Me, I belong to the AMB: All My Bum

This is in(s)ane.

As your pal the Rake understands it, members of the NBCC were asked to participate in an "Ethics in Book Reviewing" survey.  Peep some of the responses to the litblog-centered questions from these professional book reviewers:

Should literary blogs adhere to the same rules of ethics, whatever the consensus may turn out to be on them, as newspaper book-review sections?

• I don't know what a literary blog is.
• Blogs seem to me nearly irrelevant, so unregulated are they.
• kind of an irrelevant question; so far as I can tell, no ethics apply to blogs.
• Frankly at the moment review blogs are such jokes, it doesn't really matter. It's like asking what rules apply to people's comments on Amazaon (sic)
• No, they shouldn't. Blogs are the toilet paper of reviewing -- quality varies, but none of it is worth keeping.
  

Should a literary blogger review the book of another literary blogger to whose blog she or he links?

• Who cares.
• I don't know what a literary blogger is.
• Blogs are irrelevant to me. I have only in the past few months discovered what they are.
• Who's going to read it?
• Who cares?
• Does anyone except the bloggers really care?
• it doesn't matter. bloggers don't matter.
• I have no opinion. I don't read blogs
• How do I know? At my age, I do not blog or read blogs.

(Stolen almost wholesale from the Lit Saloon)

As a general remark, let me say that the state of book reviewing is such that NBCC members have little reason to look down their noses at litbloggers.  Let's be a little careful whom you choose to insult and alienate, my clay-footed friends.

Further, most of these comments can only be made out of ignorance and/or under the assumption that those who produce litblogs are ipso facto from a different class of person than those who might belong to the NBCC and write book reviews.

Anyone with even rudimentary knowledge of the form knows, of course, that litblogs are run by erstwhile academics, scholars, editors, and, yes, NBCC members, among other inspired amateurs. And even leaving aside the often impressive qualifications of my litblogging brethren, you must have a pretty dim view of the common person to make a statement such as "so far as I can tell, no ethics apply to blogs," unless you believe that ethics are solely institutional and not personal.

This is my favorite of the selections listed above:

Blogs seem to me nearly irrelevant, so unregulated are they.

I like it for the haughty, pretentious construction almost as much for the assumption that anything unregulated is irrelevant.  But this one is the kicker:

it doesn't matter. bloggers don't matter.

Do you know who litbloggers (and litblog aficionados) are, anonymous commenter?  Dedicated and passionate readers. I understand that the general perception is that bloggers are an unruly and unwashed horde, and it's true that some are more wild and dirty than others, but for the most part it's as simple as saying that litbloggers are readers.

Therefore, you've just announced, along with other likeminded colleagues, that readers do not matter, and that, in a nutshell, explains the trouble that you find yourself in.  Or, that is, the trouble in which you find yourself.

(There are some intelligent comments to be found, it should be noted, so feel free to go fishing.)

Comments

[Daniel]

Wow. Just... wow. What a bunch of fools. Well, least soon they'll be unemployed fools.

[Pete]

And then they'll all become...wait for it...bloggers.

[David Thayer]

It's pretty clear they don't like lit bloggers although as you point out some have been plugging away as paid reviewers for quite some time, some are NBCC members, while others, like me, are eligible to join NBCC but choose to keep their distance.

[David Thayer]

It's pretty clear they don't like lit bloggers although as you point out some have been plugging away as paid reviewers for quite some time, some are NBCC members, while others, like me, are eligible to join NBCC but choose to keep their distance.

[R Ellis]

People are always threatened when someone is willing to do their job for *free*. Instant irrelevance!

[A.Franklin]

NBCC? Nuclear, Biological, Chemical Collection Center? Nevada Black Chamber of Commerce? National Building Code of Canada? New Brunswick Community College?

I'm so confused!

[Derek Catermole]

So, wait; is the complaint here that there's something wrong or unjust in the NBCC survey comments? They sound like money to me.

[Rake]

DC: Wha?

You believe that blogs are irrelevant, jokes, toilet paper, and, further, incapable of ethical conduct?

At best, I find the comments above phenomenally ignorant. Certainly some blogs are no good, but you have to be either lazy or ill-informed to assert that each literary blog is the same as the next--that is, equally worthless.

Blanket statements like these carry all the intellectual weight of, say, "Women are bad drivers," or "White people can't dance."