going to guess that a considerable proportion of the population still wouldn't really know what one was) so tempting though it always is to lay the blame at the door of whatever technological innovation has just arrived on the scene for complex pre-existing problems the current disatisfaction with politics has NOTHING to do with blogs. I don't see the mainstream media discussing policies in any objective and deep way and I don't see them discussing the failure of our democratic insitutions that has lead the wider alienation with politics either. The Guardian is just as guilty as anyone else when they devote column inches to who's plotting against who this week or if David Cameron has a new media strategy or whatever when they could be focussing on real issues instead.
- etc.
Превод на руски:
Пародия на демократию
Погрязшие в ошибках и паразитизме, глухие к чужому мнению, политические блоги не способствуют здоровым дискуссиям, а отравляют их
Политические блоги 'достигли совершеннолетия'. По крайней мере, именно эта идея побудила авторов передачи 'Вечер новостей' (Newsnight) показать фильм известного блоггера, пишущего под псевдонимом Гвидо Фокс [Guido Fawkes, более известный как Гай Фокс - один из лидеров 'порохового заговора' в 1605 г., попытки убить короля Якова I и членов парламента, устроив взрыв в Вестминстере - прим. перев.]. Он утверждает, что блоги дают более актуальный и независимый политический анализ, чем традиционная журналистика, поскольку у них нет ни редактора, ни владельца, ни контролеров. После фильма 'Фокс' - для пущей театральности он настаивал, чтобы его лицо оставалось в темноте - обсуждал свои тезисы с журналистом Guardian Майклом Уайтом (Michael White).
Дискуссия катастрофически провалилась, в основном потому, что блоггера постоянно приходилось поправлять с точки зрения фактов. В результате он стал живым примером главной опасности, связанной с блогами. Они представляют собой инструмент демократии, позволяющий каждому участвовать в политических дебатах без посредника, и к тому же бесплатно или почти бесплатно. Однако это форма прямой, а не 'совещательной' демократии. Чтобы к ней приобщиться, не нужно обладать никакой компетентностью. Некоторые, впрочем, считают это достоинством, а не недостатком. В недавней лекции теневой министр финансов Джордж Осборн (George Osborne), говоря о распространении блогов, с энтузиазмом заметил: 'В политике и СМИ мы исходили из того, что говорим мы, а люди слушают. Теперь люди высказываются в ответ. Это увлекает, раскрепощает, стимулирует, но и пугает тоже'.
Такой вот идейный хаос воцарился в головах нынешних консерваторов. Осборн вновь вытащил на свет божий понятие 'мудрость народа': знание не диктуется экспертами, а рождается совместными усилиями. Однако политические блоггеры - не тот 'народ', что для этого требуется. Они по определению представляют собой никем не уполномоченную группу политически мотивированных людей с избытком свободного времени. В своем выступлении Осборн высоко оценил деятельность блоггеров, поддерживающих консерваторов. Но представление о том, что политическая партия может завоевать доверие к себе, чутко реагируя на мнения собственных активистов - ошибка, которая в 1980-е гг. очень дорого обошлась лейбористам. Политические блоги - новое воплощение давным-давно известного фактора: явления, которое Джеймс Мэдисон (James Madison) в 'Записках федералиста' назвал 'подстрекательством фракций'.
Блоги содержат не новости, а комментарии. Это можно было бы только приветствовать, если бы они расширяли спектр мнений, озвучиваемых в ходе публичных дискуссий. Но ничего подобного не происходит; напротив, блоги его сужают. Связано это с тем, что блоги как правило ничего не добавляют к уже имеющемуся массиву комментариев: они попросту паразитируют на статьях и оценках традиционных СМИ. Если бы не было, скажем Полли Тойнби (Polly Toynbee) или Ника Коэна (Nick Cohen) [британские журналисты левых взглядов - прим. перев.], немалой части 'блогосферы' - до чего же претенциозный неологизм! - будет нечем заняться и не на что реагировать.
Важнейшее новшество, которое несут с собой комментарии в сети, заключается в том, что читатель может легко отбирать нужное из материалов, которые ему предлагают. Здесь, однако, возникает и побочный эффект: при этом, читатель, возможно, будет отсеивать чуждые ему точки зрения. А это чревато проблемами для 'здоровья' демократии, которое зависит от конкуренции мнений.
Из-за скудости содержания и предопределенности выводов блогосфера превращается в пародию на демократический дискуссионный процесс. Но ситуация постоянно ухудшается. Политика, заметил философ Майкл Оукшотт (Michael Oakeshott) - это диалог, а не спор. Однако диалог, который блоггеры ведут с читателями, напоминает эхо-камеру: все выводы и объекты для критики известны заранее. Результат просто ужасен. Попытка вовлечь читателей в дискуссию, дав им возможность размещать свои комментарии, приводит к огромному количеству оскорбительных выпадов в адрес общественных деятелей, которые к тому же навеки сохраняются 'в анналах'.
Одним словом блогосфера стала надежным орудием сужения спектра мнений и отравления атмосферы дискуссии. Подобный способ ведения политических дебатов - доказательство того, что общественная жизнь меняется, причем не в лучшую сторону, и никто не несет за это ответственности.
Оливер Камм - автор книги 'Антитоталитаризм: поддержка неоконсервативной внешней политики с левых позиций' (Anti-Totalitarianism: the Left-Wing Case for a Neoconservative Foreign Policy)
