I’ll check out that post. Here’s what bothers me. Back in the 80s, when word processors became popular, there was an explosion of people, which continues, who decided to write the Great American Novel. I can only surmise that once the drudgery of retyping pages to fix mistakes was eliminated, they were off, with no thought of whether the ms was saleable, except they assumed it was, or even any good. And many stop at nothing and spend oodles of money in their quest to be published. And here’s what I don’t understand:

Millions of people are happy to dabble in music, painting, photography — and cooking — without any concerns or conceits about turning pro. They are happy to do it, in and of itself. But for some reason, anyone with a keyboard thinks they can be a professional writer as long as they push those keys and make a lot of words. And they are bitterly disappointed to discover that’s not the case.

An excellent post, and very well written.

I was especially glad to see this put into words: “Mediocrity has become our norm, perhaps our ideal; erudition, once admired, is now derided as elite.”

If you would like to see yet another example of mediocrity (or worse) being promoted to the masses, I’m almost-ranting about it on my current post about National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo).

I was a bit fearful of opening the proverbial can of worms, but I see I’m not alone in my concern about the dumbing-down of this nation. Besides, a can of worms still isn’t as bad as that can of mushroom soup! (I’m anxious to try the noodle/tuna/mushroom bit.)

Linda

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