Fallacies,
"Brand-Name" Writers, and a Touch of Leo Strauss
 Many of the courses I teach
seek to educate students in two ways. First there is the content of the course with which
students are expected to become familiar. A course on Plato, for example, would require
that they read many of Plato’s dialogues and some important secondary sources.
Second, students are exposed to the ways in which people reason and offer arguments, and
to the fallacies, or failures of reason, that people often make. My hope is that they come
to appreciate both aspects of the course, but my main focus is usually on perfecting their
ability to reason. Once one is aware of how to construct good arguments and how to avoid
fallacies, one can apply this skill to any subject. If students leave my class able to
approach the world with a more critical eye and an ability to see through poor reasoning,
I feel I’ve succeeded. My goal is never to get them to agree with Plato or with me,
but always to be able to argue well for whatever they think is correct.
What is astonishing about being aware of good and bad
reasoning is how much bad reasoning there is everywhere. When I give the assignment to
find a fallacy in the newspaper, it is never a burden for the students to find one. Given
this, it should come as no surprise that there is a great deal of bad reasoning going on
in audio discussions. Still, the fact is disheartening.
Marc Mickelson’s editorial for SoundStage! last month
discussed the idea of audio writers as "brand names." Recently, the proposition
was put forth that no Internet audio site has yet produced a brand-name writer; the
conclusion that some have reached from this is that it is somehow indicative of the
failure of Internet publications to be influential, or of the lack of skill of the writers
who write for Internet sites. This might seem like an interesting argument, but when you
consider it further, it seems to fall apart.
First, the argument assumes that Internet-based audio
publications are trying to produce brand-name writers. Without this assumption, the
claim seems to have the same force as saying that Internet publications haven’t
produced a world-class runner. Unless we are trying to produce a brand-name writer, then
the claim that we aren’t seems a little foolish. Are Internet sites trying to produce
brand-name writers? I don’t know -- I don’t talk to many Internet audio
publishers -- but I can say that it would be folly to try to do so.
It is folly because that isn’t how the Internet is
used. The Internet is a medium driven by information, not personality. Consider how you
use your favorite search engine. If you want to read about certain loudspeakers, you type
in the name and model number of the speaker, not a person’s name who may have written
about them. Look at popular websites such as www.boingboing.net. That site is written by a select few people, but
their names are much less featured than the information they present. If one of the Boing
Boing crew left the site, the site would remain just as popular and just as useful. For an
Internet audio publication to try to foster a brand-name writer wouldn’t serve the
site’s interest, which is to present information about audio products that will bring
readers, both casual and regular, to the site.
There is another reason not to foster celebrity among
writers who are, for the most part, performing journalistic functions. The Washington
Post last month ran an article by Howard Kurtz titled "Firms Paid TV Tech Gurus
to Promote Their Products." The article explains how some people who appear on TV
shows as technology experts, such as Corey Greenberg, are paid fees by companies to talk
about their products. Sometimes this fact is known by television stations, but other times
these people appear simply as experts not directly touting a certain product; rarely, if
ever, is it disclosed to viewers that these people have financial ties to what they are
discussing. If you know that Company A is paying Mr. X to promote its product, then
won’t you be a little suspicious of Mr. X’s assessment? As a consumer I’d
certainly take his appraisal with a grain of salt.
So I think the argument doesn’t even get off the
ground. It asks why audio sites haven’t produced a brand-name writer when, in fact,
they shouldn’t be trying to because it isn’t in their interest. But let’s
assume that they are trying. The argument goes on to suggest at least one of two
conclusions: Either Internet publications aren’t influential, or their writers
aren’t very good. I haven’t done any systematic studies, but whenever I pick up
an audio magazine, I see lots of advertisements that include quotes from major audio
sites, including many from the SoundStage! Network. Audio companies pay good money to
place their ads in print and online publications, so I assume that they include such
quotations in order to help sales of their products. In that sense, at any rate, it seems
to me that Internet sites are influential. Not all audio writing, whether online or
treeware (you know, books and magazines; so last century), is very good, but some of it is
very good. More to the point, though, is the simple fact that there is simply no
connection between being a brand-name or celebrity writer and being a good or excellent
writer. Go to your favorite bookstore and check out some of the brand-name writers’
work; it may sell well, but that does not guarantee that it is well written. Nor does
being an excellent writer guarantee celebrity; if it did, Gene Wolfe would be as famous as
Stephen King.
If, as I’ve suggested, the original argument
isn’t well argued and doesn’t provide evidence for what it claims, it is
reasonable to ask what prompts it. One lesson to be learned from Leo Strauss’s Persecution
and the Art of Writing is that you must attend not only to what is written but to how
and why it is written. If you like to be cynical, you might say that those treeware
writers are attempting to explain why they are more important than those of us who have
embraced the new medium of the Internet.
One way to avoid having to think about all of this is to
listen to some fine music. There are probably few ways to do that that are as enjoyable as
through the PSB T65 speakers. I liked these speakers very much while I had them in-house,
and I think you’d be pleased with them, too. Of course, don’t just take my
Internet-writing word for it; after you read this month’s review, go give a listen
for yourself.
…Eric D. Hetherington
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