The Cult of the Amateur

The Cult of the Amateur
US cover
Author(s)	Andrew Keen
Country	United States
Language	English
Subject(s)	Internet, Web 2.0
Genre(s)	Non-fiction
Publisher	Currency
Publication date	June 5, 2007
Pages	228 pp
ISBN	0385520808
OCLC Number	78774488

The Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet Is Killing Our Culture (ISBN 0385520808) is a 2007 book written by entrepreneur and Internet critic Andrew Keen. Published by Currency, Keen's first book is a critique of the enthusiasm surrounding user generated content, peer production, and other Web 2.0-related phenomena.^[1]

The book was written after Keen wrote a controversial essay in The Weekly Standard criticizing Web 2.0 for being similar to Marxism, for destroying professionalism and for making it impossible to find high quality material amidst all the user-generated web content.^[1][2][3] The book was based in part on that essay.^[1]

Contents

Keen argues against the idea of a read-write culture in media, stating that "most of the content being shared— no matter how many times it has been linked, cross-linked, annotated, and copied— was composed or written by someone from the sweat of their creative brow and the disciplined use of their talent." As such, he contrasts companies such as Time Warner and Disney that "create and produce movies, music, magazines, and television" with companies such as Google. He calls the latter "a parasite" since "it creates no content of its own" and "[i]n terms of value creation, there is nothing there apart from its links."^[4]

He elaborates on the point by saying, "Of course, every free listing on Craigslist means one less paid listing in a local newspaper. Every visit to Wikipedia's free information hive means one less customer for a professionally researched and edited encyclopedia such as Britannica." Thus, he concludes that "what is free is actually costing us a fortune." He also refers to changes such as downsizing of newspaper business and the closing of record labels as forms of economic pain caused by internet-based social changes.^[4]

Keen quotes social philosopher Jurgen Habermas about the internet and related technologies: "The price we pay for the growth in egalitarianism offered by the Internet is the decentralized access to unedited stories. In this medium, contributions by intellectuals lose their power to create a focus." Keen states that most of modern social culture has existed with specific gatekeepers analyzing and regulating information as it reaches the masses. He views this expert-based filtering process as beneficial, improving the quality of popular discourse, and argues that it is being circumvented.^[4]

He also criticizes the ability of the Internet to promote social harms such as gambling and pornography.^[1] He writes, "It’s hardly surprising that the increasingly tasteless nature of such self-advertisements have resulted in social networking sites becoming infested with anonymous sexual predators and pedophiles." He sees "cultural standards and moral values" as "at stake" due to new media innovations.^[5]

More broadly, Keen remarks that "history has proven that the crowd is not often very wise" and argues against the notion that mass participation in ideas improve their quality. He highlights that popular opinion has supported "slavery, infanticide, George W. Bush’s war in Iraq, Britney Spears” among other things. He warns against a future of "when ignorance meets egoism meets bad taste meets mob rule."^[1]

Reviews and reception

The book received mixed reviews. Some traditional sources gave the book positive or neutral reviews while the book received generally negative reactions from bloggers.^[1][6]

The New York Times ran an article by Michiko Kakutani calling the book "a shrewdly argued jeremiad" and also saying that the book "is eloquent on the fallout that free, user-generated materials is having on traditional media." She wrote that the author "wanders off his subject in the later chapters of the book" but broadly "writes with acuity and passion".^[1]

Daily Mail reviewer A.N Wilson said that the "book will come as a real shock to many. It certainly did to me. ... I had never realised until reading Keen's book that any amateur can write an entry in Wikipedia. ... Keen leaves me very uneasy indeed." ^[7]

Lawrence Lessig, who was criticized in both the original essay and in the book, wrote an extremely negative review of the book in which he listed what he stated were a multitude of errors in the book including mischaracterizations of Lessig's views and work.^[4] Lessig also set up a wiki where users could collaborate in listing problems with the book.^[4][8]

Larry Sanger, the founder of the expert-centered wiki Citizendium, gave the book a mixed review. Sanger said that "The book is provocative, but its argument is unfortunately weakened by the fact that Keen is so over-the-top and presents more of a caricature of a position than carefully reasoned discourse." He said that it was hypocritical for Keen to express support for Citizendium, for incorporating expert opinion, when the inherent point of the project is to supply free content, which Keen so opposes in principle. Sanger stated that the book "combines several different criticisms of Web 2.0, incoherently, under the rubric of `the cult of the amateur'" but the book "is a much-needed Web 2.0 reality check".^[9]

Tim O'Reilly commented in response to the book, "I find, Andrew Keen's, his whole pitch, I think he was just pure and simple looking for an angle, to create some controversy and sell a book, I don't think there's any substance whatever to his rants."^[10] Furthermore, he has said in response to the book, "I think the Internet is often held to another standard. You don't say, 'Why aren't the newspapers writing about Bismarck, he is more important than Pamela Anderson.' But people will say that about Wikipedia. It's just bias."^[11]

Anthony Trewavas, professor at the Institute of Molecular Plant Science at the University of Edinburgh, discussed the book in an article in Trends in Biotechnology. Trewavas wrote that Keen's "concern is the blurring of the distinction between the qualified and informed professional and the uninformed and unqualified amateur", expressing concerns that this social change can hold back agricultural development. Trewavas stated as well, "in agriculture, pesticides, food and farming, expert scientific knowledge and experience is seemingly regarded as having no more weight than that of the opinionated, unqualified (and inexperienced) environmentalist."^[12]

Jarvis-Keen debate

Jeff Jarvis, who had previously called the original essay in The Weekly Standard "snobs.com," was challenged to a debate over Web 2.0 issues.^[5][13] Jarvis held a discussion on his blog about whether he should debate Keen and then decided to accept the offer.^[3][5]

Chapters

1. The great seduction
2. The noble amateur
3. Truth and lies
4. The day the music died, side A
5. The day the music died, side B
6. Moral disorder
7. 1984, version 2.0
8. Solutions.

See also

• Media criticism
• Reliability of Wikipedia
• Amusing Ourselves to Death
• Is Google Making Us Stupid?
• The Wisdom of Crowds
• An Army of Davids
• The Global Trap

References

1. ^ ^{a b c d e f g} Kakutani, Michiko (2007-06-29). "The Cult of the Amateur". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/29/books/29book.html?_r=1&oref=slogin. Retrieved 2008-08-20. 
2. ^ Keen, Andrew (2006-02-15). "Web 2.0: The second generation of the Internet has arrived. It's worse than you think". The Weekly Standard. http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/006/714fjczq.asp. Retrieved 2008-08-20. 
3. ^ ^{a b} "Amateur Internet". Toronto: Reutersl. 2007-02-07. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070606.wgtkeenchat0606/BNStory/Technology/home/?pageRequested=1. Retrieved 2008-08-20. ^{[dead link]}
4. ^ ^{a b c d e} Lessig, Larry (2007-05-31). "Keen's "The Cult of the Amateur": BRILLIANT!". http://www.lessig.org/blog/2007/05/keens_the_cult_of_the_amateur.html. Retrieved 2008-08-20. 
5. ^ ^{a b c} Jarvis, Jeff (2007-05-10). "Your advice: Should I debate?". BuzzMachine. http://www.buzzmachine.com/2007/05/10/your-advice-should-i-debate/. Retrieved 2008-08-20. 
6. ^ Auchard, Eric (2007-06-05). "‘Amateur' charge infuriates blogosphere". Toronto: Reuters. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070605.wgtamateur0605/BNStory/Technology/home?cid=al_gam_mostview. Retrieved 2008-08-20. 
7. ^ A.N Wilson (2007-06-08). "The internet is destroying the world as we know it". Daily Mail (London). http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-460901/The-internet-destroying-world-know-it.html. 
8. ^ "TheKeenReader". Lessig.org (Larry Lessig). Archived from the original on 2008-05-24. http://web.archive.org/web/20080524012750/http://wiki.lessig.org/TheKeenReader. Retrieved 2008-08-20. 
9. ^ Sanger, Larry (2007-07-17). "Review of Keen’s "Cult of the Amateur"". Citizendium Blog. Citizendium. http://blog.citizendium.org/2007/07/17/review-of-keens-cult-of-the-amateur-2/. Retrieved 2008-08-20. 
10. ^ VPRO (2007-07-17). "The Truth According To Wikipedia (words uttered by Tim O'Reilly at 38:00 in this video". Wikipedia. VPRO. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMSinyx_Ab0. Retrieved 2008-08-20. 
11. ^ VPRO (2007-07-17). "The Truth According To Wikipedia (words uttered by Tim O'Reilly at 22:00 in this video". Wikipedia. VPRO. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMSinyx_Ab0. Retrieved 2008-08-20. 
12. ^ Trewavas, Anthony (September 2008). "The cult of the amateur in agriculture threatens food security". Trends in Biotechnology (Elsevier) 26 (9): 475–478. doi:10.1016/j.tibtech.2008.06.002. http://www.princeton.edu/morefoodlesscarbon/reading/files/Trewavas-The-Cult-of-Food-Secuirty.pdf. Retrieved 2011-04-28. 
13. ^ Jarvis, Jeff (2006-02-18). "Snobs.com". BuzzMachine. http://www.buzzmachine.com/2006/02/18/snobscom/. Retrieved 2008-08-20. 

External links

• Excerpt from Keen's blog