Nabobs and Naysayers

One of my old bosses used to warn me about “nattering nabobs” and “naysayers” – in other words, people that liked to throw cold water on things, especially trends and concepts that were gaining traction with more and more people. Or, folks in the “it can’t be done” crowd, who were also more than likely the “experts” he also deplored. He used to love to prove either group wrong – in fact, it would only spur him on even more.

He had a poster up on his wall that exemplified this warning:

“It can’t be done”
“It can’t be done”
“It can’t be done”
“It can’t be done”

“It’s done”

So needless to say my “naysayer” antennae perked up yesterday when I saw a book review in the Los Angeles Times for something called “The Cult of the Amateur” by Andrew Keen, subtitled “How Today’s Internet is Killing our Culture“. You can guess this is a contrarian view of what is summed up as “Web 2.0″ – primarily the 70 million people (or so) that take the time to publish on the web via a blog.

Here’s one of his observations:

“The Web 2.0 revolution has peddled the promise of bringing more truth to more people – more depth of information, more global perspective, more unbiased opinion from dispassionate observers. But this is all a smokescreen. What the Web 2.0 revolution is really delivering is superficial observations of the world around us rather than deep analysis, shrill opinion rather than considered judgement. The information business is being transformed by the Internet into the sheer noise of a hundred million bloggers all simultaneously talking about themselves.”

Oh boy. This is the kind of thing my boss warned me about – a big ‘ol bucket of ice cold water thrown over 100 million people (myself included).

I’ve taken on this point of view before, last December, when George Will made much the same argument. My response to that (and in turn to this) was:

“So, we’re all just putting our “unsingular” thoughts on a page for our own amusement. I guess Mr. Will isn’t visiting the same blogs that I do. Here’s what I find – quite unique and many times exceptional writers who are doing nothing more than what I call “looking in to reach out”.

That is, in order to connect with an “outside” that goes beyond their city limits and other conventional boundaries, internal revelations or opinions are made to attract like-minded (and like-hearted) individuals into meaningful conversations where new friends are made and yes, actual learning takes place. Now, this might not be the “revolutionary civic purpose” that Mr. Will cites as more meaningful, but it sure is a public purpose. And a pretty darn serious one, too.

Are all blogs the same? Of course not, and Mr. Will is correct that the Web can often be a “chaos of entertainment and solipsisim (bloggers dictionary note: means “egoistic self-absorption”)”. But it’s pure folly to throw us all under the metaphorical bus and tell us we’re all just doing it for our own selfish interests.”

It’s easy to make big, broad generalizations, particularly if you are trying to sell books. Everyone has a right to their opinion (oh, and by the way, for someone who is so disappointed with us bloggers, I find it interesting that Mr. Keen is promoting himself with – you guessed it – a blog). But it serves us well to occasionally take heed of the nattering and the naysaying, for no other reason to do what my old boss did:

Prove them wrong.

I said it before and I’ll say it again – if blogging is wrong, I don’t want to be right.

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