June 15, 2005 9:32 PM
Belz on democracy and mediocrity
I love World magazine. I was a charter subscriber, and even wrote for them for a while 'til Andree Seu came along. Hey, I'm no fool. I know a superior writer when I see one. She's worthy.
But that wasn't enough to make me stop loving World. Here is what I do once it arrives in my mailbox each week:
It's one of my little selfish things to read it before it gets lost somewhere.
- Hide it under my pillow
- Wait until everyone goes to bed for my reading time
- Read it literally cover-to-cover, no matter how long it takes
- Put it on the kitchen table the next morning.
So tonight, because it so happened I'm home alone to put the kids to bed, once they were snuggled down, I snuggled down myself for a good read - just me and my World.
First stop: Joel Belz.
"End of Elitism: Does media democracy also bring mediocrity?"
Wow. Because of the recent dust-up here with bloggers who think proven writers don't "get it," and because self-discipline called for me to let go any further argument, I must admit a feeling of satisfaction on reading the following from a man with unquestionable credentials:
"Yet while some of our journalistic colleagues seem to grow ever smugger in their elitist positions, others in their own high places - perhaps especially in the halls of the journalism schools - are advocating a radical democratization of the journalistic enterprise. Technologically aided by the arrival of the internet in the 1990s, and nudged now by a blizzard of blogging, such equal-opportunity editors take a come-one-come-all attitude into the publishing marketplace, seemingly without concern for whatever dumbing-down effect such an approach is certain to bring.This, I suggest, is a response to elitism that should worry or even scare us. It's a little too much like saying that we should democratize the processes by which we choose brain surgeons, airline pilots, or elementary math teachers. It may sound generous and well-meaning - up until your first patient dies on the operating table, your first plane crashes, or you produce a classroom full of 12-year-olds who never learned long division. There is a place for expertise, and just because some experts have never learned how to be modest about what they know doesn't mean you throw their expertise out the window.
New technology lets everyone become an expert. Everyone can write and illustrate and self-publish his or her own newspaper, magazine, or book. Everyone can compose and produce his or her own musical or movie or stage play. Everything is now of equal value and equal worth.
Except that now I find myself wondering regularly which is worse - suffering under the arrogance of the elitists, or suffering under the democratic mediocrity of those who finally elbowed the elitists aside."
Check out the full text here. As always, Krieg Barrie's illustration is superb (I always treasured the ones he did for my pieces).
I've always thought Belz was a genius. I'm humbled that he did an endorsement for my next book (we're still working on a title), which is aimed at encouraging and equipping believers to communicate more effectively and lovingly with nonbelievers.
And now that he's weighed in on the subject, I'm finished. Tomorrow I will be paying more attention to the things that really matter.
Which reminds me of something Goethe said:
"The things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least."
Posted in Current Affairs | Permalink
Comments
While looking for a catchy antonym for "cyberspace" I came acroos this online this book chapter from the guy who coined the word "virtual community".
I've only skimmed it, but it seems to tie in with Belz's article.
From the online book "Virtual Community", here's the link to Chapter 10: "Disinformocracy".
http://www.rheingold.com/vc/book/10.html
No surprise that the author of the chapter title also wrote a book "They Have a Word For It".
Posted by: Lexie | June 16, 2005 4:30 PM
