I was a bit surprised at how many people linked to my last long-winded riff on Dave Winer and oddly enough my page about Winer is gradually moving up through the Google ranks — #52 on a search for “Dave Winer” and moving up with a bullet.
The problem is that Winer is so self-absorbed that it’s hard not to pick on him once in awhile. I mean, what sort of person writes this sort of stuff,
When asked for a show of hands of people who care what a blog is, three peoples’ hands shot up: David Weinberger, Doc Searls and mine. I thought, what is it that we three have in common. Politely — we’re all intellectuals. Not so polite — eggheads, professor types, NPR listeners, lefties. We spend time thinking about things that most people think aren’t worth thinking about.
What sort of person goes around pointing out that he’s an “intellectual”? (Hint: people who are intellectuals don’t. You don’t see Daniel Dennett setting up a weblog to declare to the world that he’s an intellectual).
What Dave is describing, of course, is not a group of intellectuals but rather a high school clique. You can almost see John Hughes cutting to Winer in a high school hall way explaining how nobody understands him and his friends, but they’re really the only cool kids in the 10th grade.
The truly bizarre thing is that he follows this “I’m an intellectual” stuff with a post that instantly refutes that claim,
Two years ago today I asked to hear from people who are dead. “So far no emails,” I said then. Still no emails two years later.
Okay, Dave’s got me there — he really is thinking about things that no one else is. I’m just not as confident as Dave is that this means he’s an intellectual (but your mileage may vary).