Punditocracy and Howard Dean
It's hard to know if we're at the twilight of Broadcast Politics,
but it's interesting that so many of us feel we need to sound like
the talking heads on TV.
The characteristic of PunditSpeak is certainty in the
presence of open issues and single mindedness when confronting complexity.
Nuance is reduced to serial certainty.
There
are two kinds of people who have no knowledge of what the outcome will
be: people who are paid to be expert and people in their audience.
It's laughable
when the pundits have convictions about the unknowable.
It's kind of sad
when we the audience mimic their uninformed confidence.
That's why I was struck by the explosion of certainty about
why Dr. Dean didn't
sweep the field in Iowa and how he'd do from here out.
The Illusion of Control
Howard Bloom, my
reliable seer into human behavior, teaches us a lot about our all-too-human
need for control. Apparently, it's not control
we seek, but just enough of an illusion of control and hence of a reliable
future. A reliable future does not seem to require a lock-in. Rather it depends
on
a shred of
plausibility. People buy lottery tickets because they want to entertain themselves
with the thought of controlling their future, which is not a lot different
from the RIAA suing teenagers under the illusion that they can control their
destiny.
Bloom tells a story about three tribes in Africa. They are,
respectively, farmers, craftspeople and priests. They trade with each other
for what they
need: food, pots and implements, and . . . spells. The farmers and craftspeople
live reasonable lives, understanding rough parity between food and goods.
Of the three tribes, the shamans live the best because, when
someone's sick or dying,
there's no price too dear for a spell to ease their burden. If the initial
spell fails, then the victim's family is told to bring more offerings to
pay for a stronger spell. If the spell works, its because the priests'
magic is strong. If not, it's because the family ran out of offerings to
up the
mojo. Perhaps its where we learned our system.
Hopeware?
Is that why most of us feel compelled to hold an opinion
about the unknowable? In one moment in his role as his team's Player-Coach
and Dean is declared finished. Even some Dean supporters seemed ready to throw
in the
towel (though most of us just threw in more money). Doc just read me a NY
Post N.H. Debate report declaring that Edwards and Clark are toast
because they did not do as well as expected. Not satisfied with just any horse
race, the press is compelled to jiggle the lead every half-week.
The capriciousness of some Dean supporters really threw me
off. Unbridled enthusiasm melting into terminal gloom in 3 hours. Yet we
all know it just doesn't work that way. It's as if Dean had let them down,
failing to maintain the crescendo of hope and optimism they'd been investing
in for 6 months. Where's the conviction? Where's the gumption?
It feels
to me like a vague analogue to how we once regarded desktop apps and how
we now seem to. Productivity software once seemed a
bright promised land of power and promise. We couldn't wait to master
the next app and add it to our toolkit. Now someone releases a new
widget and we greet it with a collective yawn.Where we once sought power
we seem now to simply avoid complication.
Is that what's at work here? As long as Howard Dean maintained a steady
arc of promise, our work and contributions seemed their own reward.
But the prospect of work without assurance attracts a smaller
crowd than easy pickings.
12:17:34 AM 
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