Genuine debate on the Web

"There is an appetite for genuine debate on the web, but it is often drowned out by the howling of people who seem to regard the very existence of professional critics as an outrageous affront. The subtext is this: anyone can be a critic, so anyone who has the temerity to be paid for the privilege deserves to be put in the stocks.

This is just one front in a wide-ranging battle between the blogosphere and so-called old media. In an ideal world, there should be room for both print critics and online ones, with plenty of overlap between them. Good writing is good writing, wherever it appears. But the campaign is in its early days and there are several years' worth of grievances to thrash out before a peace treaty can be agreed."

The virtual world has been seen often as something to put upside down established values, more as a revolutionary place than a place where the real world reflects.
In a few words, it was born not to be a copy of the actual world, but a "democratic place" where there are no hierarchies, where everybody is entitled to say what he thinks and in the way he likes it.
The structure of the Internet as a decentralized network has created space to voices that wouldn't have had the chance to be heard (and in certain cases, it wouldn't have been so bad, I agree).
We are beginning to be over-educated; at least everybody who is incapable of learning has taken to teaching - that is really what our enthusiasm for education has come to.
"although a firestorm of invective can be very amusing, it's only when critics and readers meet halfway that enlightening debate can happen - and surely that's the whole point of the exercise."

I think we sometimes MISS the full point.
People very often do not talk to "meet halfway", they mostly talk to read themselves.
The "arguments" are but the "accidental content" to write about.
And all "social networking" very often is just a way to "show how good I am" and see "how good you are".

That of course doesn't mean that there can be good and healthy discussions, but I am not so optimistic about the increasing number of them.