There's certainly a practical, pragmatic sensibility out there reflected in a number of blogs; I'm not sure I'd call it a Libertarian sensibility (where does Doc think the anti-big-government sensibility come from?)

I think you're on to something when you describe the Bloggoverse as a bit of an echo-chamber; I've been trying not to extrapolate from blogger-trends, especially when I think they are at odds with larger trends (I mean, there's a reason why sets of bloggers gripe about the things we gripe about, but that doesn't mean that a national consensus is forming against those things - perhaps the very contrary; we're griping about things that are becoming more prevalent and worry us. It's just as likely it's a sign of something - whatever that something is - that is growing but some people who don't like it are finding each other than it is that the whole nation is turning off of something): take, for example, trends in the Democratic Party - you decry it, you have found others who decry it and they have found you, but at least so far that's not a sign that a consensus is forming among Democrats against such things; the bloggosphere just makes it easier for disaffected Democrats to find each other and talk to each other.

Which creates the potential - the nucleus - for a move to counter those trends. But it's not a sign in and of itself of a major swing against those trends (which seem, at least at the moment - who knows what next year will bring - to be getting stronger rather than weaker, thus the more fellowship among Dissafected Dems who have found each other and, ironically, a tendency to start thinking of themselves as a reaction bigger than it yet is.)

Blogging - and the internet which makes networking among like-minded others easier - creates the conditions that make it possible for what Doc is describing (optimistically), but so far hasn't created what he describes.

I think you're right that it's important to recognize a distinction here, otherwise people will believe that something has been accomplished when only the first step(s) have been taken along the road and more steps remain - people who think they've already reached the destination won't walk the rest of the way.

It'll become more significant as time goes on; right now really only a tiny subset of people are involved in the sort of blogging we're talking about here (broadly speaking, politically-oriented blogging), even as readers; not that it's unimportant (just like the fact that TNR or NR have readerships of less than 200,000 each, judging by magazine sales, but it doesn't mean that they aren't significant factors in political debate).

Another of the really promising things about blogging and networks of bloggers is that, when it works well, it fosters rapid cross-pollination of ideas; someone comes up with something, or several people talk about something, and others discuss it, add something, point out flaws and make improvements - or detect sever flaws and the idea gets "tested" - almost like scientific peer-review (again, when things work well) and theories winnowed, revised, and the like.

OtoH, groupthink is also a pitfall, and networks of blogs can make it possible for people to reinforce each other's illusions. I don't think this is a pitfall of any one part of the spectrum or ideological viewpoint alone; one of the things we should all work on is trying to see the distinction between the one ("peer-review") type of thing and the other ("groupthink and mutually-reinforcing preservation of illusions"): which is far easier said than done.

At least for me, perhaps for others as well, I tend to assert my positions strongly - the only way I know how - with perhaps more confidence than is either warranted or really there (sometimes) - I don't know if others have this problem as well. I think I'm right, but as I wrote in one blog post recently (Is it Them or Me?") I do sometimes wonder if I'm delusional and just getting my delusions reinforced.

The bloggosphere and blogging is important, we must think so otherwise we wouldn't spend time reading and writing them, but it als needs to be kept in perspective, which is hard because there is often a sense of excitement when a consensus forms among people and when like-minded people find each other.

"Another of the really promising things about blogging and networks of bloggers is that, when it works well, it fosters rapid cross-pollination of ideas; someone comes up with something, or several people talk about something, and others discuss it, add something, point out flaws and make improvements - or detect sever flaws and the idea gets "tested" - almost like scientific peer-review (again, when things work well) and theories winnowed, revised, and the like.

Porphy, you've just summarized exactly why I blog...

A.L.

i think this whole blogging chavura is more of a hybrid between the dojo that was very appropriately mentioned and a rapidly emerging stream of communication (which afterall is the lifeblood of all politics) that goes beyond simply being a wing of the mediaverse (talking heads, navel gazers, and ratings chasers that they are) and gets instead to the roots of the networked democracy that was mentioned above. it is early yet though and a whole lot of nothing can still happen.

I've just been re-reading the history of the French and the American revolutions, which suggested some specific ideas on the significance of blogs today.

I found many surprises, including the number of ways in which the French revolution was a botched attempt to imitate the American forerunner.

One impression which emerged clearly was how powerfully American political thinking was informed by the ferment of political pamphleteering which occurred though that period, driven by a press which while not wholly free was effectively evading (for the first time in a Western country?) official control. This enabled a lively bursting forth of popular political thinking and expression and subsequently supported a broader and more meaningfully popular involvement in the formative struggles of the time than would otherwise have been possible.

In France by contrast tight official control over the printing presses confined public discusson, the debates were less well informed and the catastrophic descent into heinous violence was rapid, devastating and shameful.

Turning to the phenomenon of today's blogs, with their declaratory tone, directness and informality, veering as they do sometimes wildly between civility and invective, I find the whole unfettered explosion strongly reminiscent of the burst of American pamphleteering whuch occurred in the late 1700's. Read some, they sound very similar indeed.

I'm not out to describe the impact of blogging as 'revolutionary' in some crassly predictive or political sense. Instead I think that what they share with the earlier phenomenon is that they are making a profoundly positive contribution to the development of civil society, in the sense of a shared set of concepts and values which have been thought through and discussed on a more than rudimentary level by a wider public than has been the case previously.

If I'm correct then we may have a few years to go before the real benefits become apparent.

On the other hand I believe myself that we are in the US and even around the world still enjoying, and in some ways even living off the benefits of all those discussions, and the good sense they contained, which were so energetically printed, distributed and discussed in New England around the time of the American revolution.

That blogs as a whole are important doesn't mean you as a blogger are important. Or that you have any duty or ability to singlehandedly -- or coordinatedly -- 'move' the discussion in a particular direction for long (the often not-so-hidden subtext to the Blogging is Important! discussions).

Blogs are a channel between people. They affect the life cycle of ideas. In the end the phenomenon of blogging probably does change which sorts of notions move enough people to pull enough levers, but for structural reasons not substantive. A channel has been opened. A specific 'bloggy' POV? Don't bet on it.

(Ideally perhaps it's about making the 'marketplace of ideas' more efficient -- or more like a market: that is, less amenable to control or divination from any (formerly) central point(s). Including, someday, Glenn Reynolds'.)

whether any particular blogger at any specific point in time is "important" as you say, depends on the details of how complex indepedent systems work. while you are right that the movement of one person does not a stampede automatically make, it is just as clear that stampedes do exist and can happen... often. within large group dynamics a shift in direction happens with the smallest of individual changes catching fire with many others and finding its own momentum beyond the original source. it is a basic fact of physics that is seen when we examine the nature of inertia, tipping points, and the behavior of everything from avalanches to path formations.

what makes blogging distinctive is that it is driven by cognitive physics. the individual bloggers are often very aware of their impact or lack thereof and as such can directly change their own actions (which is no guarantee they will). its a self reflective experience that unleashes quite a good deal of potential beyond our ability to put into neat little boxes.

i think the comparison to the significance of pamphleteering is right on point. even in nations where tyranny rules, the existance of the nation and its society is made of the existance of the personal lives within it. openended hyperthreaded discussions like what the blogosphere is, have as much of an impact on the daily lives of cognitive beings as anything else does. i understand the concern about hype (fear of another net based bubble) and overstating our own personal significance, but i think its a bit nihilistic. to dismiss the very real impact of the tremendous upside to blogging is no different from dismissing the impact of pamphleteering, or of the hypertext based mishnah and talmud, or ultimately to cynically dismiss the significance and very real power of ordinary human beings engaging in examined discussion of their own lives and governance.

as something that is entirely about communication, the value inherent in blogging depends fully on the value of that communication itself, of course. which really comes back to the point being made about similarity to a dojo. for those that havent taken serious martial arts it may be a foreign concept, but the meditative training that takes place in a dojo is a way of testing out many things for the real world, and gaining skills that have as much impact on life as implementing simple engineering principles can have on the movement of a giant boulder. i understand the impulse to think of blogging as nothing more than abstract egocentric narcissism with no lasting substance, but that interpretation betrays the very physical nature of what any of us are engaging in. as a similar example, the study of math may be abstract but its significance comes in how fundamentally physical its presense in our lives is. the same is true for blogging when we recognize our ability to take what we discuss and run with it (just as a.l. and others have been saying).