Everybody Hates Pundits

Kevin M at local leftish-blog "Insomnia Report" dishes the smack on amateur pundits like...well, all of us.

It's actually a fairly interesting and thought-provoking piece.

Which isn't to say I think Kevin's premise is necessarily entirely sound:

The blog will never come into its own as a mode of ex-
pression unless its practitioners choose to discard some of their cherished illusions. Not everyone can be a pundit. What’s more, most of those who have already laid a legitimate claim to the title should give it up.

Most people who golf or play hockey or play Texas Hold-em are never going to be world champions; why should they bother?

Because it's enjoyable on the one hand, and good exercise on the other. Which is, in the end, the only reason I blog; it's fun, and it's good for me; I look back on what I was writing nearly four years ago, and I can see that my style has improved quite a bit (you all, as always, can be the judge), as has my reasoning. And the blog has put me in touch with a lot of interesting, smart people who've enriched my life immensely.

As for the notion that some people just shouldn't be pundits - well, that's what the market's there for. More on this later.

Being a pundit is a horrible fate, after all, and I can’t for the life of me figure out why so many seem so eager to pursue it. Is it noble just to spout off?

Not necessarily, but it can be useful, is generally harmless, and is a fairly self-limiting vice in any case; if one merely "spouts off" without some sort of redeeming substance, one rarely draws a crowd, or at least a crowd that will stick around long.

When you’re a pundit, every sentence you write is a potential noose. You begin your career with breath-taking freedom. You can be a wag, you can be a prick, you mock the powerful and you can belittle all the awful fuckers who disagree with you. This stage, fun as it may be, ends quickly and you’re left saying the same thing over and over and over again.

The early days of the conservative blogosphere spawned a lot of rantblogs; I won't name names, but quite a few marginally-talented writers built followings based largely on the overheatedness of their brick-throwing and the pseudo-cleverness of their dismissals. It's gotten tiresome, and I don't read 'em anymore - which isn't to say I don't dip into the genre out of pique, frustration or satirical aggression - but again, more later.

It was your illusion of infallibility that brought you to this point. You can say what you like, perhaps, but you better not contradict yourself and you better not slip out of the costume you’ve knitted for yourself. If you’re the spiteful, brick-batty kind, you better not want to get all winsome and thoughtful. If you think you’re funny, you better not try to be smart or deep or wise. If you’re painted yourself into a corner with your all-encompassing ideology, you’ve got your work cut out for you if you ever want to relent, recon-
sider or admit that the world is a more complex place than an angry essay makes it.

I think this is an answer to the wrong question.

The trap that Kevin describes is there - as long as you put your finger in it and observe that you're trapped. We all know of bloggers who've painted themselves into deep corners - the Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler and Rachel Lucas jump to mind.

But there's nothing about being a self-appointed pundit, in and of itself, that disqualifies one from stepping outside the role to do other things, other than being addicted to traffic and insecure about the chances of your audience following you.

I've said it many times; when I started this blog, it was aimed at an audience of one. If my audience dropped back to just me, I'd still keep blogging, since that's always been the whole purpose. Of course, the fact that an audience two orders of magnitude larger than I ever expected to draw has stuck with me through whatever my mood has prompted me to produce is a pleasant surprise, one that's brought some wonderful things to my life - but it's not a consideration as I write stuff, either.

But I know not everyone sees it that way; traffic can indeed be a drug.

A blog is, in many hands, little more than a tool towards a
more secure thoughtlessness, a path back to a flat earth. With your computer and five or six like-minded commenters, the world becomes just as you like it, under your omniscient command, and you can fight the battle for truth and justice on terms that are all in your favor.

Kevin says this like it's a bad thing!

And yet how many non-essential human activities - things that don't provide food and shelter and raise the children - are exactly that as well? Humans are always looking for ways and spaces to exert control, to shape a reality that they're at least a little bit on top of. People band together behind sports teams, read novels, play computer games, do arts and crafts, get into relationships, volunteer for political campaigns - all to find some little piece of the world over which they have some say. Blogs are just an extension of that; if someone's attempt to gain some control over one's own life resonates with other people on the 'net, what's the problem?

Mr. M compares a couple of politically diametric sites, including yours truly's, about which he says:

... may be better than most of its ilk, but I think it can still be used to illustrate what I’m talking about. When its author chooses to write about his life, or music, or other subjects that similarly concern him, he can be engaging, thoughtful and compelling. He is a good writer and, at times like this, he shows a true sense of humor. However, when he’s doing what he usually does–complaining about liberal editorials in the daily paper or getting peeved about the Democrat outrage du jour–his talents and sensitivity vanish in favor of what seems to me to be knee-jerk fury. Sometimes, when I read him in his too-common pissed-off mode, I feel that even he is bored with the act. I’m sure he’s expressing his beliefs honestly, but I can’t help but wonder whether
he sometimes thinks he’s dug himself into a hole.

The short answer: Absolutely not.

The long answer: Go back to February, 2002, and start reading. Read all 6,000-odd posts. There are some streaks in there; streaks of writer's block, others where I was casting about for new ideas, others where the material poured out with no effort. I'm a single parent - there are mornings where I don't feel like writing. I've been doing it a while, so there are subjects that bore me; I could quit fisking Nick Coleman any time now. I work a fairly demanding day job - there are days when between parenting and work, I don't have time to dig into a story, or write with the care and detail that I'd like to. That's life; my goal, failing all of the above (and I do, often!) is to write something I enjoy every day.

Which isn't to say that there aren't things I'd love to do differently. We'll get back to that; we've got some business to take care of, first:

Of
course, around here the right-wing blogs are like a circle jerk. They root for each other even when no one else will, a built-in cheering section to make the questionable seem obvious and the doubtful appear brave.

Not quite sure how to swat at this idea, other than that I know I have to. One person's "circle jerk" is another person's lively, ebullient social circle, a free association of equals who've clustered together over a number of shared interests - politics, blogging, the shared rigors of being a conservative in, let's face it, a frequently intolerantly-leftist area. We bounce ideas off each other, we feed each other tips and sources, we chide and razz each other, and occasionally we swarm. Do we cheer each other on? Sure. That's what friends are for. And I've made some great, wonderful friends through this little exercise.

That that friendship is built on a base of amateur punditry doesn't make it anyting but a friendship.

That aside, Mr. M moves to the point that actually grabbed my attention:

Part of this tendency, I think, is apparent in the way many of these sites seem content to engage the most simplistic and debased forms of their opponent’s arguments, rather than the substantive and nuanced ones. It is a simpler thing to shoot holes in a whiny screed or a paragraph-long letter to the editor than it is to counter the hated position itself. This blogger, at least, seems to have the wit and ability to construct coherent, plausible and thorough positions, but he most often chooses not to. Perhaps there isn’t a readership for it, perhaps he doesn’t have the time. Whatever the reason, it’s a pity.

I thanks Mr. M. for the compliments - and agree, to a point. It is a pity - sometimes.

Would I like to dig into every subject I write about in the depth that Mr. M and I both prefer? Absolutely. Do I feel better about the things I write where I'm able to do that? Sure.

As far as I'm concerned, is this blog a place where I dig solemnly into every subject with reason, diligence and thoroughness? Nope! There are times when I let my temper have a free-fire zone; there are other times when I let unfettered joy run rampant, regardless of reason or propriety, style or reason, and others where I probably poke facile, cheap fun at things I think are stupid.

Whatever this blog has done in terms of traffic and influence - and, to my amazement, it's done a lot - at the end of the day it's still Mitch Berg's sounding board; the good, the bad and the ugly, pretty much raw and unedited.

If I were supporting my family with my blogging, would I write more deeply and carefully and fully? Absolutely. And I'd do it somewhere else; "Shot in the Dark" isn't a literary magazine or a journalism site. It's limits - my limits - are the same limits any overworked single parent who's trying to write at 5AM will share; some days, the goal is to overcome the limitations; others, just to exist within them and still impart some of the passion I still feel for the whole thing - for writing, for being read, for being whatever kind of amateur pundit that end of the day I am.

Read the whole thing; it's actually a good piece (problems and disagreements and all).

Posted by Mitch at October 28, 2005 12:28 PM | TrackBack