Franklin did write an autobiography

December 21, 2006

George Will, who seems to be quite troubled lately with the blogging medium, devoted his column today to comparing us — that is, literally people like you and me — to 18th century pamphleteers. Apparently, we don’t measure up well.

Richard Stengel, Time’s managing editor, says, “Thomas Paine was in effect the first blogger” and “Ben Franklin was essentially loading his persona into the MySpace of the 18th century, ‘Poor Richard’s Almanack.’ ” Not exactly.

Franklin’s extraordinary persona informed what he wrote but was not the subject of what he wrote. Paine was perhaps history’s most consequential pamphleteer. There are expected to be 100 million bloggers worldwide by the middle of 2007, which is why none will be like Franklin or Paine. Both were geniuses; genius is scarce. Both had a revolutionary civic purpose, which they accomplished by amazing exertions. Most bloggers have the private purpose of expressing themselves for their own satisfaction. There is nothing wrong with that, but there is nothing demanding or especially admirable about it, either. […]

According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, 76 percent of bloggers say one reason they blog is to document their personal experiences and share them with others. And 37 percent — soon, 37 million — say the primary topic of their blog is “my life and experiences.” George III would have preferred dealing with 100 million bloggers rather than one Paine.

There are a great number of things wrong with this analysis, not the least of which is Will apparently having no real familiarity with the political blogs having the kind of impact that bothers him so much. (Honestly, can anyone name an influential political blogger who uses his or her site to share their life and personal experiences? And if not, why is Will troubled by the phenomenon?)

For that matter, why on earth would the number of bloggers have any relevance to the quality of individual writers? There will be 100 million bloggers, “which is why none will be like Franklin or Paine”? To be sure, Franklin and Paine had less “competition,” as it were, but the light of blogging geniuses is no less bright because of their colleagues.

And as for Franklin’s persona not having been “the subject of what he wrote,” Will is aware that Franklin wrote one of the most celebrated autobiographies in American history, is he not?

George Will is deeply in love…..with himself.

He’d better be careful or he’s going to go blind. 😉

  • Will is in love with himself, definitely. He also sees his beliefs, his ideology, his party, his whole life’s work crumbling before him due to circumstances which he has enabled in a major way. He is in denial and lashing out at those whom he does not think can easily respond, to try and make himself seem bigger and stronger–to himself. He too is a moral coward.

  • an influential political blogger who uses his or her site to share their life and personal experiences

    Speaking of this Mr. Carpetbagger, what are you and Mrs. Carpetbagger doing for the holidays? What’s on your New Year’s Eve agenda? What brand of clothing will you wear? Do you drink champagne out of leaded or lead-free crystal? (work with me here…I’m struggling to come up with some really inane questions…) Do you like fireworks? Do you light fireworks? Do you light a fire?

    /sarcasm

    George Will is an idiot with a strong vocabulary and knowledge of history (albeit imperfect and skewed).

  • Get him, CB. We’ll make Will give up bowties too, if he messes with the blogosphere.

    The avalanche has started, too late for pebbles to vote. Will needs to listen to some Bob Dylan and admit that the waters around him have grown and he’s dogpaddling against the watery zeitgeist. Maybe Time isn’t changing but the times are.

    Pundits bark but the media moves on.

  • Will is too bright to conflate political blogs with sports blogs, MySpace, YouTube and whatever else is out there deliberately. His beef with blogs would translate to sports along these lines: Instant replay in the NFL has ruined baseball. He wouldn’t dare say that, because he knows too many people would laugh him out of the universe. But blogs? They’re still obscure enough that he thinks he can get away with it.

    He’s a dinosaur. His political cause is in tatters, and he is professionally more irrelevant by the day. He has never earned the credibility he feels he’s entitled to and I’m guessing he’s feeling a bit threatened now.

    He should wander off to some wank tank where he and other elitists like him can toss about $10 words when a dime’s worth would do. They can practice their solemn nods and knowing chuckles without bothering the rest of us with their tripe.

  • What JoeW said.

    I kinda like George Will because at least he’s civil while he’s spewing the rightwing garbage. But he sounds like a cornered animal in this piece, casting aspersions on people who are finally being given an opportunity to do what people have always wanted to do, namely be heard.

    Like Thomas “FU” Friedman, Will has lived in luxury because of his exclusive position on the printed page, and that made him special. And now their exclusive places on paper pages are going the way of the dinosaur, and the bloggers are showing that he isn’t special at all. He’s just another pompous wingnut. But he is special, because it was he who helped a madman kill too many people to count, and the bloggers will never let anyone forget his puffed up words.

    He hears history coming. He fears its verdict, which will be written by the people like you and I.

  • I picture George Will with his arm curled around the plate of what he perceives as his pundit status. He keeps his face near the plate and snarls at anyone who dares look sideways at it. He makes himself ridiculous with his summary dismissal of the blogosphere and the many bright people who publish thoughts and ideas there. I am certain the blizzard of commentary engendered by his column on the W v Webb encounter had to completely unnerve him. Response to his work is nearly instantaneous, and much of it calls him to task (or worse). So, he has to dismiss the negative feedback as the work of the permanent adolescents that he thinks are the only types who read or write blogs. Will likes reader response to his work to be genteel. Those days are gone. He could celebrate the energetic engagement of his readers, but he would prefer to turn up his nose and denounce them as unworthy of his wisdom. Gee, maybe he is right. We just don’t deserve him.

  • It’s hard to see what his point is.

    Okay, so he can’t think of any blogger who is the equal of Franklin or Paine.

    So his claim is that bloggers shouldn’t be honored because they aren’t up to that level of genius?

    Didn’t they honor George W. Bush as man of the year a few years back?

  • Feel the fear.

    This is probably beyond obvious and I apologize in advance, but the reason schmoes like George Will and Joe Klein (of whom I was once a big fan) regard “the blogs” with such venom is because the medium has democratized the holding of opinions to a point never before seen. When I’m reading an op-ed on my computer, there’s no hierarchy between Will, this site, my own blog, or any other voice/outlet.

    This drives these guys crazy–both because they longer have dominant market share, and because the medium also allows all of us to hold them more accountable than ever before. When he screws up now, he hears about it, repeatedly, within hours if not minutes.

    One of the least significant consequences of this POV proliferation–to me, but probably not to Will–is that in 50 years, if not 20, his name will be meaningless and forgotten.

  • George Will is the Paris Hilton of pundits. He is famous for, well, being famous and his opinions carried weight because he was given the media spotlight to wallow in. Now instead of everyone listening to his opinion, a multitude of opinions are available on blogs that rival, challenge and even supercede his own. The unmitigated gall! Don’t we know who he is! How dare others not permit him to rest on his laurels and force him instead to remain relevant!

    What Will doesn’t get about blogs of the political stripe is that unlike his columns they are a conversation. Blogs are a dialectic where ideas are proffered then honed by the feedback of others. Not only would Franklin be a blogger in this day and age, so would Socrates. Will just isn’t used to impertinent folks talking back to him.

    George Will, your knowledge of the internets is right up there with Ted Stephens’. Do some research first and come back to us with an informed opinion, otherwise your ideas are as stupid as everyone else’s, if not more so.

  • All the posts seem to be saying what I wanted to…so I’ll only add that even if someday there are a 100 billion bloggers…a few will perkolate to the top…and those will be the people with something important to say…Like CB and a few others.
    But if we do have a 100 billion bloggers…I’ll have to learn to read faster..

  • george will has always reminded me of beaker, dr. bunson honeydew’s assistant on the muppets.

  • Funny, but I don’t see a Franklin or Paine on the op-ed pages either — particularly on days when Will appears.

  • Will is blowing hot air! For Franklin, it was always about Franklin. His was a brand of 18th century individualism guided by his self-interest. He personified Smith’s observed propensities, and as a result benefited his community greatly. Franklin would be inspired by the political blogs of today. He was a believer in the free exchange of ideas. Established pundits like Will are fearful of the net and the blogosphere, as they have lost their esoteric power to sway the grand narrative with timed dosages of like-minded drivel. Instead, they now have to compete for the public’s attention with the likes of 10 or so good quality political blogs. Me thinks both Franklin and Paine would see great merit in such a democratic dynamic. -Kevo

  • What I find amusing (me and my warped sense of humour) is that, for some reason, my favourite “opinionators” — Krugmann and Rich, of NYT — don’t feel threatened by blogs, while people like Will and Brooks do. And I hasten to add that I held low opinion of Will and Brooks long before I started reading blogs myself , so their spouting is not the *reason*; it’s simply a confirmation.

  • Honestly, can anyone name an influential political blogger who uses his or her site to share their life and personal experiences?

    Andrew Sullivan.

  • “Honestly, can anyone name an influential political blogger who uses his or her site to share their life and personal experiences?”

    “Andrew Sullivan. ”

    He’s a gay republican. He has no other outlet.

  • Will is just an over-articulate blowhard that sees his days of ‘distinguished intellectual commentary’ numbered by the onslought of technology and the availablity of information to the masses.

  • There is one drawback to pointing to Franklin’s Autbiography. I was largely fiction. That was his attempt to leave a legacy of his own making. In recent years Franklin’s (for lack of a better term” partying and womanizing have been on the public record. But, in his Autobiography, Franklin paints himself as a chaste, hard-working, “Early to Bed; Early to Rise” kind of guy. It was really just very early P.R.

    By the way, much of Franklin’s writings are in this same vein. But, the breadth of his expertise made him an excellent statesman.

  • After Will’s recent column on “civility” in which he misrepresented the chilly exchange between President Smartass and Senator-elect Jim Webb, I sent him an email to tell him that he can’t get away with that kind of crap anymore – today, the bloggers will nail him.

    I’m not claiming that he even read my message, but perhaps he realizes that the game is up, that the bloggers are watching him.

    No wonder he’s cranky about bloggers.

  • Yes. There are many political blogs that are useless. So what, GW? Unless someone is a “genius”, they should not be allowed to have a voice? Should we have a clearing house to decide who is allowed to be heard?

    Let people decide for themselves which blogs are worth reading. I do not want to be limited to what an editor believes is worth the space or time to present. I am capable of reading things on the internet with the appropriate amount of trust for the source. I do not need a bloated sack or protoplasm like George Will telling me who is and who is not worth reading. The content will speak for itself.

  • I guessed that Time chose “You” as Person of the Year because no Republican or conservative had managed to accomplish squat in 2006. To choose a Democrat or progressive — horrors! the keyboard kommandos and their minions would have arisen in cataclysmic fury! (Personally, I thought that John Stewart and Stephen Colbert should have been chosen as co-Persons.) This “You” nonsense allowed Time to avoid hurting conservatives’ tender feelings. I would say that Will ought to be grateful for Time’s choice, as a more forthright approach would have laid the bitter truth bare. 2006 was a lousy year for conservatives, and 2007 may well be even worse.

    • Comments are closed.