I was reading an excerpt of Yuval Levin’s essay from the journal The Public Interest on how the speed of technology adversely affects American politics. He has a paragraph on blogging I’d like to share here for your discussion:

Another example of the quickening of politics in the Information Age — and its mixed consequences — can be found in the first real new political institution of the Internet: the “blog.” Many blogs — or “web logs,” online diaries and sites of instant commentary and opinion — are homes for genuine political reflection. And in their interactions with one another, bloggers sometimes resemble a genuine community of citizens. However, this burgeoning institution embodies many of the Internet’s deficiencies: It often has the feel of an echo-chamber; it is placeless; and it thrives on instant responses to the latest events. Above all, blogging is immediate. This is part of its charm, for both the writer and the reader. But it is also its greatest drawback as a forum for political discourse and action. Blogging is a new outlet for political opinion, but for the most part it is unreflective opinion. Insulated from refining influences and institutions and unconnected to the direct political life of any particular place, blogging is mere instantaneous reaction. But the institutions of political life exist, to a great extent, to mediate, and hopefully to elevate, public opinion. This is why their practical effect is often to slow things down, and why the rise of unmediated institutions like blogging is a mixed blessing at best.

[ . . . ]

The framers of the Constitution certainly perceived a need for dispatch and energy in government, and the system they designed reflects that concern in some respects, particularly in its relation to foreign nations. But at the same time, they understood the danger of too much speed in politics. In its internal operations, the American system seems designed to work at a snailÂ’s pace, to avoid, as Alexander Hamilton put it, “haste, inadvertence, and a want of due deliberation.” The politics of the Information Age will break down these barriers to haste.

What do you think? Is blogging “unreflective opinion” for the most part? Does public opinion need to be “mediated”? Is blogging too instantaneous — too knee-jerk — to be of value in politics? If you accept Levin’s critique, what do you think can be done to keep blogs “homes for genuine reflection” and avoid “the Internet’s deficiencies”?