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SHALIZI


                                              February 8, 2007

I periodically find myself writing
hymns in praise of Cosma Shalizi --
and I find I'm not alone, there are
others out there on the web,
particularly in the burgeoning
"blogosphere" --
                                      which I, with some
                                      trepidation, must
                                      admit I may be a     Or perhaps,
   But -- you could                   founding member      an early
   smell that "but",                                       percursor.
   I bet -- I have
   to confess I've
   only read a small                         But I sincerely hope
   percentage of his                         I'm doing something
   writings.                                 different, and if not
                                             I may have to change
   And I can't claim                         direction to make
   that anything                             sure I'm doing
   there has really                          something different.
   *influenced* me
   all that much.
                       HISTORY
   I think we're all
   impressed by the
   sheer breadth of                                      SMALL_THUMB_RULE
   his reach, and by
   the general
   competence of
   nearly everything
   he writes...

     But is there *really* all
     that much depth there?          In his defense:
                                     he's a professional-
        They often make              grade intellectual,
        me feel like                 who can be expected
        "the doomfiles"              to save his creative
        needs more work              work for academic
        to keep up --                publications, not
        (e.g. why *don't*            casual web "notebooks".
        I do more of the
        writing on
        technical
        subjects?)

           But are either of us
           really *getting*
           anywhere with our         I think it's time I packed
           incessant writings        in this work for awhile...
           *about* things?           It's long past time to start
                                     doing more stuff that's not
                                     just stuff about stuff.





  One complaint I have:
  Shalizi is a lefty and proud,
  which is fine by me, but where's
  his defense of his position?

    He writes in depth on many
    fundamental subjects, often            It's at least mildly
    giving us his opinion on the           interesting that he's
    worth of this or that...               into the notion of
                                           "self-organizing
      Wouldn't it make sense to            systems", and yet is
      make a case for his                  not at all a devotee of
      fundamental political                laissez-faire capitalism.
      attitudes?
                                                       CONTROL

                                           Shalizi, like myself, reminds
                                           that many, many leftists made
                                           excuses for the Soviet Union
                                           long after it should've been
                                           obvious how bad it was.

                                              He also admits that
                                              socialist
                                              revolutionaries
                                              don't often have
                                              any detailed plans
                                              for what to do
                                              after they win.

                                                  Further, he claims
                                                  it's not worth
                                                  trying to define
                                                  "socialism" or "true
                                                  socialism".

                                                       And yet he proudly
                                                       calls himself a
                                                       leftist, and treats
                                     At a minimum,     "socialism" as
                                     this runs up      a positive term.
                                     against the
                                     "satanism"        The idea seems to
                                     problem.          be that historically
                                                       socialists have
                                     ANARCHY           been trying to do
                                                       good stuff.

                                                       They always meant
                                                       well?  Is that it?
    After reading/skimming a
    lot of Shalizi pages:                              If this is anything
                                                       but "tribalism"
    I think my style is better                         speaking, I don't
    suited to the medium than                          see it in his writings.
    his.  He still thinks       Too many
    he's writing on paper.      convoluted       What there is in his
                                sarcastic        writings is a lot of
                                remarks...       criticism of "free market"
                                                 types for not noticing
                                And too          that their idealized
                                many off-        assumptions aren't borne
                                hand             out in reality...  (true,
                                dismissals       enough).
                                he hasn't
                                bothered         And he has some coverage of
                                to support.      of rather abstract schemes
                                                 for doing "market socialism",
                                                 of some sort or another.

           And his coverage of
           pulp fiction is
           deplorably weak.



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