Protestant Reformation = Bloggers vs MSM??
I saw Luther when it came out on DVD last week and when I read Bill Bennett’s commentary at RCP I was struck by the similarities between the two.
In Bill Bennett’s commentary there is the following quote:
Empowered, the people are changing talk radio. Speaking as a host of a three-hour talk show, it is evident that the public, which is checking assertions of fact as they are being made, is not sitting back and merely absorbing pontification. On talk radio, the lecture is fading, and it is being replaced by the interactive national seminar, where callers inform the host and audience as much as the host is informing listeners.
This is the paragraph that brought to mind the story of Martin Luther. He felt that the Church was interpreting the Word of God for the masses, not as written, but how they felt it should be. The Church was getting rich selling indulgences, time off from Purgatory and Martin couldn’t find anyplace in Scripture that said there even was such a thing. He translated the Bible from Latin to German so the masses could read the Word of God for themselves, making their decisions from that Word, and not just the Church’s interpretation of it.
It seems to me that there is a parallel between Luther and the Church and the MSM and bloggers. The MSM tries to sell us their interpretation, expecting us to sit back and absorb their pontification. The bloggers and talk radio are providing the translation so we can make up our own minds.
Update: Welcome Polipundit readers! Thanks Lorie.
Update 2: Some commenters over at the Polipundit post that directs visitors here are positing that bloggers are equivalent to the printing press, rather than Luther. I still think that the bloggers are equivalent to Luther and the internet itself is equivalent to Gutenberg’s printing press. Luther did the translation and the printing press was what allowed the translation to be widely disseminated.
Think back to Rathergate – The attitude was “This is the truth because I/we say it’s so.” The bloggers took that “truth”, dissected it, translated it and using their printing press (the internet) broadcast their translation to everyone.
