Prompted by Sunny's retirement, Stephen Tall claims that the amateur blogger is more or less dead. Not while I'm alive, he ain't.
Yes, I consider myself an amateur, in the sense that whilst I'm paid to write, I'm certainly not paid to blog, and I try to keep the day job and the blog separate.
An amateur - as anyone with a smattering of Latin knows - is someone motivated by love, not by money. There's a great line in a Josh Ritter song - "I'm singing for the love of it, have mercy on the man who sings to be adored" - which sums up my motive for blogging. I know Samuel Johnson said that "none but a blockhead ever wrote except for money", but he was a twat.
And amateurism has a lot to offer. Stephen says that "if you want your blog to get noticed now, best to develop a niche." But the thing is that the MSM has left a lot of big niches. Sunny's right that "there is just too much opinion out there". But a lot of voices doesn't mean we get a diversity of ideas.
There's an awful lot which the mainstream ignores. Perhaps the main question I ask before blogging is: "what needs saying that isn't said elsewhere?" And I'm rarely stumped for an answer. The mainstream tends to ignore things such as anti-managerialism, the ubiquity of ideology/cognitive biases and the vast quantity of new and interesting economic research. Yes, there's too much opinion, too much manufactured outrage, too much narcissism and too much obsessing about the Westminster village. But there's a shortage of different perspectives.
In trying to provide different ones - albeit those which are entirely within established intellectual traditions - I'm sometimes accused of trollemic. This is not an accusation but a compliment. The lazy consensus - which extends across both left and right in some important ways - should be challenged. The reactions to my posts which most depresses me is when people agree: what I'm striving for is the reaction, "I'd hadn't thought of it that way."
It is, I fear, only amateur blogging which permits me to do this. The MSM needs to attract eyeballs, and the way to do this is to echo readers' prejudices. Being freed from the need to attract an audience, I can say what I want, or more precisely, what I think needs saying.
Blogging also gives me freedom over style. The essence of blogging (this post excepted!) is linkage. A good blog therefore drives traffic away from its site, which is of course the opposite ideal of the MSM.
It's unfortunate that "amateur" has connotations of sloppiness. Professional journalism also has its flaws and amateurism can be a counterweight to these.
In these sense, there is a big place for amateur bloggers - which I hope to continue to occupy, whether you want me to or not.
Another thing: I'm mystified by people who claim not to have time to blog. Blogging takes only around an hour a day of my time, and much of that is time I'd spend thinking about the things I blog anyway.
I agree with this.
(Sorry.)
Posted by: BenSix | October 27, 2013 at 01:16 PM
"The essence of blogging is linkage" but you don't link to Boswell's Life, in which Johnson says the blockhead line. Boswell immediately comments, "Numerous instances to refute this will occur to all who are versed in the history of literature." Boswell thought no one was better versed in the history of literature than Johnson, so we're not supposed to take it at face value.
But now I'm not sure if you really think Johnson was a twat or just offering a different perspective on the lazy consensus that Johnson wasn't a twat.
Posted by: JBl | October 27, 2013 at 02:23 PM
Yes, there's too much opinion out there, but too little fact. That's the niche open to amateurs to fill.
Evidence, facts, and numbers, dear boy, not evidence-free opinion from thought clones.
Posted by: Anonymous | October 27, 2013 at 02:26 PM
Chris
I am an avid reader of your blog. I'm a trade union official with a social democratic preference in my politics.
Your blog often make me think "I hadn't thought of it that way." The fact that you use evidence and academic research to back up your positions makes me have to think harder when your blog makes me uncomfortable.
Keep it up.
Posted by: Ravi | October 27, 2013 at 03:58 PM
'I'm mystified by people who claim not to have time to blog. Blogging takes only around an hour a day of my time, and much of that is time I'd spend thinking about the things I blog anyway.'
It looks as if you're suffering from a good old cognitive bias yourself Chris. The fact you're a professional writer, where you have to be able to write on demand as well as the many more hours of practice you've had means you're much more equipped to write quickly without sacrificing quality.
Posted by: TB | October 27, 2013 at 08:08 PM
It's not just amateur bloggers (guilty as charged m'lud) by amateurs everywhere - we need more of them. I wrote this a couple of years ago:
"Now we’re run by professionals – professional police chiefs, professional hospital managers, professional university leaders, professional marketers, professional educationalists, professional managers of every shape and size – all frothing at the prospect of some letters to adorn the name. Every job seems to require a degree and a chartered institute (or better still a “Royal College”). Look at us. Look at the mess we’re in. Look at the pettifogging, sub-optimal, misguided and down-right stupid decisions being made by so-called “professionals”.
And perched at the top of all this chaos we have professional politicians.
Bring back the “cult of the amateur” before it’s too bloody late."
http://theviewfromcullingworth.blogspot.co.uk/2010/04/wednesday-whimsy-bring-back-age-of.html
Posted by: Simon Cooke | October 27, 2013 at 09:45 PM
I enjoy your blogging tremendously. It has opened my mind to so many new ideas, and every time I see a new post from you I get so excited because I know I will learn something fresh. I pass on to my friends the ideas I understand properly.
Thank you
Posted by: Jen Kirby | October 27, 2013 at 10:45 PM
Frankly, I like your blog. You present interesting research and have interesting points of view.
It doesn't mean I always agree (which I don't, and I'm not shy about it).
As for Samuel Johnson saying that "none but a blockhead ever wrote except for money", as an amateur blogger myself, I can say I have been called worse. So, meh...
Posted by: Magpie | October 27, 2013 at 11:08 PM
Just want to say - I love your blog. Keep it up for as long as your are enjoying it. (From New Zealand)
Posted by: Martin Connelly | October 27, 2013 at 11:13 PM
"The lazy consensus - which extends across both left and right in some important ways - should be challenged."
Yes, quite. It's fascinating (and depressing) how lazy assumptions are hard-wired into so much of main-stream politics. Even when the evidence is there to challenge these assumptions, it is very difficult to get any discussion going (because probably that would lead to examining other lazy assumptions).
Perhaps this blog could try to develop a set of 10 key lazy assumptions, that are part of the mainstream political consensus but are most important to challenge.
Posted by: Guano | October 28, 2013 at 09:41 AM
Stephen Tall's analysis essentially says that amateur bloggers compete directly with paid bloggers, inevitably losing out because they lack the profile and resources of their professional peers. I disagree. I have found professional bloggers to be collaborative rather than competitive, and I am grateful to the press blogs that have promoted my blog for me (free of charge) and helped me to reach a much wider audience than I otherwise would.
Blogging is essentially about dissemination of information and opinion, and there is no limit to either of those. Therefore there is room for all of us. The real discriminator is quality. Rubbish blogs - whether amateur or professional - don't get read.
I suspect the real reason why Sunny is giving up LibCon (which I shall miss) is the pull towards writing for money. I think most amateur bloggers feel this pull - you are clearly an exception, Chris, since your day job is writing for money. The competition is not with professional colleagues, but with the professional self.
Posted by: Frances Coppola | October 28, 2013 at 11:31 AM
It would take me two hours just to fight through the writers' block to start writing.
Posted by: Richard Gadsden | October 28, 2013 at 12:44 PM
FWIW, I follow 8 blogs, 5 (maybe 4) of which I would call amateur. (My standards of amateur are strict - no journalist or academic writing on their subject counts. So Chris (narrowly) fails.)
Some, it has to be said, are not frequent posters. But "death of the amateur blogger" seems premature - the prospect of Frances Coppola, for example, keeping quiet is remote.
Posted by: Luke | October 28, 2013 at 03:17 PM
The biggest blog killer is I think the idea that you have to blog almost every day (or like Andrew Sullivan write more blog posts every day than the rest of us can throw out tweets) - and that if you can't manage that level of activity you shouldn't be blogging.
And twitter really is a better medium for pure 'hey look at this link'posts.
Then there's comments and the time a successful blogger has to spend even just reading never mind moderating them (and I think it no accident that several of the most successful long-running blogs like Sullivan's and the late and genuinely lamented Normblog refused to have any truck with them.
And then there are the delusions of grandeur - the group blogs that never quite gel, the bloggers who think they are a multimedia news and entertainment site and online community (Little Green Footballs for instance).
Anyway you've avoided all these pitfalls and hope you keep on keeping on.
Posted by: Roger McCarthy | October 28, 2013 at 03:44 PM
And long may your glorious blog continue!
Many thanks.
Posted by: Andrew | October 28, 2013 at 09:16 PM
Stumbling and Mumbling: A place for amateurs
Posted by: zixiutangbeepollen Review | November 01, 2013 at 10:11 AM