Saturday, February 09, 2002

Class consciousness, blogging and school swots

I was reading the Speccy, and saw Alasdair Palmer's article on Nozick, which I think is relevant to the 'class consciousness' debate.
I did a bit of googling, and found this article by Nozick, which explains why bloggers are such a bunch of whiny lefties.

This bit has a cluetrain ring to it:
The (future) wordsmith intellectuals are successful within the formal, official social system of the schools, wherein the relevant rewards are distributed by the central authority of the teacher. The schools contain another informal social system within classrooms, hallways, and schoolyards, wherein rewards are distributed not by central direction but spontaneously at the pleasure and whim of schoolmates. Here the intellectuals do less well.

It is not surprising, therefore, that distribution of goods and rewards via a centrally organized distributional mechanism later strikes intellectuals as more appropriate than the "anarchy and chaos" of the marketplace. For distribution in a centrally planned socialist society stands to distribution in a capitalist society as distribution by the teacher stands to distribution by the schoolyard and hallway.


The marketing types Gonzo is pitched against fit this model very well - highly rewarded and contemptous of market standards of value, they believe they can manipulate the little people, like Plato with his ruling philosphers and their rigged reproductive lotteries.

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