Popular Culture and the Significance of Life

Popular culture (mass media) thinks that the number of "hits" or the number of "comments" is a meaningful measure of a blog's usefulness and value -- when in fact, it is the quality of the writing, reading, thinking and freedom of expression that is the significance of any blog.

Those things are difficult "to measure" except by the participants themselves -- but that is the major reason many of the old media writers fail to make the transition to the new media, because they are too indoctrinated with the old paradigm of publishing (public writing) success, which is judged by the commercial acceptance, and manner of payment (usually by the word).

So a major mistake is dumbing down hoping to reach the lowest common denominator, using as many words to say the least as possible or nothing -- rather than trying to reach up to the highest denominator of intelligence in the universe, saying the most in as few words as possible, which is the art of anything.

Blogs are an artistic expression most of all -- rather than just another mass medium of popular culture.

Blogs are not just journalism in a new medium but is the step beyond it (virtual reality) -- that even journalists have to learn, and create. A lot of the "traditional" journalists (published writers) have a huge problem with that because they are used to being given deference -- and that is no longer a "given," but has to be earned in each communication freshly.

The most popular blogs, the Democratic Underground and the Daily Kos, are worthless because the are a step below the old graffiti on the bathroom walls. There is no question that they get a lot of hits and comments -- by people one wouldn't want to be communicating with, much less known by -- or know.

Understandably, the worst of the blogs. is what the mainstream media will usually use as an example of "blogging" and blogs -- because they can compare themselves favorably to them, and in that way, maintain their illusions and delusions of superiority (or mere competence).

Although most people say they believe in equality and all those noble sentiments of liberalism, they really like having a permanent advantage and distinction, which of course means the other has to have a disadvantage -- of which the "liberal" mind finds no contradiction, but in maintaining that cognitive dissonance, they cannot see the truth of anything else either.

That is the well-known and constantly-displayed "liberal hypocrisy."

What is difficult for most journalists to come to grips with is that the way they see the world is also biased, prejudiced, and bigoted -- rather than the entirety of the world experience, and "objective," as they insist everybody must believe about them.

In that way, they are like every other special interest group that believes that their way and their superiority to everybody else is indisputable -- or God wouldn't have placed them in charge of overseeing the First Amendment as the special right and privilege of journalists -- rather than the right of all citizens to their own freedom of expression.

In every discipline and field of study, that is the major barrier to overcome -- in realizing that what one thought was an inviolable and unquestioned truth, is the faulty assumption and premise that prevents us from seeing the truth. And that is the proper work of man -- that gives any life meaning, purpose and significance.

That is what is useful to know.