The Internet and Sophistry

I feel like a ragged veteran of the blogosphere.  Everywhere there is contention and nastiness and oneupmanship.  It has often reminded me of high school debate, where the object wasn't to construct a solid, thoughtful position but to bludgeon your opponent with heavier, spikier rhetoric.  Like high school, most argument I find on the internet is sophistry with the occasional citation thrown in.  This is largely because many readers do not have the attention span to appreciate actual expertise or academic rigor.  When people do cite research, it is as a credulous appeal to authority, something to give a sheen of credibility to what they believe anyway.

For this reason I will mostly discuss random or frivolous things that no one will feel obligated to flame for two weeks about.  If I write about something controversial I will make an attempt to learn something about it first--or at least feel guilty for not doing so.