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Erik Kain

Erik writes about video games at Forbes and politics at Mother Jones. He's the contributor of The League though he hasn't written much here lately. He can be found occasionally composing 140 character cultural analysis on Twitter.

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7 Responses

  1. zic says:

    From the introduction to Common Sense:

    PERHAPS the sentiments contained in the following pages, are not yet sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favor; a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defence of custom. But tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason.

    From printed pamphlets to blogs, the act of challenging credibility and truth thrives.Report

  2. John Henry says:

    Completely agree. Someone like Yglesias writes 10-15 posts a week that are better (more informative, insightful and provocative) than 90-95% of the columns out there, and Douthat is much, much better in that medium also. Writing a column must be like trying to give a 10 minute speech in 3 minutes to a hostile audience; important nuance has to be left out, and whatever you say, it will be misinterpreted. When you’re blogging, you have more space and the ability to respond to criticisms, and/or update the post.Report

    • Jaybird in reply to John Henry says:

      Additionally, observers do learn (whether or not they should, of course) from the comments.

      When an author writes an essay talking about the moral necessity of… I dunno… carpooling and the comments have a question, people reading the comments will get one idea when they see the author respond with a vigorous personal attack on people who want to set the planet aflame with their nigh-empty cars. They get another when they see the author discuss the pros and cons of the two or three potential answers to the question the commenter asked.

      Comments allow so very many more messages to be sent.Report

    • Katherine in reply to John Henry says:

      I don’t know about Yglesias – most of the posts on his blog seems to be boilerplate liberalism – it’s more an activism blog than a policy one. But this blog, and James Fallows’, and Ta-Nehisi’s over at The Atlantic, definitely fit that description.Report

  3. Publius says:

    I posted on a similar topic at http://www.thefourthbranch.com/?p=128. Let me know your thoughts. While there is much to be said for the blogosphere, I think the traditional column has a lot to offer as well.Report