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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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