utter nonsense

Within the last century mass market publishing put literature into the hands of all the people and fostered the development of new ideas; however, the dark side is now rearing its ugly head with the degradation of the English language and the spread of stupidity. The desktop publishing industry boom of the 1990’s flooded the world with crap. Previously, the difficulties and expense involved in the publishing industry precluded much of the exceptionally poorly written and exceptionally stupid material from making it into circulation. Now, anyone with a computer and $2000 can be published. The number of independent magazines and newsletters is contributing to the wealth of hardcopy garbage out there. And, to top it off, any goober can create a website, call himself the directorate for research and analysis and people will be quoting his claptrap as fact in hours.

A friend is taking an advanced writing course. She does not write well, having missed a lot of stuff the first time through school. She does not understand my critiques of her work because the authors she is reading and citing write poorly or are completely nuts. Because she does not write well and had a poor primary school education, she cannot differentiate between “well written and credible” and “poorly written and bogus” sources. Unfortunately, she has no desire to actually learn how to write well. Soon she will graduate with a low grade, no new insights into the written word and begin seriously contributing to the further accumulation of nonsense into the world.