I have just read a Tanith Carey article “Why do people become so vile online?” in the Daily Mail of Thursday 11th August 2011. Generally it is a very good article, that is to say I largely agree with her arguement, apart from one arrogant and contemptuous comment.
“The downside of the free speech offered by blogs, Twitter and social networking is that it has created a generation of narcissists obsessed with their own opinions.”
The fact is we have always had these “narcissists” ever since newspapers began to publish the letters of their readers. There are two sorts of journalists those who report the news and those who comment on events, those who comment on events are just as much “narcissists obsessed with their own opinions” as a blogger or Twitter user; that someone is paid to express an opinion does not make them any more qualified, or less self absorbed than the unpaid letter writer or blogger. Frequently the online specialist commentator is better qualified to write than the columnist who covers a range of subjects. Who is to say that a member of the general public has an opinion that is of less value than that of one paid to express an opinion? The papers are full of people like Littlejohn expressing opinions on a thousand and one things of which they have no experience or knowledge. Parliament is full of members who appear to believe that a public school and university education is a substitute for experience, and that a law degree somehow qualifies them to have opinions on such diverse subjects as military expenditure and fish farming. The downside of the free speech offered by blogs, Twitter and social networking to the professional pontificator ,is not that it has created a generation of narcissists, but that it has allowed ordinary people to share their narcissism.
“The downside of the free speech offered by blogs, Twitter and social networking is that it has created a generation of narcissists obsessed with their own opinions.”
The fact is we have always had these “narcissists” ever since newspapers began to publish the letters of their readers. There are two sorts of journalists those who report the news and those who comment on events, those who comment on events are just as much “narcissists obsessed with their own opinions” as a blogger or Twitter user; that someone is paid to express an opinion does not make them any more qualified, or less self absorbed than the unpaid letter writer or blogger. Frequently the online specialist commentator is better qualified to write than the columnist who covers a range of subjects. Who is to say that a member of the general public has an opinion that is of less value than that of one paid to express an opinion? The papers are full of people like Littlejohn expressing opinions on a thousand and one things of which they have no experience or knowledge. Parliament is full of members who appear to believe that a public school and university education is a substitute for experience, and that a law degree somehow qualifies them to have opinions on such diverse subjects as military expenditure and fish farming. The downside of the free speech offered by blogs, Twitter and social networking to the professional pontificator ,is not that it has created a generation of narcissists, but that it has allowed ordinary people to share their narcissism.
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