Rich Robinson writes about how 2000

Rich Robinson writes about how weblogs are ruining the web in A List Apart. Frankly, I think the core problem behind his lament and so many other anti-weblog rants is that he has now seen enough sites that the web doesn't feel fresh anymore. Really, folks, look back at early sites, at BBS chatter, at that email you sent out to a dozen friends in 1997 and ask yourself if weblogs are truly doing anything new, different and damaging.

Yes, Blogger makes it easy to publish on the web even if you have nothing to say. It also makes it easy for people to find your site whereon you may not be offering much. So jaded old websters like Rich stumble across your drab offering and are reminded of how much better it used to be in the dim and glorious early days.

Rich says: "In particular, [the blame for why it's so hard to find worthwhile sites these days] falls on that genre of personal site which requires no effort to design or maintain".

Perhaps he has a point in that now people with nothing to say can say it to a wider audience, but I refuse to believe the subtext of his message: that only those who know HTML and have a strong visual design sense have something to say worth hearing. That's like saying "Well, certainly there are a lot books these days, what with the advent of the printing press, but so much of it is junk. We had such better quality works when you had to hand write every copy!"

There are not fewer good sites these days.
There are more.
There are also more sites which you will find bad or merely uninteresting, but that's hardly surprising since the web is growing and growing more diverse.

Somehow all of this is reminding me of C.S. Lewis' exposition on the "All-I-want" state of mind in letter XVII of The Screwtape Letters. Herewith a brief taste of this fine book on the art of corrupting humans as described in the letters of a senior tempter to his nephew Wormwood:

The real value of the quiet, unobtrusive work which Glubose has been doing for years on this old woman can be gauged by the way in which her belly now dominates her whole life. The woman is in what may be called the "All-I-want" state of mind. All she wants is a cup of tea properly made, or an egg properly boiled, or a slice of bread properly toasted. But she never finds any servant or any friend who can do these simple things "properly" ---because her "properly" conceals an insatiable demand for the exact, and almost impossible, palatal pleasures which she imagines she remembers from the past; a past described by her as "the days when you could get good servants" but known to us as the days when her senses were more easily pleased and she had pleasures of other kinds which made her less dependent on those of the table.

I do highly recommend The Screwtape Letters; it holds much of interest for the non-Christian and is delightfully pointed in its critique of human foibles. The audio version read by John Cleese is a delightful way to enjoy this work, particularly in the letters where Screwtape becomes apoplectic.

Comments

Rich Robinson writes about how

Rich Robinson writes about how weblogs are ruining the web in A List Apart. Frankly, I think the core problem behind his lament and so many other anti-weblog rants is that he has now seen enough sites that the web doesn't feel fresh anymore. Really, folks, look back at early sites, at BBS chatter, at that email you sent out to a dozen friends in 1997 and ask yourself if weblogs are truly doing anything new, different and damaging.

Yes, Blogger makes it easy to publish on the web even if you have nothing to say. It also makes it easy for people to find your site whereon you may not be offering much. So jaded old websters like Rich stumble across your drab offering and are reminded of how much better it used to be in the dim and glorious early days.

Rich says: "In particular, [the blame for why it's so hard to find worthwhile sites these days] falls on that genre of personal site which requires no effort to design or maintain".

Perhaps he has a point in that now people with nothing to say can say it to a wider audience, but I refuse to believe the subtext of his message: that only those who know HTML and have a strong visual design sense have something to say worth hearing. That's like saying "Well, certainly there are a lot books these days, what with the advent of the printing press, but so much of it is junk. We had such better quality works when you had to hand write every copy!"

There are not fewer good sites these days.
There are more.
There are also more sites which you will find bad or merely uninteresting, but that's hardly surprising since the web is growing and growing more diverse.

Somehow all of this is reminding me of C.S. Lewis' exposition on the "All-I-want" state of mind in letter XVII of The Screwtape Letters. Herewith a brief taste of this fine book on the art of corrupting humans as described in the letters of a senior tempter to his nephew Wormwood:

The real value of the quiet, unobtrusive work which Glubose has been doing for years on this old woman can be gauged by the way in which her belly now dominates her whole life. The woman is in what may be called the "All-I-want" state of mind. All she wants is a cup of tea properly made, or an egg properly boiled, or a slice of bread properly toasted. But she never finds any servant or any friend who can do these simple things "properly" ---because her "properly" conceals an insatiable demand for the exact, and almost impossible, palatal pleasures which she imagines she remembers from the past; a past described by her as "the days when you could get good servants" but known to us as the days when her senses were more easily pleased and she had pleasures of other kinds which made her less dependent on those of the table.

I do highly recommend The Screwtape Letters; it holds much of interest for the non-Christian and is delightfully pointed in its critique of human foibles. The audio version read by John Cleese is a delightful way to enjoy this work, particularly in the letters where Screwtape becomes apoplectic.

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