Meaningless, and demeaning

Via James, I see that some Toryblogger is inviting us to rank our favourite blogs.
Include me out. To do this is to pervert everything that's best about the "blogosphere." The great thing about blogging is that it's diverse, egalitarian and gives a voice to those marginalized by conventional politics and the media. To pretend that bloggers can be ranked hierarchically according to a clear set of criteria by the sort of people who read dull mainstream blogs is to undermine these virtues.
Is Norm better than Wat Tyler? Is Matt Sinclair better than Shuggy? The questions are meaningless, because there's no obvious single objective standard by which to judge them.
Indeed, to assess them at all is to demean them - who the hell do I think I am to judge such evidently good people?
In practice, I guess most of the people daft enough to take part in this survey will use the standard: how far do they agree with me? Excellence in any writer is, after all, merely a matter of how far he flatters the reader's ego. But this merely reduces the survey to a question of the tastes of a biased sample - which is utterly uninteresting.
So, if you must take part in this survey - and I'd rather you didn't - could you please not mention me? I neither want nor need the acclaim of the multitude. As Adam Smith said:

To a real wise man the judicious and well-weighed approbation of a single wise man, gives more heartfelt satisfaction than all the noisy applauses of ten thousand ignorant though enthusiastic admirers. (Theory of Moral Sentiments, Book VI.III.31)

Comments

[Rick]

Bear with me but I'm a bit of a latecomer to blogging.

Am I supposed to know who Iain Dale is?

[Matthew Sinclair]

I agree that basing your sense of self-worth on your ranking on Iain's table would be unwise. However, I think it's worth it if it gives publicity to blogs and blogging. There are network effects and more people blogging is in all our interests.

[Bob B]

"Am I supposed to know who Iain Dale is?"

Try:

http://iaindale.blogspot.com/

http://www.politicos.co.uk/pages/about_us.htm?ginPtrCode=10410&identifier=aa584af12a312ef6d87a0a1825936931

But welcome, anyway.

[Roger Thornhill]

I have not seen that Adam Smith quote. If you take it to heart, whither Democracy?

[Bob B]

Whither democracy? Try Edmund Burke's famous speech on 3 November 1774 to the electors of Bristol about the responsibilities of a Member of Parliament:

"Parliament is not a congress of ambassadors from different and hostile interests; which interests each must maintain, as an agent and advocate, against other agents and advocates; but parliament is a deliberative assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole; where, not local purposes, not local prejudices, ought to guide, but the general good, resulting from the general reason of the whole. You choose a member indeed; but when you have chosen him, he is not member of Bristol, but he is a member of parliament."
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch13s7.html

[Matt Wardman]

"parliament is a *deliberative* assembly of one nation, with *one interest*, that of the *whole*"

Hmmm. Would that be the Commons or the Lords?

[Matt Wardman]

I think you're being a touch contrarian for the sake of it (but who am I to complain).

I think the order is pretty irrelevant, but ID is best placed to get blogging into the politicosphere - and that's good enough to justify the exercise imho.

That is a superb meme idea, though: "who is Iain Dale?"

[The Englishman]

http://www.anenglishmanscastle.com/archives/003914.html
has the answer....

[Bob B]

The one and only True-Born Englishman?
http://www.luminarium.org/editions/trueborn.htm

[Alan Douglas]

I was considering giving my top bloggers, and still am.

Not on the basis of how much they agree with me, but on how much they EXTEND my knowledge and how much they force me to THINK.

The job that used to be done by the Daily Telegraph, which has sadly moved on to other agendas, perhaps too akin the the Daily Mail's ?

Alan Douglas

[Larry Teabag]

Just a comment:

some Toryblogger is inviting us to rank our favourite blogs

Not so. Some Toryblogger is inviting us to rank our favourite POLITICAL blogs.

For all the great diversity and egalitarianism of the blogosphere, it's amazing how often it's unconsciously assumed to be about politics and nothing else.

[ad]

Such lists are in effect advice columns, suggesting blogs readers may find interesting. Nothing wrong with that. I discovered this blog via such a list (on Comment Central, I think).

If I were a cynic I would say that there are none so vain, as those who request no applause.