David Weinberger on Why The YouTube Debates Matter

David is at least mostly dead-on in his usual sardonic way:

[David Weinberger: Suppose They Held a Debate and Everyone Came?]

[…] we get these rituals in which two sets of proxies — the journalists and our would-be representatives — face off, each standing in for us but each also implicitly declared to be unlike us. How do we know this? Because they get to speak and we get to listen.

[…]

Last night didn’t change politics forever. That change has been underway for years now. We are filling in every conceivable niche in the political ecology, from the pure bottom up to the pure top down, and every direction in and out the middle. Last night we got to see what yet another political structure might look like if the experts got out of the way occasionally. And it looked pretty damn good.

No wonder the media are telling us we should have found last night’s experiment disappointing.

Yes, we have to be careful: the priesthoods — the politicos and the press corps — don’t want us having direct involvement in politics, except for buying the paper and making campaign contributions. They want to mediate on our behalf.

But, as this new world order grinds into being, the edglings will ultimately reject the ritualistic get-togethers where mostly white male journalists in suits get to ask mostly white male politicos in suits the official questions and we all get to hear official answers.

And of course, none of these folks are interested in direct democracy.