Well, I have now officially changed the title of my blog to THE ANTI-IDIOTARIAN. This was done in response to a question I posited to one of my favorite authors James Lileks (as detailed in other parts of my website) dealing with the whole idea of bloggery. It was through lileks.com that I was first exposed to the war blog phenomenon and to software such as Blogger, and reading all of the wonderful sites out there is what prompted me to start my own bit o’crap. One observation I related to Mr. Lileks was that there seemed to be a general dearth of really stupid bloggers, and his take was that—

“There are some stupid bloggers, but they're mostly kids who post nonsense or drivel, or in the case of some grownups, just banalities. As one blogger put it - the main ideology that drives the new crop is Anti-Idiotarianism.”

Hmm. Anti-idiotarian, huh. I started doing a quick Google search and found that this term is about as old as the bottle of Diet Coke on my desk! The original blogger Lileks was referring to, as near as I can tell, was Glen Reynolds’ use of the term on InstaPundit on January 5, 2002. To quote:

What bloggers are more than anything, I think, is anti-idiot. That makes life tough for Noam Chomsky, Cornel West, and the Revs. Falwell, Robertson, Jackson, & Sharpton, for reasons that transcend traditional partisanship and ideology.

Reynolds comments were picked up by Little Green Footballs on the same date, where it was stated "if there were an Anti-Idiotarian Party™, I’d be a member for life."

I like the way that sounds! As I told Lileks, I may not do much credit to the Party, but I've got to be first at something, so, I proclaim myself an Anti-Idiotarian, and this here blog will continue as before, with a new motto: So many idiots, so little time.

posted by Terry at 11:18:00 AM