One of the interesting fallouts from the intense intermix of the real and virtual at ETech: Steven Levy sat down at my breakfast table just as I was getting up. It's a wonder I didn't smell scorched hair. Seems he's been trying to stuff the blogosphere into the politically correct box. We haven't been obeying our assigned diversity quotas, at least by his lights, so he cuts loose with a screed quoting selected PC comments from the Harvard Berkman conference of late last year.
Apparently without paying much attention to the posts or actions of those he's blasting. Jeff Jarvis, who was also at the Harvard confab, levels the guns and blows Levy away. Jeff, of course, has had a significant hand in the rise of the Iranian and Arabic blogospheres, both encouraging new bloggers and sending his audience to check them out. From the other coast, Roger L. Simon, who apparently doesn't know who Levy is supposed to be, isn't impressed either.
I was at the Berkman Conference as well, and I'm here to tell you that those are very carefully selected quotes - the mood of the place was getting something done, for a common good, with results as the measure. Once upon a time, Steven Levy celebrated that kind of thing, without angsting over the complexion or gender of creators. Somewhere down the line, too much time in the MSM has given him a mainframe mentality: We're in a world of scarcity, in which media access by whitey is stifling everyone else. Bull.
I'll add my challenge to Roger's and Jeff's: Get a blog, Mr. Levy, and dare to learn the medium you're attempting to cover. You wrote about the early hackers without learning hardware and software. Fair enough, those are deep wells and you're a writer by trade. What's your excuse now? Armchair lit crit and PC posing just don't cut it in citizens' media. As one of Roger's commenters put it: Shut up and Write.
Updates: I swiped the title from Jarvis, who adds "You got a problem with that? Tough." Yeah, what he sad. Meanwhile, Dave is having fun with the theme. Also, what she said.