How convenient it is to...

How convenient it is to live in the internet age when you don't need to have any journalistic credentials to be able to reach a mass audience in seconds flat.

As an aside, how convenient it is to be able to reach a single person in seconds flat, for that matter. Last week, I was stuck in an excruciatingly boring meeting and by means of Twitter (mini-blogging, if you like) I made it known to the world that I was hungry. Within minutes, Daniel from Oleander piped up to let me know that they had 800g Fiorentinas on offer, and by means of Facebook, I booked lunch for Saturday.

It was, as you will hardly be surprised to learn, superb.

But getting back to how convenient it is to have the 'net at your fingertips for mass-marketing purposes, nowadays (I sound like a real old fogey here) all you need to do to get your point of view out to everyone is press a few buttons, without the inconvenience of having an editor wondering whether your facts are accurate or of having to stand by your printed piece.

Once your particular little bandwagon gets up its momentum, then it becomes a phenomenon that will make the papers sit up and take notice too, especially if they have their own axes to grind (that is to say, especially if they are party organs).

For instance, the recent anti-St John's museum campaign was driven very much in the internet-age style, with a sustained bombardment of information (to use the term loosely) showering down like a monsoon. With the speed with which this process happens, no-one has the time to check facts and verify allegations: If whoever says that such is so, then such is so, and there's an end to it.

One such myth that seems to have taken on a life of its own is that the foundation, which does a pretty darn good job of taking care of St John's, for all the aspersions cast in their direction, somehow kept the project so close to its heart that it was sprung on the Maltese public, bless its cotton little socks, like a bolt from the blue in the last couple of months and it was only Jeanne d'Arc's valiant efforts that rescued the cathedral from a fate worse than death.

The unfortunate thing for this thesis is that, in fact, way back in 2006 there was a full report on the proposed project but such is the power of persuasion that no one bothered to challenge the FAA on this until after the project was scotched.

It's convenient to try to maintain the status quo in spite of everything, too. Having to use your grey matter to consider something that is out of the ordinary, that might challenge your comfortable little existence and your perfectly formed illusion that you know what you like and like what you know, is a challenge and, hey, life is easier without challenges, isn't it?

It's convenient, too, to pick and choose which experts meet your approval and which bits of their reports to use, to boot: Having to draw up or read or challenge full and comprehensive technical studies is such a bore. It's so much easier to lash out with gay abandon, especially when you're answerable to no one and even more especially when you know that no one has the time to gainsay you when, for example, you say you have thousands of names on a petition but don't bother to actually hand the darn thing out.

It's really convenient to say that those experts' reports are a dog's dinner but my experts' reports are the non plus ultra, too. If you say it often enough, people will start believing you and ignore the manifest lack of logic.

But then, since when was logic ever allowed to get in the way of a good argument?

Avoiding challenges and ducking under the swinging boom of change isn't confined to any particular sphere of lifer.

It's so much easier to say: "No, you're too immature to be allowed to watch this play" than to respect people's intelligence and risk having someone criticise you for being, horror of horrors, liberal.

No, be arrogant with the foolish liberals and camouflage your hide-bound conservatism behind a façade of protecting the social fabric from harm. After all, your critics will only be these avant-garde beatniks and right-thinking members of society will admire your steadfastness.

It's just so convenient just to say no, isn't it? Much, much easier than having to respect people's capacity for thinking for themselves.

imbocca@gmail.com, www.timesofmalta.com/blogs