4 ms·
I'm not seeing a very sympathetic analysis of this. This phenomenon is as old as time, with Socrate's students hanging on his every word. In my view its an ent
by mjburgess 3y ago
I'm not seeing a very sympathetic analysis of this. This phenomenon is as old as time, with Socrate's students hanging on his every word.
In my view its an entirely reasonable thing: you encounter a person who can articulate a coherent ideology, method, system (etc.) which is entirely new to you. You use that person as a means of learning this system; and when you've learnt it all, you move on.
The key thing is you arrive at a critical point where you have seen their pov and can criticise it; and that you dont end up in a cult-like following of their ideas.
This cultishness is everywhere in academia, see, eg., all the departments that are "Kantian" or "Wittigensteinian" --- people forever trapped in the work of one author. I am very suspicious of "History of"-type disciplines for this reason.
I dont see this as having to do with social media, but if at all, maybe it accelerates it. I certainly think you need much more than 6mo with any substantive person.
- barrysteve 3y agoSome people fall into careers where they have one hammer and use it forever. You can see it on youtube for channels to be setup on a sole concept and then the creator drives it home forever.
- shusaku 3y agoThe social media part exacerbates the issue because the intellectual has direct access to their listeners. In the past, if you wrote an influential book, indeed your fans might go back and comb through your back catalogue. And the basic idea of you needing to write your next great book on the next hot topic to maintain your fame is there. But social media cuts out the book writing cycle, instead you can spend five minutes on a tweet, a few days on a YouTube video, etc. The loop is much tighter, and the effect is accelerated.