Weblogs

There is an assumption that everyone has something interesting to say. Certainly, it is becoming easier for people to get messages to the rest of the world, whether via website, weblog, newsgroup or spam e-mail. These are unchecked, unregulated and can be dangerous, as the printed or written word holds a lot of authority. It has a semi-magical quality which gives it authority and gravitas. Hopefully, the net result will be that readers of such electronic information will become more discerning and learn to sort the wheat from the chaff. My worry is that our global civilisation, which has evolved communication skills to deal with a few people and a few pieces of information, is not capable of dealing with the larger scale of gossip, rumour-mongering and mischief-making that are prevalent.

This brings me to my second point: very few people have anything genuinely new or interesting to say. They can have their 15 minutes of fame, but for most people that is as much as they can handle, need or as long as they can contribute anything worthwhile to society as a whole. Genuinely interesting people are few and far between. It follows that genuinely interesting weblogs will also be few and far between. Weblogs are by their very nature self-publicising, egotistical and opinionated (and I include this very log in that criticism). However, they give a voice to everyone, with the ultimate democratic right of free speech, and allow a great catharsis of the soul. For those very reasons, long may they prosper.

Oh, and for interest (or not), the spell-checker wanted to replace "weblogs" with "obelisk".