Sorry if the Scooby Doo reference has you on your heels. I have only been doing this blogging thing a short time, but I am finding a great deal of satisfaction in writing things down. Publishing to the web in the form of a blog adds an element of unknown that I find very inviting - who will be surfing blogs and come across this? How might what I write enrich someone with another perspective?
I am starting to wonder if this is the next phase of the Internet, and perhaps that most valuable phase yet. I am not talking dollars, I am talking value to society.
One of the most interesting books that I have read in the last 10 years was Neil Postman's "Amusing Ourselves to Death." The basic theme is that discourse in American society has been plummeting, and that innovations like the television have further eroded things. Neil also takes special note of a time when presidential candidates like Lincoln and his opponents would stand on a tree stump and talk for hours about real substance - things they believed in- no spin, no evading true answers. Also, taking note of the dairies and written discourse of the time, Postman makes the leap (not sure I am there yet) that this time, the mid to late 1800s, was the pinnacle of literacy for America- something that may never be seen again.
My point here is that blogs may represent the impending return of discourse in America, assuming that Postman's view is with merit. Even the media machine, in all of their hype and self-announced importance, have acknowledged the power of thousands of interlinked blogs on the Internet, to such important events as the Asian tsunami. Not only that, but I seem to remember reading that a blog recently uncovered a story that sent some news execs packing in recent months? Could there be a wave of relevence here?
At any rate, at least I can say for sure that blogs represent the return of my written discourse-for anyone willing to read what I have to say...
