Andrew Keen's Cult of the Amateur

Andrew Keen's book, The Cult of the Amateur, hits bookstores today. Keen has given us a brickbat of a polemic, which is to say, it's blunt, mean and not very sophisticated. Think of his argument as: Everything On or  Transmitted Over or Affected By the Internet is Bad For You. His actual subtitle is "How Today's Internet is Killing Our Culture." Same thing. For those of us with stock in the belief that the Internet has liberated a great deal of latent creativity, ideas and dare I say it, beauty, it's an offensive notion.

It is also, to hear Keen's critics, a disingenuous one. Prominent voices like Jeff Jarvis, Dave Winer and Robert Scoble have all cast Keen in the role of a calculating and—worse, this—sophomoric provocateur, producing arguments that aren't worth a "thoughtful response," in Winer's words, because they are "beneath criticism." (Rather than offer a round-up of the various leading lights who've taken the whip hand to Keen, I'll hand you over to Dan Farber at ZDNet, who does an admirable job of it.)

As everyone seems to have their basic talking points down—Keen's not just wrong, he's terrible at being wrong—the only real debate in play is whether to engage Keen at all. The consensus is that Keen is a troll, and the only way to deal with trolls is ignore them. I can't say I agree. I read Keen's book when I first received a review copy back in February, and had a similar reaction as many others. One, thank god someone's finally poking a stick in the Web 2.0 happy hive; and Two, why does the welcome antagonist have to wield such a clumsy, ineffective tool?

I talked to my immediate editors at Wired about the book anyway. We agreed that the book was likely to get tons of press, and that you go to the ring with the opponent you have, not the opponent you want. I spent several, long hours battling Keen—whose not without personal charm and wit—and found him as exasperating as his book. For what it's worth, I believe Keen is in earnest, not merely out to make a buck. (Which isn't to say the two motives are mutually exclusive.)

In the end the decision was made not to run the piece. I have decided to run the interview on Crowdsourcing.com. Because while we all might know Keen is a troll, the London Times, Forbes, the Financial Times and some 45 other publications don't. According to the Nexis news database, they all gave Keen coverage in the last several months. The scientific community decided that Intelligent Design was beneath criticism too, and we know how well that went.

The fact is, Keen's arguments will sound mightily persuasive to a significant constituency who do believe the Internet is primarily a repository of porn, spam and corrosive amateurism. Failing to recognize that the choir  to which Keen preaches might just be larger than our own congregation is an arrogant, and potentially irreversible blunder. While Web 2.0 insiders might love to hate Keen, many in the world at large will love to love him. I should note that I'm not the only dissenter on this count. Clay Shirky wages a more eloquent version of my argument here.

As such, in the spirit that all debate is good debate, I'm publishing the Wired Q&A after the jump. We kept the truly vitriolic bits out, so excuse me if it reads a bit more courtly than what I've written above. If vitriol is what you're looking for though, tomorrow I'll be moderating a debate between Keen and Time writer Lev Grossman at the Strand in New York. If you happen to live in the city or be in town for a visit, I hope you can join the fray.

Hed: ‘I’m Not a Technomoralist. I’m a Technoscold!’

Digital revolution? Andrew Keen doesn’t buy it. He hates Wikipedia, despises the blogosphere, and believes YouTube is killing off the cinematic arts. In his new book, The Cult of the Amateur, he argues we’re diving headlong into an age of mass mediocrity in which the mob replaces experts and we become collectively dumber. It’s a living. Keen has become the media’s go-to voice for techno-skepticism. (He’s been quoted by Newsweek, The Today Show, and the San Francisco Chronicle, among others.)  We decided to ask him if he was, you know, serious. —Jeff Howe

WIRED: You’ve got some pretty tough words for the digital revolution. Is there anything about technology you do like?

Andrew Keen: I know a lot of people will say this is just another Luddite tract, but I’m not anti-technology. I’m anti-technological utopianism. There’s this idea that technology is going to liberate us all to become filmmakers and journalists. That’s a seductive idea if you believe everyone is intrinsically talented. I don’t believe that. I don’t like the way technology is being used to attack institutions that I hold to be essential to our society, such as newspapers and record labels and film studios.

W: Is Blades of Glory that much better than what you can find on Youtube?

K: Spend some time on YouTube, drift around the blogosphere for a while and then go listen to some random bands on MySpace. Afterward go read the New York Times, see a mainstream movie, and wander through a record store, if you can still find one. Then ask yourself which you’d rather have.

W: I think Ask-a-Ninja’s pretty damn funny. Could the Ninja guy have broken through the old system of gate-keeping? Aren’t there a lot more talented people out there then will ever break through using the traditional system?

K: This is where we fundamentally disagree. I don’t want the crowd to tell me what’s worth watching. I want a movie critic to tell me that. I don’t want the crowd to tell me where to eat, because I don’t trust them to know. Give me the old gatekeepers any day.

W: Techno-moralists are in pretty short supply these days. How did you get into this particular line of business?

K: I’m not a techno-moralist. I’m a technoscold. I wrote the book because it seemed that people involved in Web 2.0 are in an echo chamber. There isn’t a debate, and there isn’t a conversation. They’re just listening to themselves. I find this incredibly dangerous. My background is in Eastern European studies. I spent the first half of my life studying communism and radical idealism. So I’m pretty skeptical of anyone who promises some sort of utopia.

W: You’ve compared Web 2.0 to Marxism. Explain.

K: In Marx’s early work he promises us that technology will liberate us from work, allowing us to farm in the morning, hunt in the afternoon, and write novels in the evening. I don’t want to come off as McCarthism 1.0 or anything, but I find it ironic that people like [Wired Editor-in-Chief] Chris Anderson and [Instapundit blogger] Glenn Reynolds consider themselves libertarians. Reynolds sees the market as liberating us from our needs, which is pretty Marxist. He’s like the poor man’s Chris Anderson.

W: What are your politics?

K: I’m liberal. Which is ironic. Ariana Huffington goes on and on about the left and right thing no longer being relevant, and I’m an example of that. Everyone thinks of Wired as a radical publication, but I think of it as more or less conservative, very free market. The kind of ideological map of the world now is one in which the libertarian globalists like Chris Anderson and Thomas Friedman—the Davos people—are on one side, and the old left and the old right are on the other.  On one hand the world is flat, and on the other hand are those of us who believe in anything, whether it’s class justice or morality or cultural truth of one sort or the other.

Comments

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[Shazz]

Hey Jeff,
I thought I'd contribute to the discussion by linking to a related Inside Higher Ed piece I read last week.

Does this sound familiar?:

"But beneath it all, one finds a sense of cultural history combining one part idyllic idealization with two parts status anxiety. [He] only appears to be facing hard questions about the new digital order. Actually he is just echoing debates on “mass society” from five or six decades ago." (McLemee, 2007).

The above is an excerpt from Scott McLemee's piece entitled "Mass Culture 2.0" where he discusses some of Michael Gorman's recent writings that are in Keen's negative and hyperbolic vein. (Gorman is former president of the American Library Association, and a CSU dean.)

Read McLemee's full article here: http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2007/06/20/mclemee

One of the reader comments to McLemee's post (and to Gorman's cultural doomsdaying) echoes my thoughts so well that I'll quote it here. It's from reader (and retired professor) Edward Winslow:

"...you would think we were back in the 15th and 16th century after the invention (or adaptation) of the printing press when those “poor ignorant masses” of people got access to the intellect of the ages through the new mass media of visual symbols placed on the media of the time: paper. According to those in power at the time -namely, the Church — how were those “masses” of people (Mass Culture 1.0) supposed to sort out all of this new information? Well, those authoring the new mass media would tell them and they would then become the new power brokers — the Librarians". Wow!"

Now I guess it's New York Times Movie Reviewers, not Librarians, who will sort it all out for us. ;-) (ha!)

IMO, good call on Wired's part (and yours).

Shazz

[alan]

Hi Shazz, the McLemee article really is a wonderful contrast to the myopic take by Keen and those who believe that the transformation of culture today is anything other than human-kinds changing consciousness expressed by and reflected with whatever technology happens to be at the forefront and available.

There can be no denying that appearances, in the short run, might give way to the shrill sound of those voices who cry “all is lost” whilst they themselves will be quickly forgotten and retroactively viewed as . . . . . . . . . . . . .short sited!

It always strikes me as odd that one would want to try to separate a cultural evolution from the warp and weft of the fabric that holds and sustains it!

To be fair though, the quandary that one faces whilst trying to sort the chaff from the wheat can put fear into the heart. The so called “classical education” does appear to be a thing of the past but knowledge of Homer or Kant might not be as relevant for a future generation as the ability to create alternate existences in second life? When an impulse such as the NCLB act is holding the national educational process hostage, I am not surprised that internet technology and the myriad other contemporary advances in the virtual, software and hardware worlds present an alternate and easier target.

Are the Michael Arrington’s, Walt Mossberg’s the high priests of today’s technological culture? If they are what blows my mind is the fact that entry into the inner sanctum is no longer shaped by movers and shakers who traditionally would exert their power from the periphery whilst maintaining control over unwitting pawns. The fact is that power/insight is emanating from individuals who have, apparently, freed themselves of the traditional role of pawn to the position of kings through individual destiny and, for the most part, without the influence of cultural power brokers and moneyed institutions.

Keen and his ilk do provide some friction that is not entirely wasted. Once the differences of opinion are digested and assimilated the by-products, BS or epiphany, might be more easily identified.

Warm regards, Alan.

[Shazz]

Hi there Alan,
Your phrase "providing some friction" is spot-on!

I must say that, independent of my personal position on any given topic, I'm always leery of these exaggerated yeas and nays because they're really arguing from the same point on the circle. Those who think that a new technology will turn our lives into utopia (I call this "jetsoning") are wrong; just as those who claim the downfall of civilization is imminent due to some new (powerful) communications widget appearing, like the printing press or the telex machine (or blogs!), are also misguided.

Thankfully, it's always much more messy, complex and interesting than that. :D

Shazz

[Alan]

Is there anything new under the sun Shazz?

Just as in the hybrid car market, where regenerative braking is now being used to convert mechanical energy lost in braking into electricity for fuel savings, Messrs Keen and cohorts are applying much force against a cultural/technological impulse that will not be stopped.

Their energetic participation does provide grist for the mill although the by-product, sadly, does not end up as whisky but some thing more ethereal.

It allows for a closer examination of salient points that might not have otherwise been consciously penetrated.

I say three cheers for active resistance. In this case, unwitting services that must surely be considered to be the highest form of self sacrifice!

Here is an article that does reflect, albeit in a rather traditional take, shifts that are taking place.
“Bob Gaudreau recently asked some seminar attendees to draw a picture of where they work. Gaudreau is executive vice president of The Regus Group, a company that creates business centers around the world for people who work when they travel or who lack a nearby corporate office. Five years ago some people would draw an airplane, or an office cubicle, or perhaps their house, he says. But this time several participants drew pictures of their head.”

Is the CS phenomenon not only symptomatic of changes that are taking place in working relationships and the culture of work but indicative of a much more profound metamorphosis, the further individualization of the human being?

Link: http://www.microsoft.com/midsizebusiness/businessvalue/virtual-workforce.mspx

Alan.

[Lars]

You can now read Wired's blogs on your cell phone by entering 'clfy.net/wired' in the phone's web browser.

[Dave Kresta]

I welcome Keen's opinions and feel that attacks against him are unwarranted. Let's discuss and engage, not attack. I believe Keen is fundamentally wrong about a number of things, especially his laughable claim that professional journalists are objective whereas bloggers are simply opinion spouters. See my full analysis at:
http://www.collaborativeye.com/collaboration_journal/slouching-towards-mediocrity.html

[John Eischeid]

I’ve started a website for those of you that have read Keen’s book and need a place to sound off, share ideas or get some feedback: www.keenrebuttal.org . It’s a user-generated rebuttal to the book; it uses against Keen the very same technology he loathes. Take a look, register, contribute, and – most importantly – provide citations and sources.

[jennifer]

I read this blog every day, and this is their reaction to Andrew Keen's book: http://www.unboundedition.com/content/view/3137/54/

Got to be honest, I felt the same way when I read the book.

[RichardL]

I just saw Keen in an interview - and frankly I found him somewhat condescending towards an interviewer who asked pointed questions on the logic of his argumentation.
I found him defensive and resorting to very superficial examples to make his case. But after he admitted that he longed for the days gone by when the elite and the media owners told us what to think, I am now convinced that he should re-title his book to "The Amateur of the Cult"...as obviously his ideal world rests on pre-digested ideas and conformity to prescribed rules of thinking.
Glad I saw and heard him talk. I won't even waste my time borrowing his book, let alone buying it.

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