I’ve been captivated by the posing of many recent critics of Austro-libertarianism in light of the fabulous success of the Woods book. The content of their attacks is less interesting than their inflated sense of their own importance. There ought to be a word for people who use blogs as a kind of intellectual fashion show, where every entry turns out not to be in service of the readership but rather another strained attempt to demonstrate the blogger’s own vast knowledge, creativity, mastery of every subject, and perfectly-honed political sensibilities, never going too far this way or that and helpfully drawing attention to posts of those who they are convinced are their lessers. One stab at a word: Blogjock.
In any case, here is a passage from Huckleberry Finn that seems to speak to the problem of blogjockery:
It didn’t take me long to make up my mind that these liars warn’t no kings nor dukes at all, but just low-down humbugs and frauds. But I never said nothing, never let on; kept it to myself; it’s the best way; then you don’t have no quarrels, and don’t get into no trouble. If they wanted us to call them kings and dukes, I hadn’t no objections, ‘long as it would keep peace in the family; and it warn’t no use to tell Jim, so I didn’t tell him. If I never learnt nothing else out of pap, I learnt that the best way to get along with his kind of people is to let them have their own way.
Here is a nice illustration of a scene from the book. So too, the Blogjocks think they are impressing everyone but, in effect, they are all saying: “I am the late Dauphin.”
9:42 am on February 2, 2005
