Brain Fuel Part 4

Supernova has a video of a debate between David 'Miscellaneous' Weinberger and Andrew 'Cult' Keen. Weinberger hits his normal brilliant heights whilst managing to use phrases like, "messiness is a good thing"  and, "the joy of our complexity is overwhelming the simplicity that has been foisted on us by the broadcast media."  God love him.  Keen needs to be given credit for taking the unpopular Simon Cowell role, complete with black T-shirt.  Better still, the debate at the end gets quite tasty.  Warning - don't try and listen to this whilst doing something else.  More a focused cup of tea experience.

Comments

[eaon pritchard]

Full marks to Keen for having the brassneck to take the contrary position, its got him enough airtime on his beloved mass media - though he reminded me of one half of the monty python 'argument' sketch. Either that or an irate Rick Wakeman outraged at the Sex Pistols.
Yes theres a lot of crap and noise but regardless of that cream rises to the top eventually. To use another rock'n'roll analogy - youtube, myspace etc are the equivalent of the back rooms of pubs of yesteryear where budding talent learned its chops and built momentum. You have to start somwhere.
Keen's position is cultural feudalism. He probably objects to the working classes at university. Thats a bit harsh but you know what I mean.

[eaon pritchard]

forgot to leave my url for retaliation...

[James Cherkoff]

Thanks Eaon, admire his balls but I'm still not clear what Keen is actually saying. I have a general sense he is arguing that elites are natural and good.