I hate to ruin a nice rainy day by straining Michael Corleone and the Sopranos' quotation again, but EVERY time I engage in satire, reality draaags me back in! In this case, maybe it's the other way around, but no matter. When satire and reality meet, there's no telling them apart.

Anyway, I have been satirizing the recent permutations of the Glenn Reynolds/Daily Kos, um, train of events. I didn't spend as much time as maybe I should have on the "Kosola" scandal, but that's because I just don't like the aroma. I don't especially care whether there's any fire behind the smoke, either. The whole thing reminds me too much of conventional politics -- something I tend to disdain in favor of the more enlightened (supposedly more civil) blogosphere. Naive though it may be, I cling to my denial, and it is my fervent hope that if I stay within the relative safety of my blog, I'll be able to just think what I think, and not have to worry too much about political consequences. After all (to quote William S. Burroughs), "I'm not running for office and I don't have to respect anyone's stupid opinion."

Political hyping of the blogosphere is of course inevitable, though, because elections never cease, and bloggers have opinions. A libertarian like Glenn Reynolds will make plenty of enemies on the left and the right, simply because he is popular, and this means he'll be attacked by the organized left as a "right wingnut" (and much worse things) and by the right for favoring gay rights, "immoral" technologies, and legal abortion. These attacks, while political in nature, increase in direct proportion to Reynolds' popularity. An ordinary libertarian blogger (assuming he had only a fraction of Glenn's traffic) is pretty much left alone to speak his mind freely.

If you fall into that "ordinary" category (as does this blog and a lot of others), it is a logical error to assume this means all is well. What we smaller, small "l" libertarian bloggers tend to forget is that an attack on Glenn Reynolds is an attack on all of us.

He's our proxy hell-catcher (the canary in the mine, if you will), and thus, I have to admit that one of the reasons I defend him is to defend myself.

But this post is about a lot more than libertarian bloggers, small or large. What I didn't realize until today was that some of the NeoLuddite attacks on Glenn Reynolds, while ostensibly coming from the "right," show every sign of being against not just libertarian bloggers, but against all bloggers, left, right, moderate, or libertarian. Those of us (myself included) who tend to see the blogosphere as divided into left and right camps should sit up and take notice of statements like this:

The blogosphere's radical left and right both share a hostility to tradition, established institutions and political, economic and cultural elites. The problem is that their incessant noise is drowning out mainstream opinion. Reynolds and Moulitsas are winning the debate by shouting louder and blogging more often than the rest of us.

The reason I cannot ignore Keen's latest outburst (much as I'd like to) is that he's trying to forge an alliance with NeoLuddite blogbasher, Christine Rosen. See him lavish the praise:

It's always a treat to read New Atlantis senior editor Christine Rosen. Her recent review in the New Republic of Glenn Reynolds' book An Army of Davids is essential reading for two reasons. Firstly, she brings a historian's wit and wisdom to the current ahistorical debate about the cultural merits of technology. Secondly, Rosen suggests that the old left/right political divisions in America have been replaced by a split between anti establishment digital libertarians and those of us who still maintain a faith in our traditional representative institutions and meritocratic elites. (Emphasis added.)

Meritocratic elites?

Keen might have a point about the tension between the blogosphere and traditional elites, but I have to take issue with the notion that these elites are meritocratic in nature.

I think that they tend to be precisely the opposite.

Obviously, meritocracies are merit based. The best student gets an A, the best athletes make the cut, the best soldiers are the ones who get promoted. The more objective the criteria, the more meritocratic the system. While a resume can be padded, and a news story can be made up, there's no faking the four minute mile.

There are only a few "true" meritocracies. Sports has been called the "last true meritocracy" although Senator Wallop used the same term to describe the military.

In my view, Keen's misuse of the word is demagoguery -- designed to conceal the fact that the media elites are not meritocracies, but aristocracies and oligarchies. To the extent that there's competition, there are meritocratic elements. Thus, competition by Fox News against CNN tend to keep both on their toes. Call me an optimist, but my hope is that the blogosphere might -- by offering competition -- make the traditional elites more meritocratic.

It is my considered opinion that bloggers like Michael Yon, Michael Totten, and Bill Roggio are doing a better job as freelance reporters than effete MSM aristocrats who sit around and condemn bloggers for not reporting.

Yet Keen would say that Yon, Totten and Roggio are (what is it?) "flattening dialogue," and that we should be reading and relying on AP reports filed by the people whose very unaccountability is why bloggers have stepped in.

In meritocracies, the cream rises to the top. Both Reynolds and Kos offer their readers something that more of them like than like Andrew Keen. The painful thing for Keen is that he thinks -- nay, he knows -- that he is better than Glenn Reynolds and Markos Moulitsas.

But the hits that Keen thinks he deserves aren't likely to materialize, because this is a meritocracy. (I say this notwithstanding the scientific possibility that Keen may prove to be a future Van Gogh, discussed infra.) But that didn't stop him from turning to the elites (at CBS and The Weekly Standard) to get himself placed higher on the pedestal, and (in my view) geting a lot more attention than he deserved.

While it's bad enough to falsely label the MSM a meritocracy, I have to return to Keen's other major complaint, because I think that in terms of sheer chutzpah, it's unsurpassed:

. . .their incessant noise is drowning out mainstream opinion. Reynolds and Moulitsas are winning the debate by shouting louder and blogging more often than the rest of us.

(Keen's built-in populist appeal to smaller bloggers who feel left out is cute too -- but Frank J. did a better (and funnier) job with it.)

I know I don't need to defend Glenn here, but I will anyway, because it's just too irresistible. According to Keen, Reynolds' "noise" is "drowning out mainstream opinion."

First of all, where's the noise? Occasional podcasts that can only be downloaded after a ten minute wait, and in which Glenn "shouts" things like "Hmmm.. That's interesting" while allowing his guests to do most of the talking? Or is it the crashing impact of the word "Heh." as it crushes all dissent at the speed of light with a cloud of dust? (With all survivors immediately incinerated by a hearty "Indeed.") The crater left behind in the collective minds of the best and brightest members of the elite must be huge indeed.

Surely Keen is having a laugh at our expense. I hope he is.

(I'll therefore cling to my deep and dark suspicions that he's secretly working for the Coulter-Clinton-Reynolds-Kos, Marxist-Leninist axis! Normally, I wouldn't feed the troll, but if he's working for Glenn -- even in an Emmanuel Goldsteinish manner -- that means broadly speaking we're all in on this together. . .)

Har har!

The problem is, there are some things I can't ignore -- whether they're funny or not.

UPDATE: Frank Wilson (The Philadelphia Inquirer's Book Review Editor) looks at meritocracy, and finds it alive and well in the blogosphere:

Rosen doesn't seem to grasp - or else willfully ignores - that it is precisely "the old institutions," those"arbiters that vetted writing and thought" whose judgment is being called into question. As Glenn writes: "Millions of Americans who were once in awe of the punditocracy now realize that anyone can do this stuff--and that many unknowns can do it better than the lords of the profession." Rosen quotes this, but doesn't seem to get the point. The institutional superego has been found to filter out viewpoints, not because those viewpoints are ill-informed or poorly reasoned, but because they run counter to said superego's favored viewpoint. It is just possible that people will discern quality of thought and art when it is presented to them. It is just possible that when people regard something as true or beautiful they may be correct - even if the self-designated arbiters of thought and expression think otherwise.

Well put. Common sense would suggest that while popularity and success are not necessarily synonymous with quality, they certainly don't preclude it. While quality doesn't always lead to popularity, it has a better chance when the would-be gatekeepers (the "people will think what I tell them to think" crowd) don't control all the playing fields.

(BTW, the quote was from "Citizen Kane," not to be confused with Citizen Keen.)

MORE: Commenter "anticlassical" at Andrew Keen's blog asks good questions:

who is this classical values guy? He sounds like he resides in Arkansas or some other small state with lots of other poor, ignorant white libertarians. He must have a hugely fat wife and lives in a trailer park full of television sets. He listens to books on tape?

Hey listen up, y'all! I fly my flag with pride!