In a "better late than never" book recommendation, I recently stumbled upon an excellent and thought-provoking good read.

It's a 2007 book from Silicon Valley insider and pundit Andrew Keen called “Cult of the Amateur: How Today’s Internet is Killing Our Culture”.  It’s fascinating because much of it rings so true. 

Keen compellingly argues that the Internet is not opening a cultural renaisssance and the digital revolution will not provide people with more viable avenues to become professional writers, musicians and film-makers.  Most importantly, argues Keen, amateurism does not benefit mankind.

In reading "Cult of the Amateur" there was much to agree with,  yet parts I disagreed with.  And so it went, being torn one way and then the other. 

Keen's book is a truly great polemic that attacks the amateurs, the technologically advanced who are armed with plenty of opinions, an inflated sense of self yet no life experience and little if any formal education. 

These amateurs confuse social networking with true cohesion, democracy for merit, personal attacks for debate, opinion for fact.  You get the idea. 

Cult of the Amateur attacks Wikipedia (thank goodness – someone has to challenge this assortment of amateur-led distortion). 

But Keen’s book also goes hard on the blogging citizen journalists who I think often do hold the mainstream media to account.  I'm not quite so quick to dismiss the many brilliant thinkers whose analysis of the media is recasting how we consume information.

If the internet has you wondering about the future of our culture, our thought and our relationships – and it should – check out “Cult of the Amateur".  It will make you think.