The Art of the Blog

There is an episode of "The Simpsons" where they make a farce of "24." In one scene they have a camera sequence that scans the ventilation system of Springfield elementary. The camera passes a box that says "History books: 1950's (too racist)." Then the camera goes a little farther to find a box that says "History books: 1990's (not racist enough)." Like many instances of humor in "The Simpsons," it's funny because it's true. We've all heard the saying "History is writ by the victor." America is no exception. It was a shocking moment in high school when one of my teachers made clear to us that historians will often get into a patriotic frenzy while depicting the events of our past atrocities. If the truth hurts write new truths. But that is a frightening topic, nearly Orwellian. The idea that history can be changed at the behest of some to produce a more favorable, ironically, income, is a viable threat to our intellectual capacity. We've already seen the effects of history on the emotional gravitation of a people, but can it go so far as to destroy our intellectual foundation as assumed in 1984?

The re-write of history is a trend that is unlikely to change. At least not on the level of the published historian. There is, however, an undercurrent in our modern, historically-documented world and that is the blog. Blog is a term that gets thrown around a lot. Some people think it's silly, others are threatened by it. Some people think the craft of mainstream journalism, as a whole, will suffer from blogs; that people with no invested skills can obtain readership in the same vein as those who spend thousands of dollars and hours of time becoming an accredited journalist. You hear the talk radio hosts spout their disdain for blogs, for the idea that a bunch of people stating their opinions are going to effect the world in a way the radio hosts themselves are guilty of. And I'm for it.

A popular book is A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn, and the reason it is popular is that it is written from the perspective of the defeated, not the victor. As we become more aware of our history the more we are incensed by its fabrication. In that sense I see blogs, and other online journals, as a means of turning the information era into a populace of 'Howard Zinn's, a people writing their history in real time. Blogs are not always, in fact rarely, a topical dictation covering the entire breadth of an event, concept, trend, cataclysm, or system. But what blogs provide is an insight of people into their reflections on the world we occupy. History is no longer a relic buried in layers of dust, but a living organism; a mutating amoebic creature that swells with the reflection of its participants.

Perpetuating the concept of the blog may also serve as a socially liberating force. For example, a conundrum in America, from a particular point of view, is the compromised transmission of information to some of its citizens. The inception of the electoral college was a response to the need for people's votes to be heard. It was all well and good for an educated urban dweller to obtain news and information in effect to turn around and make an informed decision in an election (well-er and good-er if said urban dweller had the finances to properly effect the outcome of elections). That model excludes the opinions and needs of the more remote rural citizens. It was then deemed necessary that people should not have their voice unheard by the masses simply due to proximity; a summarization of votes was the answer. In our modern day it seems less and less appropriate given that, through telecommunications, all American citizens have the potential to stay current with the rest of the population. One problem: our mass media is controlled by a few corporations who have proven a right-wing agenda. The citizen treading the ebb and flow of the information current has a developed sense of skepticism, but the land-locked masses importing ideas face complications from the purity of the intellectual goods. The information reaching the rural citizens is tainted. The Utopian ideal that one person equals one vote is, alas, a pipe dream. As long as we have impure knowledge we will irrigate our intellectual crops with tainted water (summation: do not grow minds with Fox news). This is why people like Rush Limbaugh are so quick to criticize the bloggers: the bloggers provide competition of ideas that threaten the mental chokehold the modern conservative fears. This is not a trend that the act of blogging will solve in an evening. But it does promise to allow a horizontal transmission of information instead of an antiquated trickle-down approach: from people to people instead of big businesses to yearning masses.

Another potentially liberating factor of blogging is the 'cream rises to the top' model of commercialized culture. If you open a newspaper there is a 90% chance of a story that documents the fragility of the technologies industry. Microsoft was sued in an anti-trust lawsuit nearly a decade ago in response to the threat of monopolistic practices, and now we find Google and Microsoft at odds over the acquisition of Yahoo!. One of the greater principles of free enterprise is the perpetuation of quality products, in turn evolving society, hopefully for the better. A plethora of choice is the mechanics of this system at work, while a concentration of that influence becomes gradually unhealthy. In that sense the freedom of ideas and the myriad of options available in blogging society gives the power of choice to the readers. Who knows why we do it for free? Maybe it's validation of self, perpetual learning, a pulpit on which to preach, or just feeling like you have someone to talk to. Regardless, as long as people are willing to share there is no reason to decline. Knowledge is an asset, and in an ideal world people would never balk at an idea. There is nothing to fear in the transmission of ideas, only the execution of bad ones.

Consider it while blogging. You might be fighting the system, you might be changing the world, and you might be writing history. Then again, even if it's all folly it's still a lot of fun.


POST-SCRIPT: This post is in no way intended to throw dirt on the modern historian. I understand there are a lot of fields where this criticism does not apply. I also imagine that most historians have the professional integrity to avoid the malicious negligence of facts. Rather, what is likely the hurdle of the day is a lingering cultural bias or the interference of emotional reaction. It is also likely that peers of the particular fields of historical documentation provide a professional checks and balances to prevent the transmission of tainted intellect. This is in no way aimed at insulting the entirety of historians, rather it is aimed at being a criticism on the history of history.