Escape Into Life - Amateurism, the Internet and Literary Criticism by Nigel Beale

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Amateurism, the Internet and Literary Criticism

May 16 2009

The Old Library Revisted by (Eric)

Amateurism, the Internet and Literary Criticism

by Nigel Beale

“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 judgment. The information business is being transformed by the Internet into the sheer noise of a hundred million bloggers all simultaneously talking about themselves.”

Andrew Keen, The Cult of the Amateur: How the Internet is Killing our Culture

According to The Oxford English Dictionary the word amateur refers to one who loves, is fond of, or has a taste for, anything; one who cultivates anything as a pastime. But there’s also a more derogatory meaning: someone who isn’t a professional; who is unprofessional, who practices an art or science unskillfully; an unpaid dabbler; inexpert.

It is across these axes that much of the debate about information and truth on the Internet occurs.

Some months ago I engaged in a discussion with Ronan MacDonald about his book The Death of the Critic.

While it is primarily about the demise of evaluative criticism, the book does have things to say about the Internet. Thanks to blogs and burgeoning user content platforms, ("the pullulation of commentary," as MacDonald puts it), everyone today is a critic. We can all now vent and emote. Push back, blow off, swoon and fawn in public cyberspace. ‘People power’ dominates the age. This is not necessarily a good thing, according to McDonald. It’s killing off a breed of professional, educated, capital ‘C’ Critic ‘essential to the survival of culture.’

Jurgen Habermass, one of Europe’s most influential social thinkers, would agree. Here he is quoted in Andrew Keen’s The Cult of the Amateur :

“The price we pay for ...

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